The Boston Red Sox will attempt to end a season-high six-game losing streak Saturday when they face the visiting Toronto Blue Jays in the second contest of a three-game series.
Toronto extended Boston’s losing streak by opening the series with a 9-0 victory on Friday night. Toronto collected 16 hits and benefited from eight walks in the win.
George Springer and Andres Gimenez each collected three hits for the Blue Jays, who received seven scoreless innings from starting pitcher Jose Berrios.
“Obviously it was an unbelievable start by (Berrios),” Springer said. “He held an extremely good offensive team down for a day, which is obviously big. Offensively we just did a little bit of everything. There wasn’t the big over-the-wall shot that everybody likes, but to manufacture runs, to get guys over and in — a lot of guys got hits in spots we needed to. Small things like that can show the clubhouse what you can do when you don’t hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
The victory raised Toronto’s record against Boston to 6-2 this season. It also moved the Blue Jays seven games over the .500 mark through 81 games.
“I think we’re a very resilient group,” Springer said. “We’ve had our ups and downs so far, but we’re in a good spot. I think guys understand that and guys know the schedule ahead and our job’s not done.”
Boston was held to four hits and struck out eight times in Friday’s loss. The Red Sox have scored four runs in their last three games, one of which was a 3-2 loss in 10 innings.
“I think they’re trying as hard as possible,” Boston manager Alex Cora said. “The few opportunities that we have we have to cash in, We gotta show up (Saturday) and execute our game plan.”
“I feel like we’re putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to score a bunch of runs every single day,” Boston’s Jarren Duran added. “It feels a little tense right now. After having some tough at-bats I feel like, me personally, I have to get a hit this time instead of just thinking simple and just have a quality at-bat, which is more important than trying to force a hit. Even if it’s a walk or hit the ball hard and maybe they make an error or something and just getting on base. Just having a quality at-bat is something I feel like we’ll get back to soon. I’m not too worried about us.”
Boston played without rookie third baseman Marcelo Mayer in the series opener. Mayer was placed on the bereavement list before Friday’s game, and Cora said Mayer probably won’t rejoin the team until Monday. Mayer was promoted to the majors in May when Alex Bregman was forced to the injured list with a quad injury.
Lucas Giolito (3-1, 4.53 ERA) is scheduled to start for Boston on Saturday against fellow right-hander Chris Bassitt (7-3, 3.61) of Toronto.
Giolito is 2-3 with a 5.29 ERA in nine career appearances (al starts) versus the Blue Jays.
Bassitt is 2-2 with a 2.31 ERA in eight appearances (all starts) against the Red Sox. Bassitt held Boston to one run on five hits and struck out five in 5 2/3 innings of Boston’s 4-3 victory on April 10.
–Field Level Media
