Since a 10-run inning at home against San Diego on June 21, the club had scored a grand total of 21 runs in 71 innings, never plating more than two in any single frame.
They also hadn’t had a chance to face the Houston Astros bullpen yet. Not so coincidentally, that encounter and that offensive burst came at the same time Friday night, and reinforced one of the primary disparities between lowly Houston and one of the Beasts of the East.
After getting shut down for six innings by Astros starter Bud Norris, Boston exploded for six runs against him and two Houston relievers in the seventh en route to a 7-5 win in the series opener Friday night.
When lined up against the pen from the other side, it was a complete mismatch.
The Astros bullpen combined to give up three runs on four hits, five walks and a hit batter in three innings. They escaped two bases-loaded situations, otherwise it could’ve been a lot worse.
Boston, meanwhile, completely slammed the door after Tim Wakefield was reached for five runs in 5 1/3 innings. Dan Wheeler, who cleaned up Wakefield’s mess in the sixth, got his first win in a Red Sox uniform. Matt Albers, Franklin Morales, Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon combined to get the last nine outs, Papelbon’s 16th save closing it out.
Quietly, the Sox pen has produced a 1.37 ERA over its last eight games, with all three of the runs scored against Boston relievers in that run coming on two swings, one on a solo homer off Albers in Pittsburgh and two when Ryan Howard took Bobby Jenks deep Thursday in Philadelphia. Each of the men that appeared Friday night has been a big part of the resurgence.
Wheeler has allowed two runs on nine hits in 13 innings since coming off the disabled list in May. Albers has been a key cog all year, and owns a 1.38 mark since his one rough outing against the Cubs on May 21. Morales, the only lefty reliever on the roster right now, has retired all five hitters he has faced on the trip. Bard hasn’t allowed a run since May 23. Papelbon has 5 2/3 scoreless innings over his last six outings.
Due to injuries and other roster fluctuations, the bullpen in Boston has been in an incredibly fluid place. Lately, it’s been a source of dominance. That’s something Houston has not experienced during its 29-54 campaign, and Friday night saw its relief ERA rise to 4.84, worst in the National League.
Norris dominated the Red Sox early on. He had 10 strikeouts in the first six innings and had not allowed a hit after a game-opening solo shot by Marco Scutaro. However, those Ks, along with four walks, pushed his pitch count to a point where everyone knew the bullpen would have to come into play.
That was the great un-equalizer, much to the delight of Wakefield, who was appreciative of his team’s fight in the wake of his rocky outing.
“It was great,” Wakefield said. “As bad as I pitched and we still came out on top, it’s a huge boost for us.”
Houston manager Brad Mills had Norris start the seventh and held on as long as he could. But three straight hits, the last a bloop double by Josh Reddick that pulled Boston within 5-2, was enough. The call came for Sergio Escalona. With his arrival, the floodgates opened.
Escalona gave up an RBI hit to Drew Sutton to pull the Sox within 5-3 and then hit Darnell McDonald, he of the .115 average, to load the bases. In came Wilton Lopez, who got one man before the two big hits in the game, Dustin Pedroia’s game-tying, two-run single and Adrian Gonzalez’s go-ahead, two-run double, an opposite-field bomb that hit the wall on the fly.
Minutes after Norris took the mound with a four-run lead, his team trailed by two. And with the bullpen on the other side doing everything right, that’s exactly where it would stay.
“Bud pitched extremely well,” Houston manager Brad Mills said. “We just couldn’t stop that seventh inning. They got it started, and we just couldn’t get it stopped.”
Boston is better than Houston in every department. The rosters lined up side by side present a mismatch in every area. The disparity in the bullpens was extremely apparent in the series opener.
