The Red Sox absolutely pounded on the Astros and completed a 4-game sweep at Fenway Park. I don't think you can read too much into this because the Astros are just terrible. They're essentially a AAA team and a prime example of abuse of the revenue sharing system by the smaller market teams. Their combined payroll this season is just over $26 million, by comparison the Red Sox are currently at $154.4 million. Of that $26 million the highest paid player by the Astros this season is Wandy Rodriguez at $5 million, but there's just one little problem: Wandy Rodriguez plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The highest paid player who is actually on the roster is their starting pitcher Bud Norris at $3 million. On the Red Sox that would put him just below our backup catcher David Ross. The entire team is on short money one year deals and they are the lowest payroll team in baseball by a wide margin. This isn't a major league baseball team, this is a scam. To their credit the Red Sox took care of business and swept them out of Fenway winning every game by at least a 4 run margin. This gives the Red Sox the best record in baseball by a 2 game margin of the Rangers. Thanks Astros, welcome to the American League, come back anytime!
GAME 2: Red Sox 7, Astros 3
Ryan Dempster matched up against our old friend Erik Bedard. You remember Erik Bedard? We picked him up from Seattle in late 2011 and he made 8 starts in the later part of the 2011 season including the epic collapse in September. Bedard had a bad year with the Pirates last season and he wound up on the Island of Misfit Ballplayers that is the 2013 Houston Astros. The Red Sox bats knocked him around and chased him from the game early and the Astros were never able to make up the difference.
Ryan Dempster had another solid start going 6 innings, giving up 4 hits, 2 earned runs, 3 walks and recording 10 strikeouts on 104 pitches. It was nice to see Dempster finally get his first win of the season after taking some hard luck losses. The impressive thing about Dempster continues to be his high strikeout totals. He's currently third in the American League in strikeouts with 43. Astros 3rd Baseman Mike Dominguez had two leadoff doubles that eventually got converted into runs, but otherwise Dempster had a solid game. Despite their laughable payroll, the Astros are middle of the pack in terms of run production this season (15th in MLB) so I give Dempster some credit for that.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: B
Clayton Mortensen came into the game with a 6-2 lead in the 7th. Mortensen immediately hit Mike Dominguez and then allowed a bunt single and Dominguez got to 3rd on an error. So immediately there was a two on nobody out jam. Mortensen got the strikeout and then got relieved by Tazawa. Definitely a shaky outing from Mortensen. Tazawa would give up the run on a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 3. Tazawa allowed a single to bring the tying run to the plate, but Tazawa got the strikeout to end the threat. Tazawa got himself into a dangerous spot there, but he managed to work around it and keep the 3 run lead intact. Koji Uehara came on in the 8th. Uehara has had some struggles lately having given up runs in his two previous outings incuding a blown save against the Royals. He gave up a one out double, but kept the run from scoring. The Red Sox added a run in the bottom of the 8th and Alex Wilson was brought in to finish the game with a 4 run lead in a non-save situation. Wilson pitched a 1-2-3 ninth with a strikeout to wrap up the game.
BULLPEN GRADE: B
Although the Astros batting is mediocre, their pitching is just awful. They have a team ERA of 5.51, which is the worst in the major league. The Red Sox did eat up the Astros pitching as they chased Erik Bedard from the game after just 3 innings. They got to Bedard early and often. Ellsbury hit a single to lead off the game and scored on a Pedroia double in the 1st. David Ross hit a solo home run in the 2nd. Pedroia hit a double in the 3rd and then scored on a Mike Napoli double. Middlebrooks and Ross hit back to back homers to start the 4th and that was it for Erik Bedard. David Ortiz hit a solo home run in the 5th off of Paul Clemens. The Red Sox loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the 8th, but Jacoby Ellsbury lined into a double play that didn't score the run. Jonny Gomes managed a single to get another insurance run to create the final tally 7-3. Daniel Nava was the only Red Sox player to go hitless in this game. David Ross had a monster night going 4 for 4 with two solo home runs. A solid game against a bad pitching staff.
HITTING GRADE: B+
GAME 3: Red Sox 8, Astros 4
I could have envisioned the Red Sox losing this game. Felix Doubront has been a little shaky at times. Instead Astros pitcher Brad Peacock had the meltdown as the Red Sox rolled to another win.
Doubront pitched 6.2 innings, gave up 4 hits, 3 runs and 4 walks and struck out 8 in 103 pitches. This was Doubront's 3rd win in 4 starts, but he has yet to record a quality start. It's still a nice thing to be able to get solid starts like this out of your fourth starter in the rotation. Doubront had a tough time in the first inning giving up a leadoff single. A hit batter and a walk loaded the bases with nobody out. A walk and a sacrifice fly would put 2 quick runs on the board for Houston. He gave up another walk to reload the bases with one out. That's 3 walks, a hit batter and 2 runs with one out in the top of the first at that point. Doubront got a pop out that couldn't score the run from third and a strikeout to limit the damage to 2 runs. After that Doubront cruised giving up a walk in the 2nd but getting two strikeouts. In the 3rd he struck out the side in impressive fashion. He didn't hit any real trouble again until the 7th where a leadoff single scored from a passed ball, stealing 3rd base and scoring on a ground out. Doubront allowed a 2 out infield single and Farrell decided it was time to bring in Tazawa. Doubront worked around a really tough jam he created for himself in the 1st inning and then cruised along nicely for the rest of the game and came up just short of a quality start.
STARTING PITCHING: B
Tazawa took over with a 2 run lead in the 7th with a man on 1st and 2 outs. He advanced the runner on a balk and then gave up a walk, but got the strikeout to end the inning. The Red Sox added 3 insurance runs in the bottom of the 7th and Bard came in for the 8th with a robust 5 run lead. With this substantial lead Bard decided it would be best to walk the first two batters he faced on just 9 pitches. At this point Farrell concluded that this might not be Bard's night and brought in Alex Wilson. Wilson gave up a single to the first batter he saw to score a run to create the final score of 8-4. It was nice to see some resiliency out of the rookie again with two on, nobody out and a run scored in the inning. He got the next two outs and would have had the third if not for an error by Stephen Drew. He didn't let the error phase him and struck out Rick Ankiel to end the inning. Andrew Miller came on in the 9th and had a 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts.
BULLPEN GRADE: B-
The Red Sox chased another Astros starter from the game early retiring Brad Peacock with one out in the 4th. They threatened to score in the first but couldn't convert, but they hung four runs on him in the 2nd. Mike Carp lead off the 2nd with a ground out, Salty worked a walk, Middlebrooks hit a double, Stephen Drew walked to load them up. Ellsbury hit a single to score Salty and Middlebrooks. Pedroia walked to reload the bases and David Ortiz double put two more runs across. Napoli would draw another walk, but a Mike Carp strike out would end the inning. Daniel Nava hit a leadoff double to start the 4th and would advance on the ground out from Pedroia. With Peacock's pitch count climbing the decision was made to pull him for Travis Blackley. David Ortiz hit the sacrifice fly to score Nava from third. The Red Sox would add more runs off of Hector Ambriz in the 7th. Jonny Gomes lead off the inning with a fly out. Salty hit a double and Middlebrooks drew a walk to set the table for Stephen Drew. Drew hit a single to score Salty from second. Daniel Nava singled to score Middlebrooks from second and Pedroia singled to score Drew from third. Mike Carp and Jonny Gomes combined to go 0 for 5, but otherwise everybody in the lineup managed to contribute.
HITTING GRADE: B+
GAME 4: Red Sox 6, Astros 1
John Lackey made his return to the Red Sox rotation matched up against the mighty Bud Norris. As you know from earlier Norris is the highest paid player on the Astros, so things looked grim with their "ace" on the mound.
I didn't really know what to expect from John Lackey. I still don't to be honest. He had Tommy John Surgery, missed a season, came back for one start and left with a minor bicep injury and missed a few starts. I would like to think that he'll be better after the surgery and the bicep thing was just a hiccup and he could be closer to the pitcher he was with the Angels. He had a solid outing in this game, but still had some bumps along the road. He gave up back to back 2 out walks and a single in the first to put the Astros on the board. He gave up a leadoff single to start the 2nd but then he cruised for quite a while in this game retiring 13 Astros batters in a row. He got into some trouble in the 6th after giving up 3 singles to load the bases with one out, but he managed to work around them and kept the Astros to just one run. He pitched 6 innings, gave up 4 hits, 1 run and 2 walks while striking out 4 on 81 pitches. The pitch count wasn't that high, but given that he was shaky in the 6th and his recent injury problems it was probably best not to push the envelope. This was a really encouraging outing from Lackey and if this is close to what we can expect from him going forward it bodes well for the Red Sox.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: B+
Clayton Mortensen came in for the 7th inning with a comfortable 5-1 lead to maintain. Mortensen made an error to allow a runner to get on base, but worked around it without an issue. Koji Uehara came in for the 8th after the Sox added a run in the bottom of the 7th to make it a 5 run game. Uehara allowed a 1 run single that advanced to second on a wild pitch, but again he didn't allow any runs. Uehara hasn't been quite as dominant as he was to start off the year, but he's still putting in a lot of quality innings of work. Despite the 5 run lead the de facto closer Andrew Bailey was brought in for the 9th. This makes sense given that the Red Sox have an off day on Monday and he had not pitched since Wednesday against Oakland. Bailey allowed a 1 out ground rule double, but didn't allow any runs and wrapped up the game. A very solid, if not dominating, performance for the Red Sox bullpen.
BULLPEN GRADE: A-
The Sox continued to put up big runs against the Astros. Bud Norris was hit on early and often, but only 3 of the 5 runs that scored against him were earned runs and he managed to go 6 full innings. Ellsbury was the only Red Sox player to go without a hit in this game. David Ortiz continues to hit well going 2 for 4 with an RBI double and an RBI single. In the 8 games Ortiz has played this season the Red Sox are 7-1, he has an 8 game hitting streak and he's batting over .500. It's a small sample size and he'll definitely cool off and hit a slump at some point, but for now he's really killing it out there. Stephen Drew's 2 RBI triple was clutch and he seems to be hitting better lately. That said I'm still waiting for Drew's first multi-hit game in a Red Sox uniform. Daniel Nava continues to perform well going 2 for 3 with a double and scoring 3 runs.
HITTING GRADE: B+
