Red Sox Grades

This was a bad outing for Jon Lester. He allowed a ton of baserunners and was very fortunate not to get burned by it any worse than 3 runs. Luckily the bats and the bullpen picked up the slack and delivered Lester his 4th win of the season. The Red Sox are still undefeated when Lester starts going 5-0. The A's are a very strong offensive team as we learned Tuesday night, so hopefully this says more about their hitting prowess than it does about Lester's production dropping off. Lester's next start will be against a last place Toronto team that's middle of the pack in terms of run production. Last time Lester matched up against Toronto he threw 7 shut out innings, if he struggles there I might start to get a little worried.

This entire game was a struggle for Jon Lester. He gave up hits, he gave up walks and his pitch count soared. He got bailed out by two double plays and was lucky to get out of this game only giving up 3 runs on a 3 run home run by Chris Young in the 4th and in position to pick up the win. When he left Tazawa bailed him out of a 2 out bases loaded jam. When all was said and done he pitched 5.2 innings, gave up 6 hits, 6 walks, 3 earned runs and got 5 strikeouts. By no means an impressive start from the ace, but the game was still in their grasp so he gets some credit for that.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: C

Junichi Tazawa came into a tough situation to finish out the 6th inning with 3 runners on base and 2 outs and came through by getting Coco Crisp to fly out. Tazawa seemed to be cruising in the 7th as well until Jed Lowrie hit a 2 out double and he was brought in by a follow up single. After this Miller was brought in to close out the 7th. Miller collected the strikeout to end the inning. Koji Uehara came out for the 8th with a 6-4 lead and immediately gave up a solo home run to Chris Young to cut the lead to 1 run. Young had a monster game against Red Sox pitching going 2 for 3 with a walk and two home runs. Uehara managed to settle down after this and got the next 3 batters in order with two strikeouts. Uehara has definitely cooled off from his early season form giving up a solo home run in each of his last two appearances. Bailey came on to close in the 9th and was really impressive striking out the side while holding on to a slim 1 run lead.
BULLPEN GRADE: C

The Red Sox offense was pretty quiet for most of the day, but managed to get some serious damage done in the 4th and 5th innings to provide the necessary runs to win this game. In the 4th Ortiz and Napoli hit back to back doubles to get on the board. Jonny Gomes walked and Stephen Drew hit a two out triple to score two more. It was Drew's only hit of the night, but it was a big one. The Red Sox kept the pressure on Brett Anderson in the 5th as Ellsbury lead off the inning with a single and then stole second. Victorino brought Ellsbury in with a double. Pedroia and Ortiz had back to back singles to bring in Victorino. At this point Bob Melvin had seen enough of Anderson and pulled him for Chris Resop. Resop didn't fare much better immediately hitting Napoli to load the bases. Daniel Nava got a single to bring in Dustin Pedroia from third and keep the bases loaded, still with no outs in the inning. Resop managed to get Will Middlebrooks out before being pulled for Jerry Blevins, the third A's pitcher of the inning with bases loaded and one out. Blevins got the final two outs to end the threat and keep the game in striking distance for the A's at 6 to 3. The top and middle of the order did a lot of the heavy lifting this game with Pedroia, Ortiz, Napoli and Victorino all coming in with doubles, contributing runs and RBIs. Ortiz has been a real shot in the arm for this lineup, but he's still looking for that power stroke as we wait for his first home run of the year. Daniel Nava had another good game going 2 for 2 with an RBI. Middlebrooks continues to slump going 0 for 4 in the game and 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position. David Ross also went 0 for 4 in this game and 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position. The catcher spot has been a real problem this year for the Red Sox. Salty is inconsistent at the plate and terrible defensively. Ross is a better defensive catcher, but I don't think we can realistically expect to see much production out of him at the plate.
Hitting Grade: B+

A's @ Red Sox Preview

The Red Sox will try to rebound after a terrible game yesterday. Their goal should be made easier by the fact that Lester is on the hill. He has not allowed a homer and struck out 23 in 26 innings in four starts, and is currently sporting a fantastic 3-0 record and a 1.76 ERA. This is what we have been expecting from Lester for years, and the good news here is that he is usually a slow starter.

Going against Lester is Brett Anderson. He has a 1-3 record with a 5.95 ERA, but don't be fooled. He really only had one bad start (11 runs), in the other two starts he only let up 2. Anderson is a quality pitcher, who could really give the Red Sox problems tonight. He is 5-2 with a 2.70 ERA against the Red Sox in his career.

I think Lester out duels Anderson, but it will be a close game.

Red Sox win 3-2
Player of the Game: Lester/Ortiz
Game starts at 4:05pm

Red Sox lineup:

Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
Shane Victorino, RF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B
David Ortiz, DH
Mike Napoli, 1B
Jonny Gomes, LF
Will Middlebrooks, 3B
Stephen Drew, SS
David Ross, C

Red Sox Grades

This game was just a complete failure for the Red Sox. Right after getting arguably their best win of the season they endured their worst loss of the season. The umpires mercifully called off the game in the 7th because of the rain, but this game was over long before the end of the 7th. Alfredo Aceves had a complete meltdown. In his major league debut, Steven Wright didn't help matters on mop up duty once Aceves was pulled from the game. To top it all off the Red Sox managed only 3 hits in 7 innings on Bartolo Colon. I'm astounded Bartolo Colon is still pitching in the majors. I remember he made some starts for the Red Sox back in 2008 when he was considered washed up. Apparently, Colon is still bouncing around the league and he's currently 3-0 this season in 4 starts. Hopefully the Red Sox can move past this with Jon Lester on the mound tonight.

We all knew that Alfredo Aceves wasn't supposed to be a major league starter, but he had chugged along making some spot starts with John Lackey injured and finally we got burned by him. He had a complete meltdown in the 3rd inning that carried over to the 4th when they were hoping Aceves could at least eat some innings and preserve the bullpen. The third inning looked like a lowlight reel that should have had the Benny Hill music going in the background.

All totaled the third inning had 3 walks, 3 hits, 6 runs, 2 throwing errors and 2 balks. This was profoundly bad. They sent Aceves back out in the 4th in the hopes of preserving the bullpen, but he quickly gave up a 1 out, two-run home run at which point he was mercifully pulled from the game. There's a lot of buzz going around that they're going to release Aceves today and I wouldn't complain if they did.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: F

Steven Wright was brought in on mop up duty and didn't fare much better than Aceves in his major league debut. He induced a double play to get out of the 4th, but gave up a bunch of walks and hits in the 5th to give up another 4 runs. He walked two more batters to start the 6th and got hit up for another run on a double to create the final tally of 13-0. At least he managed to get out of a 2nd and 3rd with nobody out jam and didn't give up any more runs in the 7th. After the 7th the umpires did everybody a favor and called this game.
BULLPEN GRADE: F

As bad as the pitching was, you won't win many ball games if you don't score any runs and that's exactly what the Red Sox did. Pedroia, Salty and Gomes all managed a single and Ellsbury worked a walk. That accounts for all 4 Red Sox baserunners this game. Pathetic.
HITTING GRADE: F

A's @ Red Sox Preview

Maybe it's time to start giving Ben Cherington some credit. You don't hear much about him, and everyone is sucking off Ferrell (a lot of it deserved), but Cherington got a lot of shit this offseason and his pickups are looking pretty damn good. He didn't trade Buchholz or Lester, and he signed Napoli, Victorino, and Dempster (all playing really well). Just a thought, and it's early, but give the guy some credit.

As for the game tonight, I am pretty split. Aceves is on the mound and he might be my least favorite Red Sox (prob behind only Lackey). He hasn't been back over his last 2 starts letting up 5 runs over 10 innings, but I just don't like/trust him. He feels like the old Red Sox last year, with a bad attitude, I don't know maybe it's just me, but I can't stand him.

Going against him is Bartolo Colon. This guy has more lives than Jason Vorhees, and yet always finds a way to get the job done. So far this year he is 2-0 with a 3.32 ERA, but he hasn't beat the Red Sox since 2005. You can't really blame him he is 0-2 with a 2.57 ERA in four games against them, so it's not like he has pitched poorly.

The only reason I am picking the Red Sox tonight is because I think the Red Sox lineup can put up more runs than the A's. I know that sounds dumb, but what I mean is that I think Colon is the better pitcher in this game, but I like the Red Sox lineup a lot more than the A's.

Red Sox win 8-7
Player of the Game: Napoli
Game starts at 6:35pm

Red Sox Grades: Red Sox 9, A's 6

The A's are arguably the best team the Red Sox have faced so far this season. They were off to a comparable start to the Red Sox and won the AL West last season. A.J. Griffin went 7-1 last season in 15 starts and was 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA. This was one of those "Who's the top dog in the AL?" sort of games. The Red Sox rocked Griffin for 9 runs with a 3-run shot from Middlebrooks and a grand slam from Napoli. They literally doubled Griffin's ERA to 4.50 overnight. They finally were able to deliver a knockout blow and capitalize on the A's mistakes. Great teams capitalize on mistakes, shut the door and when one part of the team isn't doing so great another part steps up to compensate. The Red Sox have been reliant on their pitching to get by for the most part this year, but when the pitching was mediocre in this game the bats picked up the slack. It's also always nice to force an opposing bullpen to eat 4 innings in the first game of a series as it may limit their options in the remaining 2 games. A very encouraging win after dropping two games in that doubleheader to the Royals.

This was Doubront's best start of the season thus far. He went deeper into this game than his two previous starts and kept the run total low. This is more impressive considering that the A's lead the AL in runs scored this season. If he had wrapped up the 7th inning he would have had a quality start, but his pitch count was up to 113 when they pulled him from the game. It's nice to be getting this kind of production out of the back of your starting rotation.
STARTING PITCHING GRADE: B+

Doubront handed off the 7th inning to Clayton Mortensen with two outs and nobody on base. Mortensen wrapped up the 7th without an issue but hit some trouble in the 8th. A walk, a hit batter and back to back doubles cut the Red Sox lead to 3 in hurry. Alex Wilson came in with Josh Reddick on 2nd and 1 out. Wilson walked a batter and was pulled for Tazawa. It was scary to see the tying run come to the plate in a game where the Red Sox scored 9 runs, but Tazawa got the next two batters to end the inning. Andrew Bailey came on for the 9th and allowed a leadoff walk but got the next three batters to end the game and pick up his fourth save. Outside of Mortensen's mini-meltdown and Alex Wilson's one batter the bullpen wrapped up this game reasonably efficiently.
BULLPEN GRADE: C

I mentioned earlier that A.J. Griffin is typically a solid pitcher, but the Red Sox nailed him hard in two innings. Ortiz and Napoli went back to back with doubles to get on the board in the 2nd inning. In the fourth the Red Sox gave themselves some breathing room with a 3-run shot from Will Middlebrooks. The 5th is when they really broke this game open. Shane Victorino lead things off with a single. Pedroia hit what was most likely going to be a double play ball, but Andy Parrino bobbled the catch and dropped the ball and everybody was safe. David Ortiz worked a walk to load the bases and Mike Napoli hit the grand slam to make it 8-3. Daniel Nava hit into an out, but another error had him safe at first. At this point absolutely nothing was going right for Griffin and they pulled him from the game. Another run scored on a double from Salty. The double from Salty was the last hit the Red Sox would have in this game. The Red Sox would reload the bases with walks to Victorino and Ellsbury, but no more runs would score. Just about everybody in the lineup managed to contribute something this game, but Mike Napoli was an absolute beast going 2 for 4 with 5 RBIs. The only Red Sox player to go hitless this game was Dustin Pedroia and even he managed to reach on error and score a run. the 3 for 11 with runners in scoring position and 8 men left on base is still concerning, but the big homers from Napoli and Middlebrooks really take the sting out of that.
HITTING GRADE: A+

Athletics Acquire Jed Lowrie

The A's are the new owners of shortstop Jed Lowrie and pitcher Fernando Rodriguez, while the Astros get powerful first baseman Chris Carter and two prospects, pitcher Brad Peacock and catcher Max Stassi.

I don't get the big deal about Jed Lowrie, I don't get why people get tricked by him all the time. Lowrie is good for like maybe 2 months and then doesn't do anything or is injured for the rest of the year. It's not like Cris Carter, Max Stassi or Brad Peacock are great prospects, but I think it's a lot for a guy who is surely set to be a journeymen SS in the MLB. Maybe I just don't like Lowrie because I got fooled every year when he was on the Red Sox, but I wouldn't give up anything for him.