James Paxton and Chris Sale's latest starts are two positives to build off after back-to-back nightmare ninth inning performances versus the Cardinals
Watching the Red Sox last two games has felt like the movie Groundhog Day. Closer Kenley Jansen has played the role of Bill Murray, feeling deja-vu back-to-back night’s after recording his 400th save in Atlanta on Wednesday night.
Flip the page to Friday night, there is a capacity crowd at Fenway Park, Sweet Caroline plays in between the eight inning, the Sox have took a lead to the ninth and Jansen blew the save.
Then on Saturday… well, see the previous sentence.
The Red Sox have dropped their first two games at home against the struggling St. Louis Cardinals. In the process, spoiling James Paxton’s first start since April 6, 2021 and Chris Sale’s vintage performance on Saturday.
Paxton was superb in his team debut, pitching 5 innings, giving up four hits, walked one and stuck out nine Cardinal batters. The only hiccup for the tall lefty came in the first inning where he allowed a two-run homer to Nolan Arenado.
Paxton became the second Red Sox pitcher to strikeout nine or more batters this season. Sale struck out 11 against the Twins on April 11 and nine against the Phillies on May 10th.
The southpaw threw 87 pitches and possibly could have gone longer but Red Sox manager Alex Cora wanted to protect his starter.
“I thought I was going to keep on going,” Paxton said. “But he (manager Alex Cora) said it was time to turn it over and that was fine. It felt good to have gotten through my first start back. And felt pretty good about it.”
His stellar start was ruined after the Red Sox blew a ninth-inning save opportunity.
Fast-forward to Saturday afternoon, the Sox looked like they were ready to turn the page on Friday night’s crushing defeat.
Boston’s offense sparked the team to a 3-0 lead thanks to key hits from Rafael Devers and Rob Refsnyder.
Sale was vintage on the mound, looking like an ace pitching 8 innings, allowing just one run, three hits and one walk while striking out nine.
The eight innings pitched was the longest for Sale this season. He mixed his pitches well and didn’t give up his first run until the seventh inning when Arenando, again, Groundhog Day, blasted a solo homer.
Sale was excellent throwing 55 four-seam fastballs, the pitch averaged 94.9 mph with one topping out at 97.2 mph, per Baseball Savant. He added 45 sliders to the mix and threw 110 pitches in the loss.
Jansen had a 3-1 lead heading into the ninth inning, the All-Star closer struggled quickly out of the gate and in the process was charged with three pitch clock violations.
Two automatic balls were called during Willson Contreras’ at-bat, leading to back-to-back walks to start the inning. Jansen was charged with pitch clock violations to even the count 1-1 against Contreras, then to automatically walk him on a 3-1 pitch during this nightmare at-bat.
“I kind of got confused a little bit because Contreras was looking at me,” Jansen said to reporters postgame, including Christopher Smith of MassLive. “His hands were up and he was looking at me. But his (foot) was out. So I’m more focusing on seeing, ‘Hey, he’s looking at me. I’m gonna come home.’”
Boston will look to rebound on Sunday night with Corey Kluber on the mound. Despite the back-to-back loses, the two veteran lefties looked outstanding.
Cora will need Kluber to stop the bleeding and help get the team back into the win column.
The Sox have won each Kluber’s last three starts. He’s pitched to a 3.86 ERA, allowing seven earned runs over 16 1/3 innings pitched. This comes after they lost each of his first four starts and the veteran right-hander posted an 8.50 ERA, 17 earned runs in 18 innings pitched.
Kluber has thrown five-plus innings in each of his last four starts, after doing so in only once in his first three starts as a member of the Red Sox.
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