Red Sox West Coast Woes

The Boston Red Sox just finished a pivotal west coast road trip, and to say the least, it did not go as planned. They finished the trip 5-6 but somehow managed to only drop a half game in the division race. They left Boston 2.5 games back of Baltimore/Toronto and come back only 3 games back of Baltimore who took sole possession of first place in the AL East. On the surface this doesn't seem too bad, but more than anything, it's frustrating. Look at it this way. We’re looking at a first or second place Sox team if they beat up on these inferior opponents, but contrary to what this whole season has been, the offense didn't perform but the pitching did.

For a team that has been busting up box scores all season, they scored an average of a putrid 3.45 runs per game on this road trip. While the pitching staff had an unbelievable 2.58 ERA over this stretch. The defense was also below average as Hanley Ramirez single-handedly lost a game that David Price started with a throwing error that resulted in the Angels scoring 2 runs in the bottom of 9th inning to beat the Sox 2-1. Today against the LA Dodgers, the defense made 3 crucial errors that ended up in 3 runs for LA in a game Boston lost by 3, 8-5.

If there's one positive to take out of this whole ordeal, it's the call up of the organization’s #2 prospect, Andrew Benintendi. Benintendi got called up to come off the bench in his first game against the Seattle Mariners where he got 2 at bats and failed to reach base in either of them. He started his first game the next day and collected his first and second major league hits with his whole family in attendance. Since being called up he has batted .385 going 5/13, polishing off his first road trip going 3/ 4 with 2 RBIs today. In the meantime he showed off his blazing speed today scoring from second base on a line drive to left field where most anyone would've been thrown out at the plate. The young stud is expected to start in LF against right-handed pitchers and come off the bench against left-handed pitchers.

In short, the hitting was porous, the pitching was excellent, and Andrew Benintendi joined the Killer B’s (Betts, Bogaerts, Bradley, and now Benintendi) for hopefully years to come. The Sox now head back to Fenway for a quick 6 game home-stand against the new-look Yankees and the pitiful, last place Diamondbacks, before heading back on the road for another 11 game road circuit.