Red Sox @ Orioles Game Thread/ 24th - 27th April 2023

Red Sox @ Orioles
Wednesday, 26th April 2023
1pm @ OPACY

Houck 3-0/ 4.29

Wells 0-1/ 2.70

Jarren Duran, Red Sox try to take series from O's
FLM

Boston outfielder Jarren Duran looks to continue his strong start to the season when the visiting Red Sox go for a series win against the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday.

Duran had three hits, including his first career grand slam, as the Red Sox raced out to a 7-0 lead Tuesday and held on for an 8-6 win that snapped Baltimore's seven-game winning streak.

In the nine games since being recalled from Triple-A Worcester, the 26-year-old Duran has 12 hits, including five doubles and a homer, to go with 10 RBIs and a .387 batting average. Last season, Duran hit .221 with three homers and 17 RBIs in 58 games.

"Just trying to help the team," Duran said. "That's all I've been trying to do."

The Orioles lost for just the third time in 14 games, but not before they made it interesting. After falling behind 8-1, Baltimore scored five in the ninth, four on Cedric Mullins' grand slam.

"That was huge for us to just kind of show where we are as an offense, just be able to continue to chip away in a game that seemed lost, and the next thing we know we're back in the fight and a couple hits away from tying and possibly taking the lead," Mullins said.

Right-hander Tanner Houck (3-0, 4.29 ERA) starts the rubber game for Boston. Seemingly headed for the bullpen when the Sox move away from a six-man rotation, Houck continues to make the case to start. Last time out, he allowed three runs on six hits over seven innings of a win against the Minnesota Twins last Thursday. He struck out seven and walked one.

"He had pretty good command of every pitch. He's got really nasty stuff," teammate Enrique Hernandez said. "From the first inning, something that stood out to me was his sinker against righties ... he had a really good cutter today, and that splitter was really good as well."

Baltimore counters with right-hander Tyler Wells (0-1, 2.70). Wells tossed a career-high seven scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers in his last start, on Friday. He allowed just three hits while striking out five and walking one in a 2-1 Orioles win.

Converted to a starter in 2022, Wells' innings were limited last season and he topped 80 pitches in just eight of 23 starts. He threw 95 pitches against Detroit.

"It's definitely nice this year, being able to let him go pitch," Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said. "That (process) was something we needed to do last year and had to do and should do. But this year, obviously, the leash is longer, and it's fun to watch him go out there and go as long as he can."

Boston's Kenley Jansen came on to get the final two outs Tuesday night to earn career save No. 397, moving him ahead of Craig Kimbrell for seventh place all time.

Orioles outfielder Austin Hays left the game after bruising his hand on a bunt attempt in the third inning.

"We caught a break there with the X-rays being negative, so that's great news," Hyde said after the game. "It's day-to-day. It's obviously really sore. I think we got lucky."

--Field Level Media

Red Sox
at
Orioles
Wednesday, at 1:05 PM EST
Partly Cloudy
It's expected to be 63° F with a 20% chance of precipitation and 10 MPH wind blowing out in Baltimore at 1:05 PM EST.
Hourly Forecasts: Weather.com

Alex Speier
@alexspeier
Red Sox will have RHP Chris Martin make a rehab appearance Thursday in Worcester, with hopes that he’ll be activated this weekend. James Paxton will make another start for the WooSox on Sunday.

Alex Cora finished today’s media session by expressing his condolences to the family of Celtics VP Heather Walker and the Celtics. Walker passed away on Wednesday, less than two years after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

The ups and downs of Boston's 19-game stretch
April 26th, 2023
Ian Browne

Ian Browne
@ianmbrowne
;

BALTIMORE -- As the Red Sox gathered their belongings and headed home after Wednesday’s 6-2 defeat to the Orioles, they had something that felt extremely rare ahead of them: An off-day.

That’s right, Boston doesn’t play baseball on Thursday, ending a grueling stretch of 19 games in 19 days.

There were ups and downs, but the Sox showed some grit in going 10-9 over the 19 days, and are 13-13 on the season.

“I think we did an outstanding job in 19 straight games, and now enjoy the off-day, go out, have dinner, have a drink, and be ready for Friday,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora.

Here are five takeaways as the Sox go back to Boston for a three-game series against the Guardians that starts on Friday night at Fenway.

Yoshida’s bat is starting to play
When the Red Sox left for the road, there was concern about Masataka Yoshida’s excessive ground-ball rate and lack of extra-base hits. At the time, he had a line of .189/.317/.264 with one homer and eight RBIs in 63 plate appearances.

On this road trip through Milwaukee and Baltimore, Yoshida found his groove in a big way, going 11-for-23 with a double, three homers, eight RBIs and a 1.413 OPS. Manager Alex Cora thinks the turnaround was Yoshida getting back to his opposite-field approach, which allowed him to see the ball for longer. Once Yoshida started seeing it again, he started belting the baseball to all fields. Yoshida’s grand slam in Milwaukee on Sunday -- his second homer of the inning -- was the emphatic sign that he was out of his early-season slump.

Two key weapons emerging out of bullpen
Josh Winckowski and Kutter Crawford were both brought up as starting pitchers. However, the Sox are using them both as middle relievers and they are helping the team big time, particularly given the inability of the starting rotation to consistently go deep into games.

“Without those two guys, I don’t even know where we would be today,” said Cora.

Winckowski has gone 18 1/3 innings over nine outings, notching a 1.47 ERA while holding the opposition to a .519 OPS. Crawford has been tremendous in his first three outings since moving to the bullpen, allowing one run over 11 1/3 innings.

Middle of diamond depth being put to test
When the season started, the Red Sox had a red-hot Adam Duvall playing center field with Kiké Hernández at short and Christian Arroyo at second. Duvall broke his left wrist on April 9, forcing Cora to audible. After tinkering with some things, Cora felt he found something when he made Yu Chang the shortstop while rotating Hernández between second base and center field.

Chang ripped homers in a stretch of eight games. And he was playing strong defense at short. But Chang suffered a fracture of his left hamate bone on Monday and will be out at least six weeks.

Now, it is back to the drawing board for Cora, who will get Adalberto Mondesi and Trevor Story back at some point. For now, Hernández is back at short with Arroyo and No. 17 prospect Enmanuel Valdez sharing time at second. One early issue is Valdez’s defense. He will have to become more sure-handed for that to become a steady platoon.

Duran taking it to another level
Jarren Duran’s first two seasons in the Major Leagues were mostly filled with disappointment. But since getting his most recent call-up on April 17, Duran is playing like someone who has no designs of going back to the Minor Leagues again.

He is smashing the ball on offense (14-for-35, seven runs, five doubles, one homer and 10 RBIs), while showing marked improvement in center field, where he made a sensational catch on Monday. Duran’s speed is significant on a team that doesn’t have much.

Rotation still a work in progress
The area the Red Sox most need to improve on is the starting rotation. Through 26 games, Boston starters are 8-12 with a 6.41 ERA, logging just 125 innings in the process for an average of less than five innings per start. The quickest fix for the rotation would be to fix Chris Sale. Except for one vintage start on April 18 against the Twins, Sale has looked out of sorts.


Corey Kluber was strong in his fifth start after getting off to an 0-4 start. Is that a sign he is about to trend in the right direction? Young arms Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock are both in the process of trying to prove that they can be solid starters in the Major Leagues.

After 19 games in 19 days the Red Sox are still somewhat of a mystery


By Rob Bradford
WEEI 93.7
11 hours ago

BALTIMORE - The Red Sox' 6-2 loss to the Orioles Wednesday was sort of a microcosm of where we have landed with this team after 26 games. Not good. Not terrible. Really hard to define.

In this case, you had Tanner Houck losing for the first time of the season, but pitching well enough (5 IP, 4 R) that Alex Cora didn't exactly come off as someone overly concerned with the 12th loss by a Sox starting pitcher in 20 decisions.

"I thought he was good," the Red Sox manager said of Houck. "Threw a lot of strikes. In that inning, they got that first hit, and then after that, they got some pitches in the zone and put the ball in play and had that rally, but I think overall, it was five good innings. He threw a lot of strikes, quality stuff. Some days are gonna be like that. The bottom part of the lineup did an outstanding job getting on base and scoring and put us in a bad spot."
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OK. A good Orioles team with a lineup of tough outs just took two of three against the Red Sox, dropping Cora's club to 13-13. Glass half full? Glass half empty? Right now it seems simply like a nondescript container full of something or other.

The undeniable positive is that through these 19 games in 19 days, the Red Sox have emerged still in the kind of conversation that they desperately hoped for. They weathered what could be been debilitating storms while avoiding the kind of fate the 7-18 White Sox currently are living with.

The 19 games has seen the team and players emerge on the tail-end in far better lots in life than they had begun the stretch. Masa Yoshida, for instance, finished the run with an .886 OPS, joining Alex Verdugo, Reese McGuire, Rafael Devers and Jarren Duran as Sox players completing the almost three weeks with OPS' of .800 or better.

And another huge step in a positive direction the Red Sox probably weren't expecting has come from Duran, who has helped pick up the slack for the injured Adam Duvall while allowing Kiké Hernandez to move into the infield.

After two more hits in the series finale, Duran is now hitting .400 (14-for-35) with a 1.054 OPS, seven runs and 10 RBI. He has also added a dimension the Red Sox were starved for in actual speed on the basepaths.

Still, the Red Sox remain living life with a very real lack of definition.

Through these 19 games, the starting pitchers haven't exactly eased the fears born from the first few series, totaling a combined 5.89 ERA and .812 OPS against. The roller coaster offered by Chris Sale, Corey Kluber, Garrett Whitlock and, now, Houck haven't offered the kind of optimism that was always part of the 2023 blueprint.

There have been glimpses, but not as many will be needed.

And then there is the case of actually winning series against American League East teams. It took one day for the reverse the I-told-you-so's thanks to the O's, with the Red Sox now 29-57 against East teams with a run-differential of negative-131.

Maybe ... Possibly ... Perhaps.

The resilience of this group through more-the-than-the-usual April injury-related obstacles is something that has offered some benefit of the doubt heading into the last series of the month. But with the likes of another piece of A.L. East iron - Toronto - looming Monday, it's getting to be that time we start figuring out exactly what this team is all about.

Now you have one day to decipher exactly what the Red Sox have left you with to this point. Good luck with that.

"The fight, to be honest with you," said Cora when asked what impression his team has left on him to this point. "We’ve been down by seven early in the game and it doesn't matter. They just keep grinding, which is great. We’re not giving at-bats away. We keep putting pressure on the opposition. Even when there was a game that we were out of it, they got the closer up. That was earlier in the season. That's why you do, just like they did yesterday. We won the game, but Kenley (Jansen) had to pitch. That takes a toll for today. That's the mindset that they have. They don't get caught up in the ups and downs of this thing. We lost four to Tampa and we move on. That’s part of it. We lost three to Pittsburgh, and we move on. It’s still early to really tell you who we are, but like I always say, we’ve got a good baseball team but just have to be better."