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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 5, 2022 16:57:18 GMT -5
Trevor Story booed after 4 Ks vs. Shohei Ohtani; Boston Red Sox strike out 11 times vs. two-way star in shutout loss to Angels Published: May. 05, 2022, 4:32 p.m.
By Christopher Smith | csmith@masslive.com
BOSTON — Trevor Story heard light boos after striking out in his third at-bat against Shohei Ohtani with a runner at second base and one out in the fifth inning.
Those boos grew much louder when he struck out for the fourth time against Ohtani to end the seventh.
Ohtani dominated, striking out 11 over 7 scoreless innings. The Angels won 8-0 over the Red Sox here at Fenway Park on Thursday.
The two-way star threw 81% strikes and recorded 29 swings-and-misses against Red Sox hitters. Nine of those swings-and-misses came against Story who is batting .210 with a .293 on-base percentage, .296 slugging percentage and .589 OPS.
Angels first baseman Jared Walsh broke a 0-0 tie in the seventh. He wrapped a 344-foot two-run home run around Pesky’s Pole. Walsh connected on an 85.1 mph slider from Tanner Houck.
Los Angeles added five more runs in the eighth inning against Houck.
Hill throws 5 scoreless innings
Red Sox starter Rich Hill allowed just one hit over 5 scoreless innings. He walked one and struck out six.
The lefty has pitched well for the Red Sox so far this season. He has a 2.86 ERA (22 innings, seven runs), 1.09 WHIP and .213 batting average against in five starts.
Red Sox waste scoring opportunities
The Red Sox had their best opportunity to take the lead in the fifth. Jackie Bradley Jr. doubled against Ohtani. But Kevin Plawecki lined out to right field, Story struck out swinging and Rafael Devers struck out looking.
Story’s strikeout, at the time, made him 0-for-3 with three strikeouts vs. Ohtani. He heard some boos from fans as he walked back to the home dugout.
Boston also had a chance to take a lead in sixth when J.D. Martinez doubled with one out. But Alex Verdugo grounded out and Franchy Cordero lined out to shortstop Andrew Velazquez who made a great play. Velazquez was shifted to the right of the second base bag and sprinted back to the left side to make the play.
Bradley with two hits vs. Ohtani
Jackie Bradley Jr. went 2-for-3 with a double and single vs. Ohtani.
Bradley is batting 11-for-26 (.423) with five doubles at Fenway Park this year. He’s 4-for-48 (.083) with two doubles on the road.
Friday’s game
The Red Sox will open a three-game series against the White Sox on Friday. Red Sox righty Nathan Eovaldi (1-0, 2.51 ERA) is scheduled to start opposite White Sox righty Vince Velasquez (1-2, 4.58 ERA) at 7:10 p.m
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 5, 2022 16:58:32 GMT -5
Ian Browne @ianmbrowne · 1h Red Sox lose 8-0 and are 10-16 this season. The White Sox come in for three starting tomorrow. If ever there was a day for Eovaldi to pitch, tomorrow is it.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 5, 2022 16:59:34 GMT -5
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 5, 2022 17:05:02 GMT -5
Alex Speier @alexspeier · 1h Tanner Houck was charged with 7 runs while recording 7 outs. However, he was nowhere near the most runs allowed by a Sox reliever. In 1923, Howard Ehmke allowed 17 runs (16 earned) in "relief." Soon thereafter, Red Sox manager Frank Chance decided he never wanted to manage again.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 5, 2022 17:05:52 GMT -5
Alex Speier @alexspeier · 1h The Red Sox lose, 8-0. They are 1-6-1 in series this year. After losing two of three at home to the Angels, they have now lost five straight series. They are 10-16, have a -18 run differential, and are 8 1/2 games behind the Yankees four weeks into the season.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 5, 2022 17:07:51 GMT -5
Bill Koch @billkoch25 · 1h LAA 8 BOS 0 Final
Red Sox are 10-16.
Whatever good will they restored in 2021 is being squandered. Today's attendance hinted as much -- 29,476 on a perfect afternoon with Shohei Ohtani pitching.
All three games this series were under 30,000. They had zero such games in 2019.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 6, 2022 1:15:46 GMT -5
Red Sox 0, Angels 8: New day, new rock bottom
Make it five straight series losses for the Red Sox. By Matt_Collins@MattRyCollins May 5, 2022, 4:32pm EDT 111 Comments
The Red Sox are in the midst of a trend, and it’s absolutely infuriating to watch. For the most part, games have started off well for Boston, at least on the pitching side. Their starting pitchers have regularly held off opponents for the first four or five innings game after game. But the offense does nothing, either not building any lead of sometimes building a small one, and then the bullpen comes in and everything goes downhill. That’s exactly what happened on Thursday, with Trevor Story taking center stage for fans’ dismay, going 0-4 with four strikeouts. In fairness, Shohei Ohtani was bananas good in this game, but that fact is less comforting given how the offense has been playing against every other hitter. In the end, it was another loss, and a fifth straight series loss.
More robust game notes below.
Thursday at Fenway gave fans a look at a truly fascinating pitching matchup featuring two of the more interesting and unique pitchers in the entire sport. On the Red Sox side, you had the 42-year-old Rich Hill, who doesn’t throw anything that cracks even 90 mph but still manages to get the best hitters in the world out. And for the Angels, you had Shohei Ohtani, who of course is the most fascinating player in the game with his ability to excel both on the mound and at the plate. And those in attendance looking to see the best version of that pitching matchup were not disappointed.
We’ll start with the Hill side of things. The veteran lefty has been on a nice streak for the Red Sox since his rough outing on Patriots Day, though obviously with his typical innings limitations. Thursday was no different. His curveball in particular was working at its best, with good command alongside his different arm angels to keep hitters off-balance. So, as has become a trend for Red Sox starters of late, he kept the Angels off the bases for the first three innings, setting down each of the first nine batters he faced.
His first, and really only, bit of adversity on the day came in the fourth, which started with a leadoff walk to Ward. A couple batters later, Ohtani drove one to deep center field, and Jackie Bradley Jr. — who shifted over to center for this game to cover for an under-the-weather Enrique Hernández — had to deal with the elements. The wind was messing with fly balls all afternoon, and the sun was shining bright. It was the latter that came into play here, with Bradley losing the ball in the sun and having it drop into the base of the triangle for one of the longest singles you’ll ever see.
So now Hill suddenly had to deal with a runners on the corners situation with just one out, and the meat of the Angels order still coming up. He managed to wriggle out of the jam with a huge strikeout and then a pop up to strand the runners. Hill had one more inning in him, retiring the side in order to finish his fifth inning of work, and his afternoon. The lefty has now not allowed a run since that aforementioned Patriots Day outing.
Unfortunately, the Red Sox offense has just been completely unable to provide any support for a rotation that has mostly been rolling, and Ohtani was just way too much for them in this game. They did get runners on in each of the first two innings, but one of those was on a strikeout that got by catcher Max Stassi, and neither runner advanced beyond first base.
The first chance for Boston came in the third with a two-out rally after both Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts poked singles. That gave J.D. Martinez to put the first run for either side on the board, but instead he struck out to strand the runners. They’d get another runner into scoring position in the fifth when Bradley started the inning off with a double, but he again was left there, in part thanks to back-to-back strikeouts from Trevor Story and Devers to end the inning.
That meant it was still scoreless as we headed into the sixth, and now it was Tanner Houck’s turn to get the ball for the Red Sox. After he came out and struck out the side in the top of the sixth, it looked like the offense was ready to finally get on the board in the bottom half. It started with a one-out double from Martinez (on which he probably should have been thrown out at second, but a bad throw let him get in safely). He then moved up to third on a ground out before Franchy Cordero poked a soft liner back up the middle. It looked like it’d drop into shallow center field, but Andrew Velazquez got there in time and made a great diving grab to save a run and keep the game scoreless.
The game would not remain scoreless for long. Houck came back out for the seventh, and after getting Ohtani to start the inning he issued a walk to Rendon to put his first runner on. A wild pitch (which should have been called a passed ball, in this writer’s humble opinion) moved him up to second, but it wouldn’t matter where he was standing. Jared Walsh was sitting on a 1-2 slider, and was ready for the one Houck threw below the zone. It wasn’t even that bad of a pitch, but Walsh went down and got it, hooking it around Pesky’s Pole in right for a two-run shot, putting the Angels up 2-0.
The offense had no answer in the bottom half of the inning, managing just a single in Ohtani’s final inning of the afternoon. And then the wheels came off for Houck and the Red Sox in the eighth. The Angels were all over Houck in the inning, starting with a leadoff single, then a hit batter, and then another single. That loaded up the bases, when both David Fletcher and Ohtani jumped on the first pitch and each ripped singles, making it a 4-0 game with the bases still loaded and still nobody out. Houck would finally get an out, but it still allowed a run and he left the game with runners on second and third, one out, and a 5-0 game.
That was the situation inherited by Kutter Crawford, who immediately allowed both inherited runs to come in, and that was pretty much that with the score suddenly 7-0 in the blink of an eye. The Angels would add one more on a homer in the ninth, and the series ended with a thud, Boston losing 8-0 to Los Angeles.
The Red Sox now start a new series on Friday night, welcoming the White Sox into town. Boston will have Nathan Eovaldi on the mound with Vince Velasquez getting the call for Chicago. First pitch is set for 7:10 PM ET.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 6, 2022 1:41:05 GMT -5
Yes, it was Ohtani ... but it's also a trend Story, Red Sox continue to search for offense after fifth straight series loss May 5th, 2022 Ian Browne
Ian Browne @ianmbrowne
BOSTON -- It was more than an hour after another tough loss for the Red Sox -- this one by a score of 8-0 to the Angels -- and Trevor Story was still underneath the home clubhouse taking swings in the batting cage.
These are frustrating times for a team that has lost five straight series and is 1-6-1 in series play overall after losing the rubber match on Thursday afternoon at Fenway Park.
And it’s likely nobody is wearing that frustration more than Story, who went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts against the overpowering offerings of Shohei Ohtani.
Well, at least nobody except for Red Sox fans, who showered Story with boos after his fourth strikeout of the day.
“Expectations here are what they are,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “What the fans expect are the same things he expects. That’s part of the equation.”
It isn’t as if a tough day against Ohtani is uncommon for a hitter or an opposing pitcher. This is just what the megastar from Japan does.
For Story and the 10-16 Red Sox, this was more about the pileup of events since the season started.
Coming in as the prized new acquisition on a six-year, $140 million contract, Story hasn’t been able to put good games on top of one another.
When Story belted two run-scoring doubles on Wednesday night, he looked like he might be on the verge of something.
But then Ohtani stopped Story’s slight burst of momentum a day later.
For the season, the second baseman has a line of .210/.293/.296 with no homers and 29 strikeouts in 81 at-bats.
“I didn’t hear the crowd,” said Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez. “I don’t know what happened, but Trevor’s a professional. He’s a proven All-Star. I’m not putting anything past him. He’s a great player. He’s proven himself for a while now. So I always like to measure guys at the end of the year, not after a month.”
And that’s how the Red Sox would like to be measured as a team, though they know they can’t wait much longer to get out of a rut that started on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium and hasn’t really subsided. The Sox haven’t won more than two games in a row all season. The only series they won was from April 11-13 against a Detroit team that is 8-15.
At the end of Boston’s game on Thursday, only the Orioles had more losses than the Red Sox in the American League. Boston trails the Yankees by 8 1/2 games in the East.
The issues have been obvious. The bullpen is leaky. The offense hasn’t hit its stride. A lot of good starting pitching has gone to waste over the past two weeks, with Rich Hill’s performance Thursday serving as the latest example.
Then there is that annoying subtlety that always seems to find struggling teams.
“When we pitch, we don’t hit,” said Martinez. “When we hit, we don’t pitch. It’s a bad combo.”
It has been a particularly tough past two days for the Red Sox.
They were one strike away from winning Wednesday’s game, which would have given them a series victory against the Angels. Instead, the bullpen let it slip away in a 10-5 loss in 10 innings.
And on Thursday, the 42-year-old veteran Hill (five innings, one hit, no runs, six strikeouts) pitched to a standoff against Ohtani.
Tanner Houck, who has electric stuff, was expected to piggyback Hill and finish the game. But he allowed a two-run homer to Jared Walsh in the sixth and got hit by the Angels’ five-run buzzsaw in the eighth.
With a talented but underperforming White Sox squad coming in for a weekend series that starts Friday night, the Red Sox know that time is of the essence to get it together.
“The only way we’re going to get back to where we need to be is taking it at a smaller step than one game at a time,” said Hill. “It’s one pitch at a time, one swing at a time and being able to make things small, and not so big.”
What Hill sees is a team that is at a crossroads.
“Teams can go one of two ways. Kind of gravitate toward each other, or start to move away, and we really need to continue to keep pulling for each other, as everybody is in the locker room,” said Hill. “We can look at the road trip that we had, a few games here or there and it could have been a completely different road trip. But the fact is, it wasn’t, and we are where we are and we have to dig ourselves out of this.”
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 6, 2022 1:46:07 GMT -5
Trevor Story hears the boos as slow Red Sox start hits new low against Shohei Ohtani By Alex Speier Globe Staff,Updated May 5, 2022, 7:22 p.m.
Ten minutes after one of the worst games of his life, Trevor Story emerged from the Red Sox clubhouse, bat tucked under his arm, and headed straight for the batting cage. He was joined by teammates J.D. Martinez and Alex Verdugo, as well as hitting coach Pete Fatse in what seemed likely to be part hitting session and part therapy.
Story never emerged from the cage before the Red Sox clubhouse closed to the media, just more than an hour after his postgame work commenced. But his marathon session said everything.
On a day when Shohei Ohtani delivered a memorable statement — 7 shutout innings, 11 strikeouts, no walks in an 8-0 Angels’ victory — in one of baseball’s cathedrals, Story got his first taste of Fenway as an unforgiving crucible. The Sox’ signature offseason acquisition got undressed by Ohtani, striking out in all four plate appearances against the wondrous Angels star.
The first two (one on a splitter, the second on a fastball) prompted awe of Ohtani. The third (slider) incited a murmur of boos. The fourth (fastball) led to a more full-throated indictment from the crowd of 29,476, a vocal referendum on a .210 average, .293 on-base, .296 slugging mark, and no homers in 21 games.
“It’s part of the equation,” manager Alex Cora shrugged of the boos. “Expectations are what they are here, and the fans expect the same thing that he expects.”
Story — who came to the Red Sox on a six-year, $140 million deal in March — is not the first prominent free agent to struggle on arrival in Boston. Immediate success for the team’s most prominent, long-term signees of the last 20 years (J.D. Martinez, and before him … Keith Foulke?) has been far less common than immediate struggles. David Price, Hanley Ramírez, Pablo Sandoval, Carl Crawford, John Lackey, J.D. Drew … the list goes on.
Some rebounded. Others pancaked as if crushed by a cartoon anvil. The Sox are willing to bet on Story being in the former camp, believing all that’s needed for the two-time All-Star’s full array of talents to emerge is time.
“Trevor’s a professional. He’s a proven All-Star. My first month here, I think I was hitting like .200 and then I turned it on,” Martinez suggested, inaccurately — he hit .200 the first two series in 2018, but was at .337 by the end of April. “I’m not putting anything past him. He’s a great player. He’s proven himself for a while now. I always like to measure guys at the end of the year, not after a month.”
Clearly, Story is willing to work until he gets to the point where he wants to go. But that he seemed to be searching such depths after Thursday’s game came as a bit of a surprise.
Story had started stinging the ball with increased authority and timeliness leading up to Thursday. A three-walk game on Sunday was followed by a sac fly on Tuesday, a blast to the track in center that in recent years typically careened off or cleared fences. On Wednesday, Story had a pair of key doubles.
Across the Sox, enthusiasm seemed to bubble. It looked like Story was close.
“It’s getting better,” Cora said before Thursday’s game.
But then, it got worse.
There’s only so much that should be taken from Thursday afternoon given the jaw-dropping stuff exhibited by Ohtani, who elicited a staggering 29 swings-and-misses — the most by the Red Sox against a pitcher in a single game dating to the 2008 start of the pitch-tracking era. The Angels righthander made many Red Sox look overwhelmed.
Yet none as overwhelmed as Story, particularly against Ohtani’s 95-100 mile-per-hour fastball. The freedom that the Angels felt to attack Story with heat merits an arched eyebrow. Against pitches of at least 95 m.p.h. since the start of 2021, Story is hitting just .214 (117th among 160 players who have seen 300 such pitches) and slugging .296 (133rd). This year, he’s 1-for-15 on high octane.
Those struggles might reflect Story’s choppy entry into the 2022 season. Certainly, for the Sox, they are not yet the sort of things to sound alarms, particularly as they see the work Story is willing to invest to extricate himself.
But for a high-priced group that has been a singular disappointment, Story is an obvious lightning rod for a fanbase that is agitated by a 10-16 team that has lost five consecutive series. And so, Story’s difficulty is multiplied, as he must navigate not only his own eagerness to escape his struggles, but also the magnifying scrutiny of his own new baseball home.
Perhaps there was a solution to be found in the cage as Story’s workday turned to night in pursuit of answers to questions that neither he nor the Red Sox expected. Or, at the least, solace.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 6, 2022 1:48:33 GMT -5
RED SOX NOTEBOOK Shohei Ohtani’s Fenway masterpiece had plenty of admirers By Julian McWilliams Globe Staff,Updated May 5, 2022, 8:28 p.m.
Shohei Ohtani’s anticipated start at Fenway Park on Thursday was as good as advertised, plus some more.
He carved up the Red Sox for 11 strikeouts in seven innings. He challenged them with fastballs that topped 100 miles per hour.
Fooled them with sliders out the zone. Froze them with splitters over the plate.
He clinched his hands into a fist and roared with excitement after key strikeouts. And he had two hits on the day, each off the wall.
“I hope people understand how unusual this is,” Angels manager Joe Maddon said after his team’s 8-0 victory. “And please, never take it for granted.”
Ohtani undressed the Sox with different approaches. Xander Bogaerts, for instance, struck out twice on three pitches each. In his first at-bat, he saw three sliders and swung through all three. After a single in the third, Bogaerts saw a curveball and two more sliders, and whiffed at all of those, too.
“He’s the best player in the league,” said Rich Hill, who tossed five scoreless frames of his own. ”I think that’s one thing everybody can pretty much unanimously agree upon. It’s pretty special to see somebody like that come along. I think everybody should be really appreciating what we’re seeing because it’s something we haven’t seen in 100 years and we may never see it again for another 100 years. He’s obviously an incredible talent and threw the ball great today for his first start at Fenway and obviously hit the ball well, too.”
Trevor Story couldn’t catch up to Ohtani’s fastball, seeing 10, swinging at seven, and not putting a single one in play as he struck out four times. The third ignited slight boos from the Fenway crowd that got more pronounced after the fourth.
A key matchup that pretty much summed up Ohtani’s day came in the fifth with Rafael Devers.
With Jackie Bradley Jr. on second after a leadoff double, Ohtani went upstairs at 100.3 m.p.h. for a ball — his fastest of the day. Devers fouled off a 99-m.p.h. heater, then fell behind as he chased a curveball in the dirt, landing on one knee. He fouled off a 99.6-m.p.h. heater, then got caught looking at a splitter on the inner part of the plate.
“It’s tough because I feel like all of his pitches were unpredictable,” said J.D. Martinez, who doubled off Ohtani with one out in the sixth. “Some of his fastballs were two-seaming, other ones were cutting. Some sliders were backing up, others were sweeping across the whole plate. He’s just tough, man.”
Bradley had success, with a single in addition to the double. He was aggressive early in the count by design.
“I didn’t want to wait around because the stuff is so good,” he said, “so anytime I saw pitch toward the middle of his zone, I wanted to fire.” Sox can’t quit on Matt Barnes
The Red Sox aren’t giving up on Matt Barnes, whose ERA is 8.64 after he gave up four runs (three earned) in the 10th inning of Wednesday’s loss, the loudest on Taylor Ward’s two-run home run. In 33 appearances since last July 10, he has a 6.92 ERA, more than double the 2.68 he had before it last season. His fastball velocity, north of 95 m.p.h. on average most of his career, has been down to as low as 92 since spring training. “People go through slumps, and we can talk about last year, but if you see the numbers, he wasn’t horrible,” Cora said. “He’s not the Barnes we know right now. We all know that. We see it when he goes out there. He was throwing 95 in Toronto, then 93. Wednesday was 92, but we have to keep working. We can’t give up on him. He’s very important to what we’re trying to accomplish” . . . Kiké Hernández was out of the lineup Thursday due to an illness. The team hoped it wasn’t COVID-related, and said he was doing better after the game.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 6, 2022 2:13:50 GMT -5
Jason Mastrodonato @jmastrodonato · 10h Red Sox lose to the Angels, 8-0, on a beautiful afternoon at Fenway Park.
Shohei Ohtani shoved. Tanner Houck did not.
Sox were outscored 18-9 in the series. They have lost five straight series. They are 10-16 overall, a half-game in front of the last-place Orioles.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on May 6, 2022 6:07:29 GMT -5
Tomase: Trevor Story hears first signs of unrest from Red Sox fans 12H ago / by John Tomase John Tomase RED SOX INSIDER
It's a moment of reckoning that arrives for every Red Sox free agent signee, often after a slow start: boos.I
Everyone hears them at some point, even all-time greats like David Ortiz. The question is how the player responds. Some, like Carl Crawford, internalize all of those external doubts and collapse. Others, like John Lackey, use such slights as fuel until defiantly winning a World Series.
We're about to discover which path Trevor Story chooses.
The All-Star infielder's Red Sox career was already off to a poor start before Thursday's 8-0 matinee wipeout vs. the Angels marked a clear low point. Story struck out four times against overpowering right-hander Shohei Ohtani, and then heard the first sustained boos of his short Boston tenure.
"Expectations here are what they are," manager Alex Cora said. "What the fans expect are the same things he expects. That's part of the equation."
All involved would've hoped for a smoother transition. Signed for six years and $140 million as the presumed replacement for shortstop Xander Bogaerts (more on that in a second), Story's now hitting just .210 with a .589 OPS. He has also made a pair of errors at second base, including one that directly cost the Red Sox a win in Tampa.
That's not the way Chaim Bloom drew it up when he made Story the club's biggest splash, by far, of his leadership. The Red Sox expected the wildly athletic Story to take quickly to second base, and that's been a mixed bag, with his tremendous range offset by some minor throwing hiccups. Advertisement
More importantly, they expected he'd add another elite bat to a lineup that includes Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, and J.D. Martinez. His legitimate power, coupled with the potential to hit .300 and steal 20 bases, would be more than enough to mitigate any swing-and-miss tendencies.
It hasn't worked that way. Story remains vulnerable to sliders away and is hitting just .197 against right-handed pitching. Ohtani may be freakishly good -- "He throws everything hard," Martinez marveled -- but the Red Sox did touch him for six hits, including two from Jackie Bradley Jr. and another from Bobby Dalbec at the bottom of the order.
No such luck for Story, who struck out swinging at a splitter in the first, went down hacking on three pitches in the third, flailed at a 1-2 slider in the fifth, and then finally whiffed on a foul-tipped 97 mph fastball as Ohtani pumped his fist and screamed and Red Sox fans booed one of their highest-paid players off the field.
Welcome to Boston.
"I didn't hear the crowd," Martinez said. "I don't know what happened, but Trevor's a professional. He's a proven All-Star. My first month here, I think I was hitting like .200 and then I turned it on. So, I'm not putting anything past him. He's a great player. He's proven himself for a while now. I always like to measure guys at the end of the year, not after a month."
Martinez actually hit .200 for only about 10 days with the Red Sox in 2018 before catching fire. He finished April at .337 with five homers and 22 RBIs and never stopped, finishing at .330 with 43 homers and 130 RBIs en route to a championship.
Story has shown no such dynamism yet while awaiting his first homer, and he admitted before the game that after spending his entire career in Colorado at shortstop, coming to the Red Sox has required an adjustment. He's learning a new city, a new position, and a new league.
"Just a lot of new overall," he said. "In life, baseball, all of it. There's just a lot of new stuff going on. I'm very heavy on the routine and regimen of what's been successful for me."
To that end, Story took extra swings after Thursday's loss in an effort to find his stroke, but it won't be enough without results. Compounding any potential unrest is the fact that Story is widely viewed not only as insurance against Bogaerts leaving in free agency this fall, but as a pre-emptive replacement.
Though the two have quickly developed a strong rapport -- Story credited Bogaerts' recruitment with helping seal the deal in Boston, and the two were palling around in the clubhouse on Thursday morning -- Story still shoulders the added burden of eventually pushing the most popular player in the organization out the door.
That's not fair, of course, and it's obviously not his call, but it adds to the stress that has accompanied his arrival.
On Thursday, that stress finally manifested itself in the sound no player wants to hear. Story possesses the power to turn those boos to cheers, but once boos take root, they can be stubborn to eradicate.
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