The Red Sox have just completed a 10 game road trip in which they went 5-5. Not bad on paper; in a perfect world, you win most of your home games and try to at least break even on the road.
What’s alarming, however, is the run production of late. Or lack of, I should say.
Over the course of those 10 road games in Toronto, Oakland and Seattle, the Sox scored 23 runs, which is an average of 2.3 runs per game. Scarier to note is that 11 of those 23 runs came over two games, which means they scored 12 runs across the remaining eight games. The team was also shut out twice.
If I was a gambling man, which I am not (but if you are, you can read more about pokies here), I’d say that unless something changes in the run production department, the Sox are destined to lose a shitload of games. These days, any opportunity to score a run is a rare and precious thing, and must be treated as such.
That sentiment isn’t lost on Xander Bogaerts, apparently, as evidenced by his head-first dive into first to beat out a hit and give the team at least some semblance of a chance to get things going in the bottom of the seventh of yesterday’s game.
This single, while ill-advised from a medical perspective, gave the Sox some two-out life, and seemed even more critical when the next batter, Brock Holt, doubled X over to third. Alas, the rally was short lived, and Swihart was vanquished on the very next pitch.
But the point is not lost. When your team cannot score runs, you have to help create opportunities by any means necessary. So kudos to X for taking that step.
