Yordano Ventura stifled the Red Sox offense. (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
The Red Sox fell to the Royals 6-3 last night, snapping their four game winning streak. Yordano Ventura was able to quiet the Sox’ hot bats, tossing six innings, allowing only one run and striking out six.
Matt Barnes opposed Ventura and didn’t fare as well. He got off to a rocky start, allowing two runs on three consecutive hits with two outs in the first inning but recovered nicely, tossing up zeroes in the next four innings. Alas, trouble would strike again in the 6th when he put two men on with one out. With Salvy Perez coming up to bat Carl Willis came out for a brief chat, and it seems he inexplicably told Barnes to surrender a three run home run because two pitches later that’s exactly what he did.
In reality that was just a good piece of hitting by Perez, Barnes hit his spot off of the outside corner and Perez went with the pitch.
In the bottom of the 7th Mookie pulled his hands inside of a Ryan Madson fastball for his 11th home run of the season. No small task, seeing as Madson had only surrendered four this year and his WHIP is under one.
Hanley Ramirez, who had been colder than a Dornishman north of The Wall, snapped an 0-16 by doubling in the bottom of the 8th. This was only his 11th double of the season in 418 plate appearances! That is a shockingly low number for a power hitter. For reference, Pedroia had 14 in 311 plate appearances before getting hurt.
The Red Sox made some noise in the bottom of the 9th, scoring a run to make it 6-3 and eventually loading the bases for Travis Shaw with two outs, but Travis popped out to end the game.
Notes:
-Hey, look JBJ made another great play in the outfield.
–Rick Porcello will make his triumphant return to the rotation on Wednesday.
-Although Barnes has been better than numbers indicate, I’d like to see Brian Johnson get some starts before the season ends.
-Funny anecdote I heard on the radio during Friday night’s game: Dave O’Brien said that in Cuba they show the games a couple days after they happen and they edit out any plays that involve Cuban-born players. Eric Hosmer is half-Cuban and apparently the authorities didn’t realize it until this season, so the good people of Cuba got to see years worth of Hosmer that they shouldn’t have.
Suck on that commies!