Red Sox woes continue against AL East; Yankees abuse Boston on Friday.

Sox woes against the AL East continues

For the second straight game the Red Sox sent out a young pitcher to face the red hot New York Yankees with the same result — abuse to two youngsters.

This is what happens when half of the pitching staff goes down on injuries. Sure, Brayan Bello, the top pitching prospect and the new-founding-future savior of the Red Sox pitching staff had been lighting it up in the minors this season and was primed for a big league start. Sure, Connor Seabold, who racked up 51 strikeouts in Triple-A this season was “ready” for another chance with the big league club. You can say those two thing were true, and you’d not be lying.

Lets face it though. The truth of the matter is this; if the Sox weren’t facing injuries to Chris Sale, who returns next week; Michael Wacha, Garrett Whitlock and Rich Hill, would there even be a discussion to call the likes of Josh Winckowski, Bello or Seabold? Likely not.

But here we are.

The Red Sox have had their hands tied with injuries all year — and just not pitching — in the field as well.

Regardless though, injuries come and go, and the “next man up” mentality has been the calling card for the Red Sox all season long.

Even with all their promotions, demotions and promotions over and over, the Red Sox somehow haven’t found success against their American League East foes.

The hard truth is this though. The Red Sox are 9-20 against the AL East and now sit in second place in Wild Card. The good thing about that though is that Boston (45-39) can still finish third in the Wild Card race and make the playoffs.

Currently the Sox hold a half game lead over Toronto while Seattle is two games back from the third spot and Cleveland is three games out. But to put the precision scope on it all — the Orioles — who are last in the AL East with a 41-44 record are four games back from the last Wild Card spot.

Boston is 3-7 in their last 10 games and currently own a four game losing streak. What hurts the most? The Sox play Tampa and New York in back-to-back series and currently are 1-4 against the clubs in the 14 games before the July All-Star break.

Boston’s last two games against the Yankees have been heartbreaking. The first game they lost 6-5. The Yankees scored five runs in the second in which the Sox countered scoring two in their half of the second. The Yankees would then plate one run in the fifth while the Sox scored three of their own in the fifth. Ultimately, that was all the scoring by both clubs.

In the second game of the four game set, Boston got beat up by the bully who not only stole their lunch money but stole their woman in the process.

New York plated seven runs in two and two thirds against Seabold who exited the game with an 11.91 ERA. The Yankees scored four in the first, one in the second, and two in the third and fourth. They also plated a run a piece in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings in the 12-5 win over Boston.

Although the Sox did lose to the Yankees in the first two games of the series, they did manage to get some runs produced against two of the Yankees top pitchers Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes.

They scored five runs against Cole who exited the first game after six innings of work. They then scored four runs against Cortes who exited the game after three and a third innings of work.

The Sox will look to bounce back against their rivals on Saturday with Kutter Crawford toeing the rubber for the Sox while Jordan Montgomery goes for the Yanks.

Follow James on Twitter @micdupgravley

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