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| Utility man Brock Holt represented the Red Sox in Tuesday's MLB All-Star Game. |
The Red Sox headed into Friday’s contest against the New York Yankees as winners of their last four series. However, the Red Sox allowed their rival to score first in all three games of the series. After losing two of the three contests to the Yankees, the Red Sox fell to 11-35 when their opponent has scored first this season.
With the series loss, Boston remained in last place of the American League East, two games behind the fourth-place Baltimore Orioles. The Orioles are the last team not named the Red Sox to be in last place of the division – it was June 9, the day John Farrell’s squad started a three-game set against the O’s in Baltimore, and it was the beginning of the Red Sox’s season-worst seven-game losing streak.
CF Mookie Betts turned around a frustrating homestand, as he hit well in the three-game series against the Yankees. He broke a 0-for-11 slump on Friday with a solo home run. He added a run and drove in another run on Saturday with a double and triple. Then, on Sunday, he had one of the Red Sox’s 11 singles and scored one of the team’s six runs.
Utility Man Brock Holt went into Tuesday's All-Star Game riding a season-best 11-game hitting streak. When Boston resumes official play on Friday against the Los Angeles Angels, he will look to match his career-long hit streak that came in 2014.
SS Xander Bogaerts pushed his current streaks to new career-bests on Sunday: a 10-game hitting streak and a 17-game on-base streak. He has 17 hits in 43 at-bats in July.
DH David Ortiz, who sat out on Sunday due to an illness, raised his batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage over the last week. In Wednesday’s 6-3 victory over the Miami Marlins, he homered for the 15th time this season.
LF Hanley Ramirez kept the Fenway faithful restless until his last home run. He went a whopping 13 plate appearances without a home run until his opposite field go-ahead home run on Saturday against the Yankees. From June 19 to July 5, Ramirez homered five times and the longest homerless streak for him during that span was also 13 plate appearances. Then, he kept the home crowd happy with his hitting on Sunday, as he went 2-for-5 with a double, and he drove in a run as well.
3B Pablo Sandoval came into Sunday with a strong career against the Nate Eovaldi, and he drove in a run on a single in the third inning. With a hit in each of the three games against the Yankees, Sandoval could be finding his hitting stroke.
1B Mike Napoli, who had five days off from official plate appearances, got back into the lineup on Friday and reached twice. However, Saturday’s 0-for-4 game got his slump to 1-for-17 with just three hits in his last 34 at-bats. On the bright side, he had a pinch-hit single and went 1-for-2 on Sunday; it is anyone’s guess who will be starting at first base against the Angels.
RF/LF Alejandro De Aza had a couple 0-for-3 performances recently, but he put together back-to-back 2-for-4 games on Saturday and Sunday against the Yankees. After June 15’s 4-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves, De Aza’s on-base plus slugging percentage was just .603 in his first 39 games of 2015. After his 61st contest of the season, he heads into the All-Star break with an OPS much better than the league average.
C Ryan Hanigan’s best on-base streak since 2012 ended in the second game of the series against the Yankees. Although he did not reach base safely on Saturday, he drove in the Red Sox’s first run of the victory. He then reached base on a single and a walk the next day, as he hopes to start a new streak.
BN/RF Shane Victorino returned from his lengthy absence with two hits on July 4, but he has just two in 16 at-bats since. With his hitting not as strong as it was earlier this season or earlier in his career, for that matter, he may only start in right field against left-handed starting pitchers.
For more sports coverage, follow Adam Lowenstein on Twitter at @StatsAdam. Statistics used from Baseball-Reference.com.
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