On a night where runs were hard to come by for the Boston Red Sox, David Price needed to be at the top of his game Friday night. Price was indeed that, as the Sox downed the Detroit Tigers 1-0 at Comerica Park in Detroit.
Price (11-6) went 6.1 innings, allowing no runs, four hits, one walk, with five strikeouts. He ran into his biggest trouble in the bottom of the fourth when Detroit loaded the bases with three straight singles with no outs, the first hits of the night for the Tigers. Price then got John Hicks to line out to left, James McCann struck out swinging, and Victor Martinez lined out to right to end the threat. Brock Holt look to suffer a right knee injury in the inning on a play at second base and will be evaluated. Tzu-Wei Lin replaced Holt. Steve Pearce singled in Andrew Benintendi with a one out double in the first inning for the only scoring.
Pearce and Benintendi each had two hits each to lead the offense for baseballs hottest team now 69-30 and winners of 13 of their last 14 games. Heath Hembree, Matt Barnes, and Craig Kimbrel pitched the final 2.2 innings of one hit ball with six strikeouts. Kimbrel earned his 31st save. Matthew Boyd (4-9) was the tough luck loser for Detroit who falls to 41-58. Boyd went 5.0 innings, allowing just one run, three hits, one walk, with six strikeouts. Detroit had five different players with a hit, all singles.
Boston, now 5.5 games up on the second place NY Yankees in the A.L. East, will send lefty Brian Johnson to the bump in game two of the series Saturday night at 6:10. He will be opposed by Mike Fiers for Detroit.
