Just a very slow night offensively for the Red Sox as they only managed to score 2 runs. Ellsbury went 1 for 5 from the leadoff spot. Shane Victorino had a good game with two singles and an outfield assist to bail Aceves out of a first inning double when Manny Machado got greedy and tried to stretch it to a triple. Victorino's arm has been a pleasant surprise this season. Dustin Pedroia went 1 for 4 with an RBI single. Mike Napoli also had a good game going 2 for 4 with two singles and an RBI. Will Middlebrooks was a black hole in the lineup going 0 for 4 and failing to reach base. Daniel Nava had a 1 for 4 night. Salty had a 0 for 4 night with three strikeouts. Salty seems to be either very good or very bad on a given night and never just mediocre. Stephen Drew collected a single for his first hit in a Red Sox uniform. Drew also worked the only two walks given up by Orioles pitching in this game. Jackie Bradley Jr. went 0 for 2 before being pinch hit for by Jonny Gomes in the 7th. Gomes didn't fare any better also going 0 for 2. I think it will be easy to send Bradley back down when David Ortiz gets back. He's had some bright spots like that nice catch he made in the 1st inning of this game, but his hitting is nowhere near what we were seeing in spring training. (.120 BA/ .313 OBP/ .160 SLG). You're going to need more than two runs to win most ballgames and you should be able to put up more runs on a guy like Chris Tillman (Career 4.80 ERA, Gave up 5 ER in 3 2/3 IP in his last start). It's funny that after last night's performance where all 5 hits were extra base hits, tonight all 8 hits were singles.
BATTING GRADE: D
Like BMack pointed out in his preview. Aceves is a wild card. Sometimes he's an ace and sometimes he's a deuce. This wasn't a bad outing for Aceves going 5 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 4 K. It's along the lines of what I would expect from Doubront, Lackey or Dempster had they gotten the start. He was the beneficiary of a nice outfield assist from Shane Victorino and a great catch by Jackie Bradley Jr. to get out of the first inning without surrendering a run. I'll certainly take Aceves' performance given that he was making a spot start.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: C+
Clayton Mortensen came on in the 6th and pitched a 1-2-3 6th inning. He came back out in the 7th and quickly recorded the first two outs before giving up a single to Manny Machado. Andrew Miller came in and walked Nick Markakis. Miller was pulled for Koji Uehara. Adam Jones hit a double off of Uehara to score Machado from second and making Clayton Mortensen the hard luck loser. Uehara gave the intentional walk to Chris Davis before getting Matt Weiters to fly out to end the inning. The stat sheet places the blame on Mortensen, but it was Andrew Miller who advanced the runner and Uehara who gave up the hit that scored the run. It was a group failure that gave the Orioles the tie-breaking run. Tazawa allowed a single and the runner advanced on a wild pitch, but he kept them off the scoreboard in his one inning of work. Alex Wilson was called up from Pawtucket when John Lackey was placed on the DL to take Alfredo Aceves' spot in the bullpen and made his major league debut in the 9th of a tight 1-run game. He gave up a leadoff walk to Manny Machado, but managed to induce the double play to get Machado and Markakis and struck out Adam Jones to wrap up his one inning of work. Not bad for his major league debut in a tough spot. All in all the bullpen had to eat 4 innings and only gave up one run. Not a bad performance, but unfortunately that one run made all the difference.
BULLPEN GRADE: B-
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