The Red Sox won the nightcap of the doubleheader, securing their first series sweep of the Yankees this year and their first sweep of a doubleheader against the Yankees since 2006. The Red Sox’s record against the Yankees is now 5-1, and their record against the AL East is 13-11. This record is impressive considering the AL East is the best division in baseball, and the only division where every team has above a 500 winning percentage. The Sox still stand in last place in the division, but just yesterday they made up two games on the Yankees and 1.5 on the Blue Jays.
The Story of the Night was Red Sox starter Bryan Bello. Bello allowed just one run over seven innings on just four hits, while striking out eight Yankees. Tonight was a continuation of a great run for the young starter. Since Bryan’s first start this year against the Angels, where he gave up five runs, he has only given up 1.8 runs per start. In his last nine starts he has a 2.6 ERA, 33.9% strikeout rate, and a 58.3% ground ball rate. For comparison, that ground ball rate would rank number two in baseball among starters last year. It’s exciting to see the Red Sox developing a reliable top-tier starting pitcher in Bello. It is also great to see the results finally coming for Bryan. Last year, opponents were only finding the barrel 5.4% of the time, which is even better than his 7.9% this year. Balls were not getting hit hard against Bello last year, opponents were just finding holes. Last year Bello’s BA against was .315. His xBA against, a stat that takes into account the likelihood that a batted ball will become a hit, was .254. The 61-point difference between his xBA and BA was the third highest among starting pitchers last year. This shows how unlucky Bello was last year: the difference between the xBA and the BA highlighting the number of times batters reached base despite weak contact. This year, his opponents’ BA is .247. His BA this year is almost the same as what his xBA was last year, showing that he is no longer unlucky.
One of the best signs coming out of this series for the Red Sox is the offense. The Red Sox scored 25 runs over the three-game series. This run production was carried mostly by the Sox’s 15-run outburst in game one. It seems that the Red Sox are finally coming out of their long offensive slump. On May 6, the Red Sox beat the Phillies 7-4, extending their winning streak to eight straight and making their record 21-14. At that point in the season, they led the MLB in hits, were second in the league in BA, and fifth in homers. Since that day, the Red Sox are 16-21, 17th in the MLB in hits, 12th in BA, and 29th in homers. However, as I mentioned, the Red Sox are starting to see a turnaround. Since Adam Duvall came back from injury on June 9, the Red Sox are showing great offensive improvement. They rank fifth in the MLB in BA and share the MLB lead in doubles.
The Red Sox will now carry their four-game win-streak into a six-game road trip beginning in Minnesota on Monday night.
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