The Good, The Bad and The Ugly From the Red Sox West Coast Trip

The Red Sox returned home to Boston last night after an exhausting road trip that saw them play 11 games in as many days, against the Angels, Mariners and Dodgers. They finished the trip with a 5-6 record, which is not a disaster but is certainly worse than they were hoping for.

The Good

Starting pitching

 The Sox have had the best offense in baseball all season long, but have been held back by their pitching staff. However, this trip gave me hope on that front, as the Sox starters were actually pretty good throughout the road trip. Boston got a quality start (5+ innings, 3 runs or less) in 8 of the 11 games, with every member of the rotation recording at least one. They got 3 complete games (2 from Porcello, 1 from Wright). David Price pitched like an ace in 2 of his 3 starts, throwing 16 consecutive shutout innings at one point. With Boston's offense, pitching like this should be good enough to get them to the playoffs.

Dustin Pedroia's Game Winner

In the final game of the Angels series, Boston trailed 3-0 entering the 9th, before being saved by Petey's two out, 3 run bomb that took the lead and halted a major skid. 

Game 4 vs Seattle

The Sox won, 3-2, in 11 innings. It was a gutsy win, driven by contributions from the entire roster. Drew Pomeranz pitched 6 solid innings, giving up 2 runs. Travis Shaw hit his 13th HR, and 8 different Sox recorded a hit. The bullpen had 5 guys combine to throw 5 scoreless innings. The bottom of the order provided the winning run, with Brock Holt providing the game winning hit.

Andrew Benintendi

Benintendi and Yoan Moncada are 1 and 1A in the Red Sox prospects rankings, and are among the best prospects in all of baseball. The team considered them untouchable at the trade deadline, even for an ace pitcher like Chris Sale. Benintendi is another young stud outfielder, and he was brought up to the big league club to play left field. LF has been the biggest problem spot in the lineup for the Sox this year, as they have cycled through a number of guys (Chris Young, Brock Holt, Bryce Brentz, Blake Swihart, Rusney Castillo) trying to find someone to hold down the spot. Benintendi has drawn comparisons to Fred Lynn, and he looked like it in his first showing in the majors. Andrew is 5-13, with 2 RBI, 1 run and a stolen base. If he can continue to produce, he will solidify himself as the final piece of the core of the Red Sox future, along with Bradley, Betts, and Bogaerts (the Killer B's?).

Craig Kimbrel is back

When news broke that Kimbrel would be going under the knife for arthroscopic knee surgery, projections had him missing anywhere from 3-6 weeks. He was back in 3 weeks and 2 days. More importantly, he is fully healthy, with 2 scoreless appearances and 6 strikeouts since returning. His presence steadies the back end of the bullpen, and enables John Farrell to use guys in roles they are comfortable in rather than stretching middle relievers into setup men and setup men into closers. 

The Bad

5-6

Let's start with the most obvious; the Sox had a losing record on a road trip where they played 8 games against non-contenders. They are now just 26-25 on the road this year, with 30 of their remaining 52 games away from Fenway. The AL East is going down to the wire, and it hurts to lose winnable games. It hurts even more because both the Orioles (5-6) the Blue Jays (6-5) have had middling results recently, so the Sox missed an opportunity to gain ground on both their rivals. They are now 2 games behind Toronto and 3 behind Baltimore.

The Bullpen

While the starters were generally good, the Sox bullpen had some troubles. They blew late inning leads against the Angels and Mariners, and allowed the Dodgers to pull away in the final game of the trip. It's too much to expect the bullpen to be perfect, but when you have a lead late the best guys in the pen HAVE to be able to finish those games off. 

Xander Bogaerts Slumping

Boggy was 9-48 at the plate on the road trip, for a ghastly .188 batting average. He is hitting .278 since the All-Star Break, and .269 in the last month. In June, I predicted that Bogaerts' high average was going to be unsustainable, and I have been proven correct. Xander's average for the season is down to .317, which is still excellent but nowhere close to the .350 mark he was sporting at midseason. 

The Ugly

Hanley Ramirez' throw

In the first game of the road trip, David Price threw 8 shutout innings and left with a 1-0 lead. Then Brad Ziegler couldn't keep the Angels off the bases, and Han-Ram airmailed a throw home on a potential double play, allowing the tying and winning runs to score. 

Fernando Abad's Debut

While the Sox were mostly quiet at the trade deadline, they did make a move to acquire reliever Fernando Abad from the Minnesota Twins. His first appearance for the Sox came in the 8th inning of game 2 against the Mariners. David Price went 7 shutout innings before running into trouble in the 8th, and Farrell went to Abad with 2 on and 1 out in a 4-2 ballgame. Abad's first batter was Robinson Cano, who did this. 

David Price's Third Start

Price started his road trip with two excellent starts, both of which ended in defeat when the bullpen failed to hold the lead. His third start came in the rubber game of the Dodgers series, with Boston having a chance to take 2 of 3 against a playoff-quality opponent and finish the trip with a winning record. These are the situations when aces dominate. Price... didn't. He went just 5 innings, walked 5 batters, and gave up 6 runs. He didn't have it. This game embodies my concerns with Price; if the Sox don't win the division, they are probably heading to a one game playoff for the Wildcard. Farrell, if he can swing it, will likely go with Price for that game. At this point, I simply don't trust David to come through in big games, and if he's bad in the wildcard game that would be the end of the season.