Red Sox at Rockies
Jackie Bradley Jr.’s mammoth home run might still be airborne Wednesday when the Boston Red Sox conclude their brief two-game interleague series against the host Colorado Rockies. Bradley crushed a 478-foot homer in Tuesday’s 10-6 victory as Boston improved to 8-3 in its last 11 contests.
Xander Bogaerts and Christian Vazquez also homered in the win while Brock Holt added three hits and two RBIs to help the Red Sox remain six games behind Oakland for the final American League wild card spot with 29 to play. J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts contributed two hits apiece, but most of the buzz focused around Bradley, whose 17th homer was the seventh longest in the majors this season. Colorado fell to 19-40 since June 21 despite recording 15 hits – including three from Nolan Arenado, who belted his 12th homer this month in the ninth inning. Charlie Blackmon snapped a 0-for-13 skid with three hits from the leadoff spot, but Ryan McMahon struck out four times just a day after hitting a walk-off two-run homer in Monday's 3-1 win over Atlanta.
TV: 8:40 p.m. ET, NESN (Boston), AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain (Colorado)
PITCHING MATCHUP: Red Sox LH Eduardo Rodriguez (15-5, 3.92 ERA) vs. Rockies RH Peter Lambert (2-4, 6.40)
Rodriguez improved to 11-2 with a 3.14 ERA in his last 17 starts after tossing seven scoreless frames in last Friday’s 11-0 victory over San Diego. “He’s been very consistent,” manager Alex Cora told reporters. “Early in the season, he struggled against lefties, and now he’s taking advantage of that. There’s not too much hard contact.” The 26-year-old is making his second career start versus Colorado and owns a 7-2 record and 3.31 ERA in 14 career interleague outings.
Lambert’s struggles continued last Friday, when he issued four walks and allowed four runs (two earned) over 4 1/3 innings in an 8-3 loss to St. Louis. “His game is predicated on locating the fastball in the strike zone, changing speeds, landing his secondaries for strikes, and tonight it didn’t happen,” Rockies manager Bud Black told reporters. The 22-year-old rookie has given up a total of 29 hits and 17 walks over his last five outings covering 24 1/3 innings.
WALK-OFFS
1. The Red Sox have homered in each of their last 17 games, their longest streak of the season.
2. The Rockies optioned RHP Joe Harvey and LHP Phillip Diehl to Triple-A Albuquerque and recalled OF Sam Hilliard and RHP Rico Garcia from the Isotopes.
3. Boston LHP David Price (left wrist) is expected to return to the rotation this weekend in Anaheim against the Los Angeles Angels.