Lefty and Righty are on their way to Cooperstown right now to see Pedro Martinez’s Baseball Hall of Fame induction, so this blog is gonna be lacking in production value. Also, I’m exhausted. Also, the Red Sox lost, and it wasn’t really ever close. They’ve now lost 9 of their last 10.
Steven Wright gave up a solo home run in the first inning to former Red Sox great Yoenis Cespedes. After a scoreless response from Boston, J.D. Martinez drew a four-pitch walk from Wright to start the second inning and Blake Swihart’s problems catching knuckleballs started.
1. With 1 out, J.D. Martinez advances to 2nd on passed ball on ball 1 to Alex Avila.
2. Avila strikes out swinging, but it gets by Swihart. Avila gets to 1st easily and Martinez advances to 3rd. James McCann grounds out to third (still with 1 out) and Martinez scores. 2-0, Tigers.
In the bottom half of the second, David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez tried to get the Sox back into it with a double and a single, respectively, but Ortiz was thrown out at home for the 1st out of the inning. Unfortunately, it goes down as another questionable decision by Brian Butterfield.
After 1-2-3 innings for both teams, the Tigers got back-to-back singles to start the 4th. Of course, Blake chose this moment to let another one get by him.
3. Passed ball. The runners advance to 2nd and 3rd. A ground rule double to the center field triangle by Nick Castellanos scores both Victor and J.D. Martinez (no relation, I think).
In the bottom half of the 4th, Boston responded by loading the bases with 2 outs by way of two walks and a single. But Mike Napoli grounded out, and the inning ended harmlessly.
4. After leading off the 5th with a double, Jose Iglesias takes third on another Swihart passed ball. Fortunately, Noe Ramirez comes in for Wright and gets out of the inning without allowing a run.
Blake did his best to make up for his struggles behind the plate by tripling in the bottom of the 5th and scoring on a Mookie Betts ground out. But it was canceled out by Nick Castellanos’ solo home run to lead off the 6th. 5-1, Tigers.
The rest of the game pretty much passed without incident. Hey, maybe we’ll win the series. We’ll take some pictures of Pedro for you.