By Zachary McMahon –
The Boston Red Sox faced the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum late Monday night. The Red Sox entered their second series on the season opening west coast trip after splitting the series against the Seattle Mariners. Meanwhile, the Oakland A’s got their first win against the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday.
Last season, the Red Sox won the season series 4-2, while the A’s won their final two games in the series in Oakland on July 18 and 19.
Tanner Houck got the nod on the mound for the Sox in his first start of the season. For the Oakland A’s Joe Boyle started for the fourth time in his career, he holds the fifth spot in their rotation. Last season, he started three games with a 2-0 record, 1.69 ERA, 15 strikeouts, and five walks in 15 innings.
The Oakland A’s defense was sloppy to say the least. They coughed up five errors that allowed the Red Sox to run up the scoreboard in the early innings. Catcher Shea Langilers threw the ball and missed on a steal by Jarren Duran in the first.
Then in the second, centerfielder JJ Bleday dropped a drive for a two-base error that enabled Enamanuel Valdez to reach. Then, the Sox scored two runs on a throwing error on the right fielder Lawrence Butler to Langilers that allowed Masataka Yoshida and Valdez to score off a sacrifice fly by Ceddanne Rafelela.
In the third Ryan Noda missed a simple toss to Boyle that Tyler O’Neil scored on, and then Duran was able to advance when Boyle missed a pickoff throw.
These errors helped the Sox scored five runs in the third, which was capped off by a double to left field by shortstop Trevor Story that scored two runs and knocked Boyle out of the game for the A’s.
Duran was the Red Sox top performer when he went 3-for-5 with three singles, two runs scored, one RBI, and three stolen bases. The last steal was Duran’s fifth of the season, which made him the first Red Sox player to have five steals in the first five games to open the season.
Houck went six innings, allowing only three hits, no runs, no walks, and matching a career-high of 10 strikeouts. All five starters have now all gone through 5+ innings for the first five games, which last season the bullpen took most of the innings on the mound, with injuries to the starters like Chris Sale, Garrett Whitlock, Houck, etc.
After Houck, veteran right-hander Chase Anderson went the rest of the game pitching the last three innings, allowing a hit, and striking out three, and earned a save for the second time in his career. Last season, he split time between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Colorado Rockies, which he got his first career save with the Rays.
Yoshida brought in the final run for the Sox in the sixth inning on a fielder’s choice and Story scored to make it 9-0.
The Sox will try to take the second game in the series when they bring up Brayan Bello on the bump tomorrow night at 9:30 pm on NESN+/NESN360.