The Red Sox were the first team in MLB to reach 20 wins on the year and have the best record in baseball as the calendar flips to May, but the past 10 days have at least shown that the Sox are mortal. In fact, it’s starting to look likely that the Sox won’t match the 2001 Seattle Mariners’ record of 116 wins in a season.
Bummer.
Since sweeping the Angels in Anaheim two weeks ago, the Sox have gone just 3-5 having dropped two in Oakland, one in Toronto, and two at home to the Rays this past weekend.
One boost the Sox could get on offense is the return of shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who has four hits in just eight at-bats since coming off of the disabled list.
“He was in a great place offensively [before landing on the DL with a left hamstring strain],” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of Bogaerts to WEEI.com. “The good thing about him is we feel that there’s going to be enough traffic around him that he’ll put the ball in play and produce runs for us and it helps us out. At one point we had a lot of lefties in the lineup so now we can balance it out and be better against left-handed pitching.”
Bogaerts is batting .391 on the year so far with two home runs and 11 RBI in just 11 games played.
The road ahead
The Sox will play the second game of a three-game set against Kansas City tonight at Fenway with Chris Sale getting the ball. Sale has been electric in his six starts so far this season as he owns a 2.31 ERA, a 0.97 WHIP and has struck out 45 batters.
In the nitpick department, however, Sale has given up six total earned runs in his last two starts and in his previous four starts this season he gave up a grand total of three.
Jakob Junis (3-2, 3.34 ERA) will get the start on the mound for Kansas City tonight.
Drew Pomeranz, who has been bashed around in his first two starts this season, will look to improve on his ugly 7.27 ERA on Wednesday against the Royals.
