Red Sox Game 11 Summary

The Red Sox dropped their 1st game of the 2nd half of the season last night to the Braves.  The final score was 8 to 1.  The Sox struggled on offense through out the game and could only muster 5 base runners for the evening.  Braves starting pitcher Malik Henry pitched 3 shut out innings and was relieved by Joshua Holmes in the 4th who preserved the victory for the Braves.

Derek Marshall took the mound for his first start of the year and turned in a solid performance.  After walking the first 4 batters, Derek settled in and retired 6 of the next 8 batters that he faced.  He went 3 strong innings, throwing 35 of 82 pitches for strikes, allowing 1 hit, 4 runs, 7 walks, and ringing up Ks on 4 batters.

Lawrence Gilliam relived Derek in the 4th.  He started out shaky as he is learning to manage his new found velocity.  He dinged his next door neighbor Trevor Edior in the back for a HBP.  Trevor would later get his revenge with an RBI single to left in the 5th.   He struggled with control through out the evening but turned in 2 good innings.  In total he through 28 of 53 pitches for strikes, walked 3, hit 1 batter, surrendered 2 hits, 4 runs, and had 4 strike outs.

The Red Sox defense played well.  Rick Powell handled a sharply hit line drive to 3rd in the 1st.  Gary Smith recorded 2 assists from second - both to David Cooper at 1B in (1 in the 1st and 1 in the 3rd).   Lawrence also had 2 assists on the day.  In the 3rd, he handled a ground ball at short to get the lead runner with a good through to Rick at 3rd.  In the 5th, he bobbled a dribbler back to the mound and threw a shot to Jonathan Phelps at 1st to record the out.   Grant Craddolph handled a fly ball to short to record out 3 in the 2nd.

Offensively, the hitting woes continued.  Jonathan, who leads the team with a .541 batting average continued his strong hitting with 2 infield singles - both hit to the 3rd baseman.    Charles Heard had the only other hit of the day with his 5th hit of the year - a sharply hit ball to right center field in the 4th.  The Red Sox scored their only run when Trent Jeter walked in the 5th, advanced to 3rd on wild pitches, and scored on a sacrifice from Grant.  The only other Red Sox base runner was Rick who walked in the 2nd.

The guys did a good job of putting the ball in play - the Braves 1st baseman, Chris Smith, recorded 8 put outs.  They simply couldn't find the wholes in the Brave infield.   I see more time and money spent at Slamo in the future.

That's all for now.  I've attached and posted the usual files.

The season to date stats are attached and can be found here

The game summary is attached and can be found here