The Boston Red Sox failed to complete the four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers last night losing 7-3. That’s the bad news. The sort of good news is that Josh Beckett had a much better outing against the Tigers than he did in early April when he gave up five home runs in 4.2 innings. Last night, he pitched seven mediocre innings, allowing four runs on a season high 10 hits, walked one and struck out just one.
Normally this Sox offense could support an outing like Josh had last night but it just didn’t happen. Bats were pretty quiet. With the exception of Jarrod Saltalamacchia. He continues to smash the ball and went 2 for 4 with a home run and an RBI single. In his last 16 games, he’s compiled some pretty impressive numbers for a guy who was not even close to batting his weight in mid-April. He’s had six home runs, 14 RBI and four doubles while batting .373 in that stretch.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite make up for his two throwing errors on stolen base attempts — both of which led to runs in the fifth and ninth innings. The run scored on the error in the fifth was ultimately the winning run for the Tigers. Kind of like he’s being punished for the walk-off win last weekend. Which is just stupid. But I digress…
The bullpen wasn’t much better. Franklin Morales gave up a home run in the seventh and Rich Hill gave up two more runs in the ninth to put the Tigers up 7-3 and make a bottom of the ninth comeback just that much more difficult.
The Red Sox finished May 15-14 — just a little better than the 11-11 April. This has to be a good sign that they’re moving in the right direction. Bring on June! Even Scott Podsednik thinks so, as he told reporters after the game.
“We lost tonight, but we’re playing good baseball,” said outfielder Scott Podsednik. “I think there’s something to be taken from this homestand. I think we’ve created some momentum. I think all the new faces are getting comfortable with one another, so hopefully we can build on the positives that happened here at home, get out on the road and play good baseball to win a series in Toronto.”
Click here for the uninspiring box score, courtesy of the Sox. Tonight, they begin a three game series in Toronto with Clay Buccholz (4-2, 7.19) taking on Henderson Alvarez (3-4, 3.56) who has a career 0.75 ERA against the Sox in 12 innings. Here’s to hoping that changes tonight! First pitch is at 7:07pm.
