A Pair Of Mookie Betts Homers Puts Red Sox Back In Win Column
Whether or not this win becomes the turning point for the 2015 Red Sox remains to be seen, but it sure as hell felt nice to only score two runs and still win a baseball game.
For four weeks, we’ve been waiting for one of these Red Sox starters to step up and establish themselves as the number one guy, and it appears that Rick Porcello is finally doing that. And rightfully so, as the Red Sox ponied up $82.5 million over the next four seasons to keep him in Boston after 2015. Beyond that, the Red Sox offense has seemingly taken a break from scoring eight runs a night. With Hanley Ramirez out of action for an amount of time that has yet to be determined, the Red Sox needed a big start out of Porcello on Tuesday night, and they got it.
After Tuesday’s seven shutout inning performance against the Tampa Bay Rays, Porcello has only allowed one run over his last 14 innings, including an ongoing streak of 12 consecutive scoreless innings. The Red Sox have desperately needed a starter they can depend on, and Porcello seems to be their man, as they’re 4-1 the last five times that the 26-year-old has taken the mound.
While Porcello had one of his best outings of the year, the real star on Tuesday night was Mookie Betts, who broke up Drew Smyly’s no-hitter by leading off the bottom of the sixth inning with his third homer of the season. With the way Porcello was throwing, and thanks to one shutout inning apiece from Alexi Ogando in the eighth and Koji Uehara in the ninth, the one run would’ve held up. But that didn’t stop Betts from adding his fourth homer of the season in the bottom of the eighth for good measure.
Betts became the youngest Red Sox player to have a multi-home run game since Jim Rice did it in his rookie season back in 1975. Rice, of course, was on hand for both of Betts’ blasts, because the 1975 American League Champion Red Sox were honored before the game as part of their 40-year anniversary celebration — hence the sick throwback jerseys that the Red Sox wore on Tuesday night. Oh, and for the crowd that was calling for Betts to be dropped down in the lineup, or even down to Pawtucket, he has an extra-base hit in each of his last four games, and his last five hits have all been extra-base hits.
Fasten your seat belts, folks. It appears that this 2015 Red Sox team is going to fuck with us for the next five — hopefully six — months, making us lose our minds, trying to figure out if they suck or if they’re a playoff contender.
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