PHILADELPHIA — The one constant expected from the Red Sox this season was quality starting pitching. With back-to-back gems by Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester in a two-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins this week, there is some indication that that constant may finally become, well, constant.
What was not expected, but what has been prevalent for weeks as other aspects of the team suffer through inconsistency, is a power surge that has the 2010 Red Sox on pace to be one of the best slugging units in team history.
While Buchholz and Lester were performing surgery on Twins' bats to the tune of a collective 17 innings, four runs and 16 strikeouts, the Sox’ bats scored seven of their nine runs in the series on extra-base hits. Another came in on an RBI single by Bill Hall and the last after Adrian Beltre doubled and came in on a wild pitch.
In Thursday’s 6-2 win behind Lester’s fifth career complete game, Boston had two home runs, five doubles and a single among its eight hits.While so much was made on tacking a “run prevention” tag to this edition of the club, it could morph into one that relies on a time tested formula: power and pitching (if and when that pitching becomes a consistent entity).
Consider these numbers from a crew that was supposed to grind out low-scoring games:
- With 58 home runs through 42 games, the Sox are on pace for 223. That would rank second in franchise history behind the 2003 unit which
featured David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez and four others with at least 25 dingers. - The team is on pace for 362 doubles, which would rank fourth on the Sox’ all-time list.
- Boston has averaged 6.2 runs in the month of May.
- Among American League teams, only Toronto has a higher slugging percentage than the Red Sox’ .455, and only New York owns a better OPS than Boston’s .804.
All this from a team without a player on its roster who hit 30 home runs last year. The returning home run leader, David Ortiz, who had 28 last year, did not get his second round-tripper until May 1.
Manager Terry Francona, who has been forced to deal with injuries at two key positions and limited production early on from a few others, is not overly concerned with such numbers, so long as the one on the scoreboard looks OK.
"I don’t know that I really gave that a whole lot of thought," he said Thursday after homers by Kevin Youkilis and Beltre accounted for four of the team’s six runs. "I think I care more about scoring runs as opposed to how we score them."
Of course, the club has altered its mode of attack, whether on purpose or not, based on one of the aforementioned injuries. Jacoby Ellsbury, who stole 70 bases in 2009 and rests as the team’s one significant running threat, has been out since April 11 with four fractured ribs.
Entering Friday, the Sox ranked last in the majors with 12 stolen bases and 29th out of 30 teams in triples with two. Ellsbury plans to return to the lineup Saturday in Philadelphia, potentially transforming the top half of a somewhat plodding but power-packed lineup that has carried the club through season-long pitching woes.
Not what we expected when the season began.
