The Red Sox were in Texas again tonight. Texas sent rookie Alex “Chi Chi” Gonzalez to the mound, making his major league debut. Wade Miley toed the rubber for the Red Sox looking to improve on his 3.10 May ERA. Gonzalez dominated the reeling Red Sox, cruising to an 8-0 Texas victory.
Texas managed to jump on top in the bottom of the first. Delino Deshields Jr. led off with a clean single to center field. Elvis Andrus hit a hard topspin groundball to third base that Pablo Sandoval tried to backhand to start a double play. Instead, his glove came up too fast, letting the ball go down the right field line. Hanley Ramirez was unable to handle the ball cleanly in the right field corner, allowing the speedy Deshields to come all the way around to score from first base to make the score 1-0.
The Red Sox continued their futility with runners in scoring position, leaving a man at second in each of the first two innings. They were unable to take advantage of three walks by Gonzales in those innings. Miley settled down after the first, and cruised through the second and third innings.
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The Rangers took full advantage of the Red Sox ineptness on defense, blowing the game open in the fourth inning. Josh Hamilton walked with one out. After a single, Leonys Martin took advantage of Ramirez’ tentative approach to catching a ball any left fielder could have caught, to load the bases on a single. Robinson Chirinos hit a ball solidly to right field which would have scored a run, but Rusney Castillo took a terrible route to the ball, running straight toward the ball instead of retreating toward the fence and the ball went over his head, to score two and make it 3-0. Hanser Alberto hit a hard grounder to Brock Holt at short stop. Martin was going on contact and beat Holt’s poor throw to make it 4-0. Pouring more salt on the wound, Deshields dropped a squeeze bunt to score another run which pushed the Rangers advantage to 5-0.
The Rangers added another run in the fifth thanks to another poor Holt throw which allowed Adrian Beltre to reach first on the error. A walk and single followed to finish the night for Miley. Robbie Ross Jr. managed to clean up the mess somewhat but allowed a bloop single to push the score to 6-0.
David Ortiz finally got the Red Sox into the hit column with a ringing double to left centerfield to lead off the sixth inning. Naturally, he was caught off third when the next Ramirez and Sandoval couldn’t get the ball out of the infield. Mike Napoli followed with a double to send Sandoval to third base. Holt struck out to end the threat. Only the Red Sox can get two doubles in an inning and still not score.
The Rangers added two more runs off Ross in the bottom of the seventh on three hits. The only takeaway from this inning is that runners are scoring easily from first base on balls hit to left field with Hanley out there, off the Red Sox. This happened on two of three occasions tonight.
This game was over when that ball went under Sandoval’s glove in the first inning. One has to wonder if another loss follows this disaster tomorrow, more changes could be on the horizon.
Game Notes
- The Red Sox are 4-11 in games in which Ross Jr. has appeared.
- Ortiz had two hits after taking two days off.
- Dustin Pedroia extended his hitting streak to 10 games with an infield single.
- The Red Sox are a season high six games under .500, the most of the season, breaking the previous low point set three days ago.
After allowing three earned runs over his last three starts, Miley could not overcome the Red Sox shaky defense while allowing five earned runs tonight. He could not get out of the fifth inning, but by that time. the score was 5-0 and the outcome no longer in doubt.
With the Red Sox so often trailing in the middle of the game, Ross had to be used for three innings to save the rest of the bullpen. Ross allowed two runs while serving that purpose. Barnes had a scoreless eighth inning of work lowering his season ERA to 2.03. The way the Red Sox are going, mopping up could be something he will continue to do the rest of the season.
Despite working four walks to starter Gonzalez, the Red Sox could not get a hit until the sixth inning. Even then they couldn’t get him around to avoid the shutout, which happened for the third time this month. Ortiz managed two hits out of the five the team had for the day so he gets this game ball.