The Boston Red Sox built an early 5-0 lead on Saturday evening, cruising to a 10-3 win over the Oakland Athletics at Fenway Park. Boston has now won four in a row and seven of their last eight games leading up to the All-Star break.
Boston (47-43) jumped on Oakland starter Austin Pruitt right away in the bottom of the first inning. Jarren Duran, who has been white hot with the bat lately, led off with a single and stole second base. After Masataka Yoshida grounded out to move Duran to third, Justin Turner singled in a run. With two outs, Alex Verdugo scorched a line drive two-run homerun inside the pesky pole in rightfield to make it 3-0. Verdugo hit the first homerun for his team since last Sunday, July 2 against Toronto. Duran came up again in the second and drilled a two-run homer to left center into the monster seats, as the Red Sox would cruise to victory. James Paxton had another strong outing on the mound. The American League Pitcher of the Month for June worked 6.0 innings allowing two runs. Duran knocked in another run later in the game with a double, and Connor Wong, Rafael Devers, Yoshida, and Christian Arroyo also had run scoring hits.
The final line for Paxton (5-1) was 6.0 innings allowing two runs on six hits with one walk and three strikeouts. He threw 93 pitches (66 for strikes). Duran and Arroyo had three hits each, with Duran driving in three. Yoshida, Verdugo, and Triston Casas had two hits a piece as Boston pounded out a total of 15 hits. Turner extended his RBI streak with at least one run knocked in to eight straight games. Duran now had 13 hits in his last 21 at bats (six games, .621 average), with nine of those for extra bases that includes six doubles, two triples, a homerun, and four RBI. Aledmys Diaz, JJ Bleday, and Cody Thomas each had two hits for Oakland. Pruitt (1-6) gave up four runs on four hits in 1.2 innings and suffered the loss for the Athletics who have the worse record in the league at 25-66. The Red Sox play their final game before the break on Sunday afternoon at 1:35 p.m. as they look to sweep Oakland. Righty Taylor Scott (0-0, 7.71 ERA) will be the opener on the mound in a bullpen game for Boston. The A’s will start lefthander JP Sears (1-6, 4.09). With a win on Sunday the Sox will be at worst two games out of the third wildcard playoff spot in the AL, and could be as close as just a single game.
Down on the farm at Hadlock Field in Portland, the Portland Sea Dogs continued their great start to the second half of their season with a 4-2 victory over the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (NY Mets) in Double A Eastern League action.
Binghamton had taken a 2-0 lead on a pair of sacrifice RBI flyouts by Agustin Ruiz and Rowdy Jordan in the first and fifth innings respectively. In the last of the fifth, Portland would take the lead for good. Tyler McDonough led off and reached on a Rumble Ponies error. Elih Marrero followed with a walk after McDonough had stole second base. A wild pitch moved the runners into scoring position with no outs, and Phillip Sikes grounded out to score McDonough. Corey Rosier then had an infield single to the pitcher Luis Moreno that scored Marrero to make it 2-2, and Rosier went to second on a throwing error by Moreno. Chase Meidroth was next up and provided the eventual game winner when he doubled to rightfield to push the Sea Dogs into the lead 3-2. Alex Binelas finished the scoring with a leadoff solo homerun to right in the sixth inning.
Rosier and Meidroth both had two hits in the win. Grant Gambrell (3-2) earned the pitching victory going 8.0 innings allowing two runs on nine hits with one walk and seven strikeouts. Ryan Zeferjahn picked up his first save of the season. Matt O’Neill led Binghamton in the defeat with three hits. Moreno (6-3) was the tough luck loser giving up three runs (only one earned) on four hits with three walks and eight strikeouts in 5.0 innings of work. The Rumble Ponies are now 3-7 so far in the second half, 38-41 overall. The Sea Dogs improve to 49-31 for the year, 9-2 in the second half and in first place in the Northern Division. Portland has taken four of the first five games of this six game series with the finale set for 1 p.m. on Sunday at Hadlock Field.
Recaps by Chris Lessner/Boston Red Sox highlights courtesy of the MLB website
