The thump is back
Bats keep booming as Sox roll on
The Red Sox are a first-place team again, and they’re starting to play like it, too.
After spending the first part of this week proving they could beat a really good team, they spent last night proving they could beat up on a really bad one.
With their rejuvenated offense finally awakened from a late July slumber, the Red Sox scored a bunch of runs early and never ran into serious trouble in a 9-5 win against the White Sox.
After winning two straight against the Indians, the Red Sox have now won three in a row for the first time since July 4. They moved into first place on Tuesday and now have a two-game lead over the Yankees, who lost to Cleveland last night, for the first time in a week and a half.
If memory serves, this might be what momentum feels like.
“I think everyone in this clubhouse feels like we haven’t played our best baseball, and our best baseball is ahead of us,” winning pitcher Rick Porcello said. “As frustrating as it can be from time to time struggling — drop games and not pitch well or not hit well, whatever it is — you look up in the standings and we’re right there, in first place. We need to understand how good we are.”
Their offense looked awfully good out of the gate in this one.
Eduardo Nunez continued his red-hot arrival with two hits and a stolen base. Rookie Rafael Devers continued his eye-popping debut with a two-run home run, his third in eight games. Mookie Betts hit a two-run homer, his team-leading 18th of the season.
Add two RBI from Hanley Ramirez, one on an infield single, of all things, and the Red Sox had seven runs in the first two innings, more than they’d scored in 19 of their previous 21 games.
Andrew Benintendi went 3-for3 on the anniversary of his first big league hit, and Mitch Moreland had a pair of doubles for his third straight multi-hit game, potential breakout performances for the slumping left fielder and first baseman.
And perhaps this is an ongoing breakout for the entire team. Their three highest-scoring games since the All-Star break have all come in the past five games.
“Just kind of stringing hits together,” Benintendi said. “And Nuney has been playing really well. And Devers obviously. They’ve kind of, (revived) the offense a little bit. It only takes one guy to do that. But when you’ve got two guys like that, just kind of getting things going, it’s really nice.”
The next three games offer a golden opportunity to keep rolling against a junior varsity White Sox team that’s almost unrecognizable. In the past three weeks, the White Sox traded away not only their ace Jose Quintana, but third baseman Todd Frazier, left fielder Melky Cabrera, closer David Robertson and three other key pieces of their bullpen. That’s more than a quarter of the big league roster plucked away in less than a month.
Last night’s lineup included just one player with double digit home runs and four players with a batting average below .210. Their starting pitcher, Miguel Gonzalez, was their only scheduled starter for this four-game series with an ERA below 5.00.
And even that’s not true anymore. Gonzalez was pummeled through the shortest healthy start of his career, pulled after recording just five outs while allowing seven earned runs. His ERA ballooned to 5.15.
Such an offensive outburst might have been predictable given the team the Red Sox were facing, but it was unexpected given the pitcher they had on the mound.
Porcello has averaged just 3.52 runs of support this season, the sixth-lowest total of any starting pitcher in the majors, and the least run support for any starting pitcher on a winning team.
Perhaps Porcello (5-14) simply didn’t know what to do with so many runs on the board, because even against such a weakened White Sox lineup, he allowed five runs in the second and third innings — three of them on the 26th home run he allowed this season, a career high — but he got back on track for his first win since June 23.
Five Red Sox relievers combined to pitch the final 32⁄ innings without a base runner. The end result, with the Red Sox outhitting the White Sox 15-7, felt far more lopsided than a four-run game. It felt like a Red Sox team finding its groove again.
“I think it’s more about the two additions, certainly with Eduardo and Raffy,” manager John Farrell said. “Those are two key contributors in all this. But then you’re also looking at guys that are starting to turn the corner. . . . It’s been a combination of a number of things. I can’t say it’s one particular item that is the common thread.”