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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 13, 2023 16:49:39 GMT -5
Red Sox @ Cubs Friday, 14th July 2023 8pm @ Wrigley Field
Bello 6-5/ 3.04
Hendricks 3-3/ 3.04
Friday, July 14, 2023 at 8:05pm EDT Written by Michael Briggs
Is Boston a contender or pretender? The Red Sox rode a hot streak into the break, winning five straight games and eight of their last ten overall. Despite being five games over .500, they're still last in the AL East.
Boston averages 4.96 runs (7th) and hits .263 (4th) with a .760 OPS (6th). It's hit 94 home runs (22nd) and stolen 61 bases (18th) this season. The Red Sox pitching staff has compiled a 4.33 ERA (17th) and a 1.30 WHIP (18th) with 27 quality starts.
Bello will take the hill for the visitors in game one of the three-game series. The second-year pro beat the Rangers in his last start, holding them to two runs in seven innings. He has surrendered two or less runs in his last five outings and hasn't allowed more than three runs since his first start of the season.
Can Chicago mount a second-half comeback? The Cubs are five games under .500 and seven games out of first place in the NL Central following a topsy-turvy first half. Can they make a playoff push starting Friday?
Chicago scores 4.61 runs per game (12th) and hits .246 (18th) with a .721 OPS (18th). It's hit 96 long balls (21st) and stolen 67 bases (14th) in 2023. The Cubs' pitching staff has posted a 4.02 ERA (12th) and a 1.26 WHIP (15th) with 40 quality starts.
Hendricks will start for the home team on Friday at Wrigley. The tenth-year veteran sports a 32:10 K:BB ratio in 2023. He has pitched well since rejoining the club in late May, holding all but one of his opponents to three or fewer runs. The Dartmouth product wasn't as sharp in his last outing, though, giving up ten hits and four runs in a no-decision versus the Yankees.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 13, 2023 16:52:33 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe1h #RedSox - #Cubs pitching matchups:
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 13, 2023 16:58:27 GMT -5
What to look for from Red Sox in second half 3:58 PM ADT Ian Browne
Ian Browne @ianmbrowne
Will the real 2023 Red Sox please stand up?
Manager Alex Cora’s team has alternated between hot and cold, and its latest stretch of solid baseball has it at 48-43 coming out of the All-Star break. Too often, the Red Sox have followed a streak like that with a tough one that brings them back to .500 or even a game or two below.
If the Sox are going to avoid missing the playoffs for the fourth time in the past five seasons, they need to start being consistent.
“I mean, we're playing good baseball [lately],” Cora said. “You know, I think offensively, there's a lot of guys doing a lot of good things now. For a month and a half, we didn't hit with men in scoring position. But the line was moving. The guys are driving them in now and it's a good feeling, but we’ve got work to do. We’re still last in the American League East.”
Not by much, though. Boston trails fourth-place New York by just a game and third-place Toronto by two games. The Sox are also just two games behind for the third Wild Card spot.
One key will be health. The Sox currently have three starters on the injured list -- Chris Sale, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock. The sooner the club gets one or two of those pitchers back, the better. Using an opener twice every five or so games simply isn’t sustainable.
Trevor Story should also be back by early August, and he adds offense, defense and speed.
Here is a primer to get you ready for the final 71 games of the season, starting with Friday night’s game at Wrigley Field.
What we learned in the first half: Yoshida’s skill set plays in MLB
There were people outside the Red Sox organization who questioned if Masataka Yoshida’s skill set would play in MLB when the Red Sox signed him to a five-year, $90-million contract in December.
Those questions have been answered.
Yoshida was one of the best hitters on the Red Sox in the first half, and one of the most pure hitters in the game. He closed the half with seven consecutive multihit games.
Yoshida has a keen eye and doesn’t strike out much (.382 OBP, 27 walks, 36 strikeouts). The one thing Cora has realized is that he needs to make sure Yoshida gets enough rest as he adapts to the more rigorous playing schedule in MLB.
Likely Trade Deadline strategy: Balancing act
The club’s play for the rest of July will have a lot to do with how chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom approaches the Trade Deadline. Whether they are in buy or sell mode, don’t be surprised if the Sox offload a position player to alleviate the logjam so that center fielder Jarren Duran -- the team’s most improved player by a wide margin -- can play every day.
The one sure thing if the Sox stay in the race is that Bloom will try to add starting pitching to a rotation that has been decimated by injuries. If they fall out of it, the Sox have a lot of veteran players on short-term deals who might interest other teams, including Adam Duvall, James Paxton and Justin Turner.
Key player: Trevor Story
There is much anticipation for the return of Story, who had an internal bracing procedure on his right elbow in January and is expected to be ready to play for Boston in August.
Story is going back to his original position of shortstop and his arm strength appears to be much improved from what it was before surgery. He also gives the Red Sox another impact hitter from the right side of the plate, which has been a big need all season.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 13, 2023 17:52:32 GMT -5
What is Bello Day? It’s when Red Sox fans can count on a good start from their star righthander By Julian McWilliams Globe Staff,Updated July 13, 2023, 2:52 p.m.
They call it Bello Day. It’s a term that has entered the lexicon in the last two months.
Through the first half of the Red Sox’ season, Brayan Bello navigated turbulence and dominated his opponents. In doing so, he earned the fans’ trust. They know you can almost always etch in a quality start, a win.
Student of the game
On this day, a Saturday morning in Chicago, Bello reminds you he’s 24. His youth and innocent nature shine through. It’s a day after he steamrolled through the White Sox lineup in a 5-4 win. Bello went 6⅔ innings, striking out five and allowing just one run on six hits and a walk.
The pitcher pulls out his phone inside the visitors’ clubhouse at Guaranteed Rate Field. He’s seated across from game-planning coordinator and catching coach Jason Varitek, who is detailing the daily plan of attack along with Connor Wong.
Bello places the phone on a table and scoots his chair in. Off to the side is his breakfast. Some cereal and fruit. He perfectly placed his two plates at his center. He puts the phone off to the side, resting it on a napkin dispenser. Arms outstretched, device held in place by his long and slender fingers, Bello did what only seemed fitting: He turned on his favorite cartoon anime, One Piece.
It was a fascinating moment to consider.
On one side, Varitek and Wong comb through notebooks, spreadsheets, and metrics embedded in a binder. On the other side, there’s Bello like a kid on a Saturday morning, eating cereal, glued to toons.
“I like to watch anime more than movies right now,” said Bello with a smile.
But don’t be misconstrued. This is all a part of Bello’s process. He’s a huge game-planner, too, a shrewd one who has the ability to retain information quickly, and apply it to the game even quicker.
Just ask the Rangers’ Jason Jung. In Bello’s most recent start prior to the break against Texas, one of the best lineups in baseball, he allowed just two runs over seven innings. But it didn’t look like that would be the result early on. Bello had given up hard contact in the first inning and Jung scalded a ball to center field that was swallowed up at the warning track. It left Jung’s bat at 104.1 miles per hour, traveling 410 feet.
But there was a trend: All the hard contact came on Bello’s four-seam fastball. The pitcher immediately made an adjustment, challenging the Rangers with his sinker-changeup mix, two of his best pitches.
The next time Jung came to the plate, in the fourth inning, Bello got rid of him on three pitches: two inside sinkers for swinging strikes, and then changeup that Jung chased below the zone.
“I just tried to listen to the advice,” said Bello. “I analyze it and if it works for me, I take and implement it right away. If it doesn’t work, I just put it aside. That’s been something that I’ve done throughout my life. Every piece of advice I can take, I‘ll take it and then implement it if it works.”
Varitek sees the work in action.
“He’s a unique individual,” he said. “He reminds me a lot of [Dustin Pedroia] in his aptitude.
Varitek said Bello is “still in growing stages and continuing to get better, but his aptitude and his in-game adjustments have been really good.”
But in his first full season in the big leagues, Bello has been mentioned in the same sentence with some of the all-time greats.
In 14 starts, Bello has a 3.04 ERA, keeping opponents on the ground at a 55.8 percent clip, which is ranked fourth in the majors (minimum 80 innings). He’s gone five consecutive starts of more than six innings while allowing two or fewer runs. He is the first Red Sox pitcher to do so prior to turning 25 since Roger Clemens in 1986. Bello is 3-1 in that five-game span with a 1.82 ERA.
“We couldn’t have asked for more from him,” chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said. “You see him growing up after every outing. His stuff is really good. We know he’s nasty. But it’s the adjustments that he makes when not everything’s clicking that have been the most impressive.”
Bello has drawn comparisons to fellow Dominican pitcher Pedro Martinez. But ask Bello who else he admires, and longtime reliever Fernando Rodney comes up.
Bello and Rodney are both from Samaná, a town on the Samaná Peninsula, roughly three hours from the capital of Santo Domingo. As a kid, Bello watched Rodney come back to the island as a big leaguer and still immerse himself in his roots. Seeing that made the idea of becoming a big leaguer palpable.
“I remember being that little kid watching Fernando,” Bello said. “I wanted to be like him.”
Doing what he loves
Within Bello exists a fiery nature, one that can sometimes get the best of him.
He glared at Braves superstar Ronald Acuña as he rounded the bases in their May 10 matchup at Truist Park. Bello held the Braves scoreless until the sixth inning, when Acuña dropped a solo blast that traveled 470 feet. Acuña showboated, stared at the ball, and ran the bases slowly. Bello seethed.
The next batter, Matt Olson, saw a first-pitch fastball that he had to dodge. At the end of the game, Bello smiled and said the pitch to Olson was just a mistake. When asked about Acuña, Bello shrugged his shoulders, saying he’s just like anyone else.
Within Bello exists the joy of pitching. He’ll start Friday’s series opener against the Cubs and didn’t have much of an All-Star break. Instead, he was at the baseball academy in the Dominican so he could stay sharp.
“That’s the mind-set of somebody that wants to be great,” manager Alex Cora said.
Within Bello exists passion. When the Red Sox sent him down after just two starts, his eyes reddened with tears that never quite spilled over. The roster at the time, Cora said, forced them into the decision. And Bello didn’t have a spring training, sidelined with right forearm tightness.
Still, he didn’t take the news well.
“I feel everything that I had to learn in the minor leagues I already did,” he said at Camden Yards in April after learning he had been demoted. “I think that the rest of my development comes here in the big leagues. But this is baseball. We need to adapt.”
Adapting has landed Bello here, adjacent to James Paxton as the leaders of the Red Sox rotation as they enter the second half.
Friday is Bello Day. It represents hope and prophecy. The Red Sox haven’t developed a true valuable starter since the days of Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester. So much has been placed on Bello’s young shoulders.
Bello placed his hands on his chin one early morning at Fenway recently, considering the potential of having a day that is his, much like those days when Chris Sale took the mound. The energy is different. The game glimmers a bit more.
“I feel grateful for fans or whoever calls me Bello Day,” he finally said. “It’s a privilege, right?”
It certainly is.
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Post by scrappyunderdog on Jul 13, 2023 20:26:54 GMT -5
This is not going to be an easy series. If we cn win 2 out of 3, we should running out of there like a thief.
There seems to be conflicting matchups, with CBS having Steele as the game 3 SP.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 3:00:00 GMT -5
Starter Brayan Bello aims to stay hot as Red Sox meet Cubs FLM
Taking advantage of a starting pitching staff ravaged by injuries, Boston Red Sox right-hander Brayan Bello is quickly starting to establish himself as an ace.
Bello has been rolling since late April and will look to continue dominating opposing lineups when the Red Sox open a three-game series against the host Chicago Cubs on Friday night to begin the second half of the season.
After seeing left-hander Chris Sale hit the 60-day injured list due to a stress reaction in his shoulder blade, the Red Sox suddenly found themselves in more danger when right-handers Garrett Whitlock (elbow) and Tanner Houck (facial fracture) both landed on the 15-day IL.
But Bello (6-5, 3.04 ERA) has come to the rescue.
Over his last 12 starts, the 24-year-old has gone 6-4 with a 2.35 ERA. In addition to allowing no more than three earned runs in each of those 12 outings, Bello has worked at least five innings on 11 occasions during that stretch.
In his most recent start, Bello held the Texas Rangers' high-octane offense at bay on July 5, surrendering two runs on eight hits in seven innings. He didn't issue a walk while striking out three.
"The sinker is my best pitch and it always gets me out of trouble, and (July 5) was no exception," Bello said through a translator. "(July 5) was a really good day for me, everything was working well, the changeup and sinker, and I was glad to be able to get quick outs after those first couple innings."
Bello has never faced the Cubs.
Right-hander Kyle Hendricks (3-3, 3.04) will oppose Bello and try to bounce back from a rough outing against the New York Yankees on Sunday.
Hendricks was tagged for four runs on 10 hits in 5 2/3 innings, but he escaped with a no-decision after Chicago scored six unanswered runs en route to a 7-4 win.
"That's a really nice team win, something I think we needed going into the break," Cubs manager David Ross said. "These guys have fought really hard. The way we've come back here lately has been really impressive."
Chicago has won four of its last six games after going 1-7 over its previous eight. The Cubs have received a boost from right fielder Seiya Suzuki, who is 9-for-22 (.409) with a home run, two RBIs and three runs in his last six games.
Suzuki would be the hottest hitter heading into Friday's matchup had it not been for Japanese countryman and Boston left fielder Masataka Yoshida, who is on a historic run.
Yoshida has logged seven consecutive multi-hit games, becoming the first rookie in Red Sox franchise history to accomplish the feat since Johnny Pesky did so in 1942. He is batting .517 (15-for-29) with two homers, five RBIs and seven runs during his streak.
If Hendricks wants to contain Yoshida and the rest of Boston's lineup, he will need to replicate his only previous performance against the Red Sox. On April 30, 2017, Hendricks limited Boston to two runs on three hits across six innings while walking three and striking out six.
The Red Sox and Cubs last met in July 2022, when Chicago took two games of a three-game set at home. Prior to that, the clubs hadn't faced each other since 2017.
--Field Level Media
Red Sox at Cubs Friday, at 8:05 PM EST Rainy It's expected to be 74° F with a 53% chance of rain and 10 MPH wind blowing out in Chicago at 8:05 PM EST. Hourly Forecasts: Weather.com
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 9:16:15 GMT -5
Dan Shaughnessy @dan_Shaughnessy · 1h Bastille day. Sox fired John McNamara on this day in 1988, then ripped off 12 straight wins, 19 of 20 under Joe Morgan.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 9:48:59 GMT -5
Game 92: Red Sox at Cubs lineups and notes By Andrew Mahoney Globe Staff,Updated July 14, 2023, 24 minutes ago
It’s Bello Day! As the Red Sox return from the All-Star break, they will send their impressive young righty, Brayan Bello, to the mound when they open a three-game series against the Cubs at Wrigley Friday night.
Over his last 12 starts, the 24-year-old has gone 6-4 with a 2.35 ERA while not allowing more than three earned runs, going at least five innings all but once during that stretch.
The Sox entered the break on a five-game winning streak, having won eight of nine to improve to five games above .500. The Cubs have won four of six and sit five games below .500.
After this weekend’s three-game series with the Cubs, the Sox will head to Oakland for a three-game series with the Athletics before returning to Fenway a week from today to face the Mets. Lineups
RED SOX (48-43): 1. Jarren Duran (L) LF 2. Masataka Yoshida (L) DH 3. Justin Turner (R) 2B 4. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 5. Alex Verdugo (L) RF 6. Adam Duvall (R) CF 7. Triston Casas (L) 1B 8. Connor Wong (R) C 9. Yu Chang (R) SS
Pitching: RHP Brayan Bello (6-5, 3.04 ERA)
CUBS (42-47):
1. Mike Tauchman (L) DH 2. Nico Hoerner (R) SS 3. Ian Happ (S) LF 4. Seiya Suzuki (R) RF 5. Cody Bellinger (L) CF 6. Christopher Morel (R) 2B 7. Jared Young (L) 1B 8. Miles Mastrobuoni (L) 3B 9. Tucker Barnhart (L) C
Pitching: RHP Kyle Hendricks (3-3, 3.04)
Time: 8:05 p.m.
TV, radio: NESN, WEEI-FM 93.7
Red Sox vs. Hendricks: Jorge Alfaro 4-12, Christian Arroyo 0-3, Adam Duvall 5-18, Kiké Hernández 2-6, Justin Turner 4-14, Alex Verdugo 1-3
Cubs vs. Bello: Trey Mancini 0-1
Stat of the day: Christian Arroyo has 15 extra base hits in his last 30 games after recording three in his first 22 games.
Notes: Masataka Yoshida has recorded multiple hits in seven consecutive games, the longest streak in MLB this year (.517 AVG, 15-for-29). The rookie is tied with the Blue Jays’ Bo Bichette for first in the AL with 34 multi-hit games. ... Chicago has won four of its last six games after going 1-7 over its previous eight. … Rightfielder Seiya Suzuki is 9-for-22 (.409) with a home run, two RBIs, and three runs in his last six games. … In his only appearance against the Sox, Hendricks allowed two runs on three hits across six innings while walking three and striking out six on April 30, 2017.
Song of the Day: Alice In Chains - Man in the Box
Alice In Chains - Man in the Box
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 14:37:59 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe55m Woo Sox come out of their break with a rotation of Kyle Barraclough, Dinelson Lamet and Shane Drohan. At this point, that group is presumably where the Red Sox would get a starter when needed. Whitlock could return from the IL as soon as Tuesday.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 14:41:40 GMT -5
Dan Shaughnessy @dan_Shaughnessy2h Fenway park 2023. No errors allowed. Ever. Everything must be scored a hit. No exceptions.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 15:32:39 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe29m Tonight will be Turner's first start at second base since Sept. 9, 2015.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 17:11:28 GMT -5
Ian Browne @ianmbrowne4m Chris Sale will throw his first bullpen session on Tuesday, marking his first time off a mound since the night he got injured on June 1
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 17:13:19 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe18m Garrett Whitlock has not started throwing yet, so he will not be back next week. Bullpen games Monday and Tuesday
With the scheduled days off, Sox can use Bello, Paxton and Crawford in nine of the next 12 games. But by the end of the month they'll need at least one more actual starter.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 17:14:06 GMT -5
Rob Bradford @bradfo27m Cora said Justin Turner will probably play second once a week; Sale to throw bullpen Tuesday; Pablo Reyes playing CF with Worcester tonight
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Jul 14, 2023 19:39:07 GMT -5
Pete Abraham @peteabe34m Good evening from Wrigley Field. A few notes: * Kyle Hendricks is starting back-to-back games for the Cubs. * Sox are 11-18 in interleague games. * Sox have scored 54 runs in their last 9 games and have a 3.22 ERA. * Brayan Bello is 4-2, 2.21 in his last six starts.
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