Another strong start for Rodriguez
PHILADELPHIA — Andrew Benintendi’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly broke a 1-1 tie in the ninth inning, sparking the Red Sox to a 2-1 victory over the Phillies on Saturday night at Citizens Bank Park.
Brandon Workman came on to close it in the ninth, allowing a leadoff walk to Cesar Herndandez before retiring the next three batters to register the save.
In Eduardo Rodriguez’s last five starts before Saturday, he registered a 4-1 record with a 1.11 ERA in 32 1⁄ innings.
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He sat on 17 wins for the season, and more importantly, the team was 22-8 when he takes the ball.
He’s durable, having thrown five-plus innings in each of his 24 outings since the start of May.
Saturday night’s outing was much of the same for the left-hander, whom manager Alex Cora feels comfortable staying with even if he’s thrown over 100 pitches because the stuff is still there.
Indeed, the stuff was there once again for Rodriguez, but the high pitch count wasn’t.
He totaled 10 strikeouts through six innings and he needed just 80 pitches to do it.
It was the sixth doubledigit strikeout of Rodriguez’s career.
Rodriguez retired 18 of 20 batters he faced in that span, yielding just two hits. One was an infield single in the second.
The other probably should have been caught but fell in between Jackie Bradley Jr. and J.D. Martinez for a ground-rule double in the fourth. That didn’t take Rodriguez off his game, however. He struck out the next hitter, Scott Kingery, to end the inning.
Yet for as good as Rodriguez was, the Phillies had Aaron Nola on the mound who was just as strong. Nola had the Red Sox’s number during his August outing at Fenway.
He yielded just two runs and struck out seven over seven innings in a 3-2 Phillies’ win.