The Red Sox have only six wins this season. We’re not dealing with a large sample size. Still, today felt like the “easiest” win of the season. The offense jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning with a home run off the bat of Willson Contreras and never looked back. They were up 3-0 when Jordan Walker hit his seventh home run of the season to get a run for the Cardinals, but the Red Sox added four more in the fourth inning, and two more in the ninth. They didn’t need innings from Garrett Whitlock
or Aroldis Chapman in a win for only the second time this season.
Brayan Bello also had his best game of the season, throwing 6 2/3 innings while allowing two runs. It was a different game plan from the righty, who went with a sinker-heavy approach. He kept the ball down frequently, moved it from side to side, and got six outs on balls in play with the pitch. As a result of the high-sinker use, he hardly spun the ball at all. He threw nine sweepers and six curveballs. He didn’t have a feel for either pitch at the beginning of the game, but when he located them near the zone, the results were positive. He’s been through so many iterations of his breaking pitches that I’m not confident he’ll ever consistently locate them, and strikeouts will be hard to find without spin, but on his day, he can be effective. It was a great building block for Bello, who will get the Tigers in his next start. They handed the ball to Danny Coulombe and Zack Kelly in relief of Bello, who held the Cardinals to one run, giving the Red Sox a 9-3 victory.
If the Red Sox win every series for the rest of the season, they’ll win the World Series. The record still doesn’t look great at 6-8, but stacking series wins will slowly get them back over 0.500. They’ve won two in a row now and head to Minnesota to face the Twins, who don’t have their best starters lined up. Just keep winning series, mix in a sweep now and again, and you’ll look up one day with the standings much easier to stomach.
Three Studs
Willson Contreras (4-5, 3 RBI)
Contreras’ two-run home run opened the scoring. He added a single in the fourth inning for another RBI. He also played fantastic defense at first base all afternoon, when he was busy thanks to a groundball-heavy day from the pitching staff.
Trevor Story (4-5, 2 RBI)
A ninth-inning double gave the Red Sox some breathing room. When Story gets hot, he gets red hot. Hopefully, it continues into Minnesota and beyond.
Brayan Bello
See above
Three Duds
Roman Anthony (0-5)
An 0 for day for Anthony, who’s now 1 for his last 16. Just growing pains, nothing to see here.
Technology
It was a rough day for NESN and NESN360 customers. I’ll leave it at that.
My MLB App
It’s telling me the Yankees have lost five straight. That can’t be right. Right?
