Postgame, Rangers 12-5: The story of this one was the fourth inning.
John Lackey got the first two outs of the inning and almost had the third but a drive into the gap in right-center field hit off the glove of Jacoby Ellsbury.
That went for a double. Then there was an RBI triple (snapped a 3-3 tie), a walk, a double (made it 5-3) and then the Sox went with the decision to walk Josh Hamilton to load the bases.
Hamilton has owned Lackey in the past, while the man on deck, Adrian Beltre, has been owned by Lackey, so the move made plenty of sense. But Beltre clocked a grand slam on one of many poorly placed fastballs by Lackey and it was 9-3. That was the ballgame right there.
“It got away from us in a hurry,” Terry Francona said.
That was a prime candidate for the understatement of the year award before Francona was asked about what he hoped to get out of Clay Buchholz on Sunday. After expressing a desire to see Buchholz pound the zone and throw strikes, Francona said: “We’ve given up too many runs the first couple of days.”
Ding! Ding! Ding! An easy winner for the award and even more reason for the Red Sox to hope for Buchholz to have his good stuff in his 2011 season debut.
That game begins at 2:05 p.m. and we will be following along right here. Thanks for joining the party tonight.
Final, Rangers 12-5: In a lot of ways it was a carbon copy of the opener. The Red Sox led early before their starter got knocked around (although more severely tonight) and Terry Francona was forced to burn through his bullpen just to get through the day.
It kind of puts a little more pressure on Clay Buchholz to come out and give the club a lift on Sunday.
We’ll be back in a bit to wrap this one up and look ahead to Clay’s first start of the year.
End 8th, Rangers 12-5: Bobby Jenks works a 1-2-3 eighth, punctuated by a nice play at shortstop by Marco Scutaro, and talk of a seven-run rally is filtering through the Red Sox dugout.
Mid 8th, Rangers 12-5: This game has felt like it’s over for a few innings now, and for all intents and purposes it is.
Tim Wakefield has already come and gone. Dustin Pedroia and Carl Crawford were yanked from the game. A lot of guys likely thinking of just getting back to their hotels and trying to get some rest before the day game tomorrow.
However, there will be a day, and maybe several, where the Red Sox erase large deficits. I’m not predicting anything for this one, but against teams with lesser bullpens, this offense will put together some pretty remarkable outbursts.
As painful as this has been to watch for some of you, it’s the kind of team you might regret turning the channel on.
On that note, J.D. Drew and Jarrod Saltalamacchia struck out with a runner on third to end the eighth. (Cue the Price is Right losing music).
Bobby Jenks is on to make his Red Sox debut.
End 7th, Rangers 12-5: In the sometimes difficult pursuit of positives, we find Dennys Reyes throwing just the second scoreless inning of the game for Boston.
Reyes threw four balls to Josh Hamilton in yesterday’s game and was yanked. At least he gets a chance to get his feet wet in this one.
Before Reyes did his job in the seventh, the Rangers had scored 16 runs in their last seven innings at the plate.
Mid 7th, Rangers 12-5: Among the many things Jacoby Ellsbury showed during spring training was some nice power. If he could add that threat to his game he’ll be that much more of a presence.
Ellsbury, whose career high in homers is nine, smoked a two-run shot in the seventh to give Boston a little bit of life. It was his first homer since 2009, obviously.
A walk to Jed Lowrie, who entered the game in place of Dustin Pedroia, got the Rangers bullpen stirring. Carl Crawford then drew one of his own to reach base for the first time with the Red Sox.
With Adrian Gonzalez up, people had to be thinking about a little bit of a comeback, but he hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
End 6th, Rangers 12-3: That makes it seven home runs in two games and a combined scoring margin of 21-8 for Texas.
The Rangers do have issues in their rotation and they won’t hit 500 home runs this year. But man do they look pretty awesome right now. Power, speed, solid D, and the experience of being there before.
Mid 6th, Rangers 11-3: If you had Colby Lewis still on the mound and cruising after six innings, raise your hand.
Lewis looked like he had no chance to last past four, maybe five, in this one, but he’s almost assured of a win after working around a double by Adrian Gonzalez in the sixth.
Gonzalez is now 5-for-7, which probably doesn’t do much for the masses right now. Don’t worry, Red Sox fans. There will be a time when a 5-for-7 streak by Gonzalez has you jumping for joy.
End 5th, Rangers 11-3: You almost get the sense that every time the Rangers make contact it’s going to find a gap or a spot in one of the bullpens.
Interesting that Terry Francona admitted he hd no clue how to use Tim Wakefield out of the bullpen. If the rest of the staff keeps throwing like this, Wake will be in there every day.
10:14 p.m.: The defending AL champs seemingly had some turmoil this offseason when Michael Young was on the trading block.
Some wondered whether there would be any discontent around the club when the season began. It would take a pretty sour individual to not be smiling on the Texas bench right now.
The Rangers are positively hammering the Red Sox right now. Yorvit Torrealba’s two-run homer off Dan Wheeler is their sixth in 13 innings in the series. There have been plenty of doubles and triples thrown in there. Oh, by the way, a grand total of four strikeouts for Boston pitching.
Realistically, you should’ve seen it coming. Everyone was so blinded by the hype they lost sight of the fact that not only is Texas good, but this place has been unkind to the Sox. Provided there are no miracle comebacks, Boston will fall to 2-9 in Texas in the last three years.
Anyway, Wheeler leaves with two on and one out in the fifth. Tim Wakefield is jogging on for his first set of back-to-back appearances since 2000.
That, as much as anything, should tell you all you need to know about how these first two games have gone.
Mid 5th, Rangers 9-3: Wish I had some good news for you, but there just isn’t much on that end of things. Carl Crawford now 0-for-7 with four Ks after making the last out of the fifth.
End 4th, Rangers 9-3: Dan Wheeler gets the last out and prevents John Lackey from matching his career high in runs allowed, which of course came in Texas in 2008. Just a house of horrors for him.
And to think that some people thought that pushing Josh Beckett to fourth in the rotation and inserting Lackey where he is was simply because of what Texas did to Beckett last year.
The Rangers have been doing this to Lackey forever. His ERA in Arlington is now 6.78 in 17 starts.
All the runs in the fourth came with two outs, and all after Julio Borbon’s triple glanced off the glove of Jacoby Ellsbury.
9:47 p.m.: One pitch after he thought he was out of an inning with a strikeout, John Lackey gives up an RBI triple to Julio Borbon, and that was just the tip of the iceberg.
A walk, an RBI double, an intentional walk and a grand slam by old friend Adrian Beltre has given Texas six runs in an inning fillled with fireworks. They are still batting after Michael Young’s single sends John Lackey to a cold shower.
Of the 20 hits for the Rangers in this series, 13 have been for extra bases. That’s five home runs, six doubles and two triples.
More on Lackey in a bit. Dan Wheeler is on.
Mid 4th, 3-3: OK, so these numbers come with an obvious asterisk since they blend spring training and regular season results, but just work with me here.
Adrian Gonzalez started 2-for-14 in Grapefruit League play. On March 23, the only day off on Boston’s schedule in Florida, he went to the minor league camp to get in some much-needed game action.
Gonzalez proceeded to go 3-for-6 that day in a minor league game (vs. AAA Tampa Bay Rays). He said that he finally felt right that day, and since then he has done nothing but rake. Including the 4-for-6 start to the regular season, Gonzalez is 13-for-23 (.565) with two homers and seven RBIs since that day at the complex.
It was his single that started the rally in the fourth. He moved to third on a double by Kevin Youkilis and scored the equalizer (hockey term) on a grounder to first by David Ortiz.
That RBI gives Ortiz the all-time record for a designated hitter. He has 1,004, one more than Edgar Martinez. Congrats to Big Papi. 350th homer last night, RBI milestone tonight. Pretty good weekend in Texas for him.
End 3rd, Rangers 3-2: If John Lackey could just skip the top third of the Rangers lineup he would do just fine. I looked and the rule book says you can’t do that, so he’s screwed.
Ian Kinsler improves to 12-for-25 (.480) off Lackey with a one-out double in the third. Elvis Andrus follows with an RBI triple and Josh Hamilton increases his average vs. the righty to .478 (11-for-23) with a run-scoring single.
Hamilton then stole second and beat a tag by Dustin Pedroia with a phenomenal slide. The Rangers left fielder is the best player around, and he showed some of his versatility on that play.
Anyway, the top third of the Texas order is 5-for-6 with a home run, three RBIs and three runs scored. Everyone else is 0-for-8 with three strikeouts.
By the way, there was a combined no-hitter going on in Tampa Bay. Chris Tillman went the first six for Baltimore against the Rays. Jeremy Accardo came in to work the seventh and gave up the first hit of the game to B.J. Upton.
Since we’re talking AL East, it’s worth noting that the Blue Jays have outscored a pretty good Twins team 19-4 in the first two games of the season. Baltimore is getting a second straight quality pitching performance and, as you likely know by now, the Yankees are 2-0 as well.
It’ll be an absolute fight all season long in this division. That’s why I just can’t see the Red Sox getting much more than 95 wins, if they even reach that. Doesn’t mean they are not one of the best teams in baseball, if not the best team in baseball, it’s just that there will be no easy encounters in those 72 division games.
Mid 3rd, Red Sox 2-1: Carl Crawford still has yet to get the ball out of the infield in his six trips to the plate. His pop to shortstop ends a perfect frame for Colby Lewis.
The first out of the inning was a strikeout of Jacoby Ellsbury on a 3-2 pitch that Ellsbury thought was low. Ellsbury was already four steps out of the box before the strike three call came, and voiced his displeasure.
I mentioned earlier that bumping up that walk total is key for Ellsbury. Hopefully he doesn’t get too focused on that and keep the bat on his shoulders on pitches that are clearly in the zone, as that one was.
End 2nd, Red Sox 2-1: John Lackey has his first 1-2-3 inning of the 2011 season. Perhaps he can settle in after grooving a couple of pitches early on.
On St. Patrick’s Day 2010, Lackey was asked about his lineage, whether he had any Irish blood (Lackey pitched that day against the Mets).
He joked that he was all Texan, which is what makes it a tad odd that he often struggles in Arlington. He entered this one with a 6.11 ERA in 16 starts in Texas.
Lackey recorded his first two strikeouts of the year in the second inning.
Mid 2nd, Red Sox 2-1: David Ortiz’s first home run of 2010 came on April 23 and his second in May. He has two in two games to start 2011 after a two-run shot off Colby Lewis gives Boston the advantage.
I’ve been saying to anyone who will listen (nobody ever does) that there didn’t seem to be anything tangible in Ortiz’s slow starts. He didn’t have that issue earlier in his career and he looked OK in spring trainings. For whatever reason, perhaps mental, he wasn’t able to snap out of things the past few Aprils. But it was not going to surprise me at all if he started this year on a better note, in large part due to the fact that he is just one of the masses now, a No. 6 hitter without much pressure.
We’ll see if it lasts. Ortiz has tied Edgar Martinez for most RBIs as a DH with 1,003.
Not for nothing, the Tampa Bay Rays have a grand total of four hits in 15 innings against Baltimore. Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon are a combined 0-for-13
End 1st, Rangers 1-0: Things pretty much went according to the numbers in the first inning.
John Lackey continued his struggles in season-openers vs. the Rangers, bumping his ERA in such starts to 7.17 after serving up a solo homer to Ian Kinsler.
It was a 3-1 fastball that came in straight, right down the middle and at just 91 mph. Kinsler liked what he saw, hammering a leadoff homer for the second straight game.
Kinsler improved to .458 (11-for-24) off Lackey with that hit and Josh Hamilton bumped his mark to .455 (10-for-22) with a single one out later. Lackey got outs on Elvis Andrus (2-for-14 vs. Lackey) and Adrian Beltre (8-for-51).
The lone abberation came on the third out, a fly to right by Michael Young (now 31-for-87, .356).
Of the Rangers’ 14 hits in the series, four have been homers and three have been doubles.
How’s that for some early numbers for you.
Mid 1st, 0-0: Two hits and two walks in six plate appearances so far for Jacoby Ellsbury. It’s that second category that Red Sox fans should love to see. If he gets a nice allotment of free passes, the sky’s the limit.
Of course, it didn’t make much of a difference in the top of the first. Dustin Pedroia hit into a double play for the first time since June 1, 2010, to erase the runner.
Carl Crawford, who obviously will never be able to handle the pressure in Boston, then grounded to second. Sarcasm, of course, but Crawford is now 0-for-5 with three Ks, a groundout and a soft liner to short in his young Red Sox career.
John Lackey time.
8:06 p.m.: You have probably realized by now that this one is not starting at 8:05 p.m., as it was listed. Ring ceremonies have pushed it back.
7:39 p.m.: We made mention of John Lackey’s many season-opening starts against Texas in his career (seven times in 10 years his campaign has begun vs. the Rangers) and also the struggles he has had in those starts (7.11 ERA).
Three of the prior six times this has happened the start was made in Texas, and each was somewhat notable.
Lackey’s major league debut occured in Arlington in 2002 and he allowed just three runs in seven innings. He was a tough-luck loser in that one, but enjoyed that appearance much more than the next two times he opened a season in Texas.
It was in 2004 that Lackey surrendered seven runs on nine hits in 3 2/3 innings of a 12-6 loss on this mound to begin what was perhaps his worst season.
Then, in 2009, Lackey made a debut here in May after opening the season on the DL and lasted just two pitches. His first offering sailed behind the head of leadoff hitter Ian Kinsler and the second plunked him. Lackey was ejected by home plate umpire Bob Davidson, but insisted he was not throwing at Kinsler, especially after several weeks on the shelf.
Kinsler had homered twice the night before, so that’s what prompted the umpiring crew to find intent in Lackey’s pitches. Interestingly, it was Kinsler’s solo homer in the first inning Friday that began the barrage against Jon Lester.
Don’t expect Lackey to throw at Kinsler, but the similarities are there. Even the days (Friday for Kinsler homer against Lackey’s team, Saturday for Lackey’s start with Kinsler leading off) are the same.
7:13 p.m.: A few programming notes. Of course, Tom Caron and the crew is currently taking you through the pregame on NESN.
If you want to tune into that but follow some of the NCAA action, be sure to check out Evans Clinchy’s Final Four Live Blog.
Great night of sports, especially for Red Sox fans who might live near Storrs, CT.
6:20 p.m.: Reports out of Texas are that Daniel Bard is unavailable tonight. Obviously, not a shocker.
Bard threw 32 pitches in Friday’s loss. That matches the second-highest total of his career. Although Terry Francona likely wouldn’t say it, he probably will want to stay away from Bard in the early start Sunday, too.
Jonathan Papelbon and Bobby Jenks were the only two relievers who did not appear in the loss, although Jenks did get up and warm.
By the way, here is the Texas lineup against John Lackey. Only change is Mitch Moreland in for Mike Napoli at first.
Ian Kinsler, 2B
Elvis Andrus, SS
Josh Hamilton, LF
Adrian Beltre, 3B
Michael Young, DH
Nelson Cruz, RF
Mitch Moreland, 1B
Yorvit Torrealba, C
Julio Borbon, CF
5:14 p.m.: So, have you recovered yet from Opening Day? We know, it was a difficult loss, especially with the guys who were primarily responsible (Lester, Bard) and the fact that the Sox got a rare April home run from David Ortiz to tie it in the eighth, just his second in that month since 2008.
Well, the Yankees lead big early against Detroit and there is a chance the Red Sox could open this one with a 1 1/2-game deficit. That probably won’t help, but we had plenty of positives to take from the affair Friday afternoon.
Adrian Gonzalez, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Matt Albers, Dan Wheeler, Kevin Youkils and Ortiz all had positive days, based on it being either their debuts with the team or their first regular season game since season-ending injuries. A solid outing for John Lackey on Saturday could calm the masses and the lineup we see tonight gives us another look at one which could do plenty of damage.
As for the lineup on Sunday, there will be another lefty on the mound in Matt Harrison. It is also a day game (2:05 p.m. start) after a night game so there will be plenty of changes. Jason Varitek will probably be in there, and don’t be surprised to see Jed Lowrie get in there somewhere. Perhaps Darnell McDonald or Mike Cameron will fill a spot in the outfield, like Cameron did for Drew yesterday.
On a personal note, I believe I tweeted yesterday that Ortiz didn’t have an April home run at all last year. Wrong. I needed another spring training start myself. He did in fact hit one in April 2010. My apologies to all those who follow me. For those of you who don’t, you can pick on my mistakes right here.
4:45 a.m.: A day after the opener that was and we have a new lineup to dissect, although it’s exactly what we thought we would see from Terry Francona with right-hander Colby Lewis on the mound.
Take a look:
Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
Dustin Pedroia, 2B
Carl Crawford, LF
Adrian Gonzalez, 1B
Kevin Youkilis, 3B
David Ortiz, DH
J.D. Drew, RF
Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
Marco Scutaro, SS
9 a.m.: The opener didn’t go as planned, but the Red Sox are right back at it Saturday night with a matchup in Arlington against the Texas Rangers.
John Lackey will be making his 2011 debut, looking to build off a 14-11 campaign in his first season in Boston. He has faced the Rangers 33 times, more than any other team in baseball, and Saturday will mark the seventh time in his 10-year career that his first outing in a season has come against Texas.
Unfortunately, Lackey is just 1-3 with a 7.11 ERA in his previous six opening starts vs. the Rangers.
The anticipation surrounding Opening Day was met with disappointment for the Red Sox after they dropped a 9-5 decision to the Rangers on Friday. Jon Lester gave up five runs in 5 1/3 innings and Daniel Bard allowed four more in a miserable eighth inning.
The loss snapped Boston’s three-game winning streak in openers, but it wasn’t without positives. Adrian Gonzalez was 2-for-4 with three RBIs and David Ortiz hit a solo homer (a full month before he had his first home run in 2010) off a tough lefty. Also, Jacoby Ellsbury was 2-for-4 with a stolen base and two runs scored.
Colby Lewis is on the mound for Texas. First pitch is scheduled for 8:05 p.m.
