The Red Sox opened a three-game series in St. Louis on Friday night riding the momentum of back-to-back strong pitching performances from Garrett Crochet\u00a0and\u00a0Sonny Gray, looking to capitalize on a matchup that, on paper, favored their offense.<\/p>\n
The Cardinals turned to Dustin May, the former Red Sox starter acquired by Craig Breslow at last year\u2019s trade deadline to bolster pitching depth.<\/p>\n
Entering the game, May had struggled mightily, allowing 13 earned runs on 17 hits over just 7 1\/3 innings, with two home runs, three walks, seven strikeouts, a hit batter, and two wild pitches. His 15.95 ERA was the highest by a Cardinals pitcher through his first two starts with the club since Alan Benes (17.18 in 1995).<\/p>\n
But on Friday night, May looked like a different pitcher. He kept Boston\u2019s offense off balance, snapped the Red Sox\u2019s two-game winning streak, and led St. Louis to a 3-2 win in the series opener.<\/p>\n
Boston\u2019s offense never got going, managing just two hits off May across six innings. The right-hander allowed two runs (one earned) on four hits while striking out four on an efficient 75 pitches before being lifted by manager\u00a0Oli Marmol.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox were also without Roman Anthony in the starting lineup Friday, as\u00a0Alex Cora opted to rotate his roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to play everybody,\u201d Cora said. \u201cMasa is putting together good at-bats, and we need that to continue. J.D. (Jarren Duran) got a few days earlier this week, his is part of the rotation. Today was Anthony\u2019s day off. He\u2019s available to pinch-hit, but a full day off is important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even so, Boston\u2019s offense looked lifeless. The Red Sox managed just five hits, four of them singles, went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position, and struck out seven times.<\/p>\n
After falling behind 1-0, Boston scratched across two runs in the fourth. Masataka Yoshida led off with a single, moved to third on Wilyer Abreu\u2019s base hit, and scored on\u00a0Trevor Story\u2019s RBI fielder\u2019s choice. Story later advanced to third on a Marcelo Mayer single and scored on a well-executed double steal to give Boston a brief lead.<\/p>\n
But the offense couldn\u2019t capitalize on its chances late.<\/p>\n
Trailing 3-2 in the eighth, Ceddanne Rafaela sparked hope with a leadoff bloop double and moved to third on a Duran flyout. Caleb Durbin was then hit by a pitch to put runners on the corners, but Cardinals left-hander JoJo Romero shut the door, striking out Yoshida on a 3-2 sinker before getting Willson Contreras to fly out.<\/p>\n
In the ninth, closer Riley O\u2019Brien needed just eight pitches to retire the side, sealing a loss that reflected Boston\u2019s stagnant offensive approach throughout the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t slow down the game,\u201d Cora said. \u201cHe had good stuff today, he was throwing harder than what he\u2019s thrown his first two outings, he threw more strikes, but still, we had our chances but we have to be better offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the second straight start, Connelly Early struggled to find efficiency, running up his pitch count and lasting just 4 1\/3 innings. He allowed one earned run on five hits with two walks and five strikeouts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Red Sox opened a three-game series in St. Louis on Friday night riding the momentum of back-to-back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,48,160,4,89,673,67,4311,4310,63118],"class_list":{"0":"post-673260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-boston-red-sox","10":"tag-cardinals","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-red-sox","13":"tag-st-louis","14":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","15":"tag-stlouis","16":"tag-stlouiscardinals","17":"tag-top-red-sox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116386108812413727","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}