Craig Breslow performed admirably in his second career start. (AP Photo/Ron Schwane)
Craig Breslow made his second career start on Saturday and performed admirably, giving up only five hits and walking no one over five and one-third innings. Unfortunately two of those hits were solo home runs, one by Carlos Santana, and one by Ryan Raburn. Still, a solid effort by the little brainiac.
| Pitchers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | ERA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breslow (L, 0-4) | 5.1 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4.15 |
Under normal circumstances, the Sox would be in great position to pick up a W. But a Corey Kluber start isn’t “normal circumstances.” While his numbers aren’t what they were last year when he won the AL Cy Young Award, Kluber has still been very good. His FIP is just 2.97, indicating that’s he’s been much better than his 3.49 ERA and 9-16 record would lead you to believe. Kluber will go from leading the league in wins to leading the league in losses without a huge drop off in production. It’s becoming harder and harder to defend the relevancy of that stat.
Anyway, Kluber was dominant, shutting out the Red Sox over 8 innings, allowing only three hits and walking two while striking out nine. Somewhat surprisingly, two of the Sox’ three hits came off the bat of Sandy Leon.
Rick Porcello takes the mound this afternoon to close out the season. Hopefully he and the offense can give us something to cheer for heading into what should be an exciting offseason.
Notes:
-As I mentioned, Lefty and I are playing each other in our fantasy league’s championship. He has Kluber, so it was doubly painful to watch him mow down the Red Sox hitters like he was riding a John Deere. Kluber’s outing was good for 60.2 points. If that wasn’t bad enough, that jerk (Lefty) also had Max Scherzer, who if you haven’t heard, threw a 17-strikeout no-hitter. That’s good for 100.4 points. On top of all of that, my two aces Sonny Gray and David Price each missed their last scheduled start.
-Thus concludes my 81st game recap and my season covering Red Sox games. I’ll probably write an in-depth post on my experiences sometime after the season ends, but for now thanks for reading Mom, Dad, Lish, Paul and Jared’s family! I know we had other assorted family and friends read at various points of the season but you guys were our rocks.