Things aren’t great for the Boston Red Sox in the present, but here’s a silver lining: The future looks pretty darn bright.
The Red Sox’s 8-5 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday — their fourth defeat in six games — overshadowed a game to remember by rookie outfielder Andrew Benintendi.
Benintendi was a one-man offensive wrecking crew in just his third major league start, going 3-for-4 while recording a trio of promising firsts.
The 22-year-old got things started early, driving a low fastball the other way in the third inning for his first hit and getting a great jump on Dodgers pitcher Brandon McCarthy for his first career steal.
Benintendi pulled the ball in his next at-bat, lacing a two-out single to right field to pick up his first career RBI.
But Benintendi’s day of firsts wasn’t done. In the sixth inning, the left-handed batter tallied his first big league hit off a left-handed pitcher with an RBI single to right field off L.A.’s Luis Avilan.
The Arkansas product appears to be establishing himself as a strong low-ball hitter, as nearly all of the seven hits he’s tallied in five games have been down in the zone. He’s showcased excellent balance in each of those hits, relying a solid center of gravity to create solid contact.
We’ve obviously seen a very small sample size from Benintendi, and you can expect pitchers to adjust to find the rookie’s weaknesses. But David Ortiz has seen enough to predict that Boston’s latest rookie phenom will be special.
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Let’s hit a few other notes from Red Sox-Dodgers:
— Benintendi’s big day was the good news. But far more discouraging was another underwhelming start from David Price.
The left-handed ace had a chance to end Boston’s 11-game road trip on a high note but once again couldn’t deliver, giving up six runs (three earned) over just five innings while issuing a season-high five walks to take his eighth loss of the season.
Sunday continued a troubling trend for the Red Sox: They simply can’t win with Price on the mound. Three of Boston’s six losses on their West Coast swing came with Price pitching, and the club has lost five consecutive games in which he’s pitched. The Red Sox are just 3-10 since the beginning of June when their ace takes the hill.
— Ortiz took a moment before the game to say one last goodbye to legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, who also is stepping away this season. Scully narrated an excellent tribute to Big Papi in the series opener.
— We’re not sure if Adrian Gonzalez was out for revenge, but he had quite the series against his former team.
The Dodgers first baseman, who spent part of two seasons in Boston, went 6-for-10 with two RBIs and four runs scored in the final two contests of the three-game set. He also launched career home run No. 300 in the seventh inning Sunday.
— Red Sox outfielder Chris Young made another positive step in his rehab Sunday, according to Tim Britton of the Providence Journal.
— It’s no secret the Red Sox have struggled on the mound this season, and Red Sox added pitching analytics director Brian Bannister to the coaching staff earlier this season to try fix that. Bannister offered an interesting analogy on the subject in a recent interview with The Boston Herald’s Evan Drellich.
“I view developing pitching like making red wine,” Bannister told Drellich. “It’s literally like a 3-5 year process. So, you know it’s — scouting is the most important part, like red wine, you have to start with really, really good grapes if you want to have a good end product.”
Thumbnail photo via Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports Images