Clay Buchholz pitched his second start of the season, giving up five runs in five innings of work.
On a night where a “500” necklace honoring David Ortiz was handed out to the first 15,000 fans in attendance, the Red Sox were unable to stop the unbeaten Orioles. Boston was coming off a disappointing home opener where David Price and Craig Kimbrel gave up eight runs, just to have another discouraging pitching performance from Clay Buchholz.
Ortiz who is now hitting .346, got the offense going in the first inning by smashing a two-run home run and gave the Red Sox an early lead. Buchholz entered the fourth inning with a two-run lead, but gave up a Pesky’s Pole home run to J.J. Hardy that tied the game. It looked like the righthander was going to pitch his first win of the season when he threw a 1-2-3 inning in the fifth; probably his best inning this season thanks to a good combination of pitches.
The Red Sox regained the lead in the bottom half of the fifth thanks to a single from Jackie Bradley Jr. and a double from Mookie Betts. With Betts at third, Orioles starter Mike Wright threw a wild pitch that allowed the outfielder to score extending the lead to 4-2.
Chris Davis led off the top half of the sixth with a single that was followed by a home run from Mark Trumbo, another sneaky Pesky Foul two-run shot. Buchholz lost control of the situation, walking Matt Wieters and giving up a double to Pedro Alvarez leaving the game without recording a single out in the sixth. Noe Ramirez replaced the righthander and stopped the bleeding, allowing only one unearned run.
The Orioles added four runs in the seventh thanks to Hardy’s second home run of the game and a double from Trumbo. Betts tried to start a rally in the ninth by hitting an RBI-double, but the rest of the team was unable to respond after Buchholz left the game.
Game Notes:
- Red Sox starters now have a 7.32 ERA, the worst in the AL.
- After Blake Swihart struggled again with his defense, manager John Farrell said that there’s nothing imminent regarding activating Christian Vazquez.
- The Orioles now have the first 7-0 start in team history.
- Hanley Ramirez has a .379 batting average, with at least one hit in six of seven games this season.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Red Sox have a 3-4 record when their rotation has the worst ERA in the American League. We still need to see something good from Buchholz and even though Robbie Ross Jr. took one for the team and pitched two innings, he still gave up three runs. The rotation will end up tiring the bullpen if they don’t get it together.
The Red Sox scored enough runs to stop Wright from pitching a quality start and if it wasn’t for Buchholz’ debacle, they would have ended the Orioles winning streak. Everyone had at least one hit but Travis Shaw, Swihart and Chris Young.