Even when David Ortiz is slumping, he still finds ways to come up big for Boston.
The Red Sox slugger was batting just .216 in August heading into Monday’s game against the Cleveland Indians and was obviously frustrated after his first two at-bats, during which he popped out and grounded into a double play. But Ortiz turned that all around in the sixth inning by hitting a monster 442-foot homer to put two runs on the board and give the Red Sox the lead.
Jackie Bradley Jr. followed that up with a solo shot two batters later, and those three runs wound up being all the Red Sox needed to give starter Drew Pomeranz his first win with Boston. It also was the Red Sox’s fourth straight win, which is just the hot streak the team needs heading into a grueling road trip.
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Here are some more notes from Monday’s 3-2 win.
— Beyond earning his first win with the Red Sox, Pomeranz also pitched into the eighth inning for the first time in his Major League Baseball career. The lefty seems to be settling in with Boston, as he’s 1-0 with a 2.37 ERA (five earned runs in 19 innings) in three starts in August.
— Monday was Ortiz’s last trip to Progressive Field, and the Indians honored him with a short ceremony and donated $10,000 in his name to Near West Recreation in Cleveland.
— The Red Sox still have a lot of their road trip left to go — they go to Baltimore to Detroit to St. Petersburg, Fla., in a 10-day span from here — and the Tigers aren’t going to do them any favors. According to the Boston Herald’s Michael Silverman, Boston’s management asked the Tigers if they’d push back Thursday’s 1:10 p.m. contest because the Red Sox will arrive in Detroit from a night game in Baltimore.
The Tigers said no.
“They traditionally have played Thursday afternoons during the season, although they don’t always play (then) because if the roles were reversed, I’m sure they would have played a night game,” Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told Silverman on Monday. “And I’m sure they did it in some ways because they realized we would come in as a tired club, that they did it from a competitive perspective. Unfortunately we didn’t have any rights to get it changed.”
— Dustin Pedroia is having a ridiculous month. After going 2-for-5 on Monday, the second baseman now is batting .354 in August with eight runs, seven RBIs and just three strikeouts.
Thumbnail photo via David Richard/USA TODAY Sports Images