Boston Red Sox: 3 standouts in Game 79 win over Seattle Mariners
The Boston Red Sox won the rubber game in their three-game series against the Seattle Mariners behind the dominance of Chris Sale.
Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park was the perfect Sale Day. After struggling to silence the hot bats of the Seattle Mariners the first two games of the series, the Boston Red Sox needed their ace to go deep in the game and Chris Sale did exactly that.
In fact, the tall, intimidating lefty did way more than that. In striking out 13 batters in a 5-0 shutout victory, Sale returned to his dominate ways at a time the Red Sox really needed it.
In his seven innings pitched, Sale gave up just four hits overall and had complete control of his velocity. That really showed in the dominance on Sunday afternoon. Reaching over 100 mph on a couple of occasions, it was mostly the rhythm Sale found on the mound that held the Mariners bats in check.
"“You try to find a good rhythm and tempo, find a groove and keep it going,” Sale said following the game, via Boston.com."
In earning his seventh win of the season, Chris Sale got a little run support, which has been an ongoing problem all season long.
While the Red Sox bats didn’t need much or do much going into the fifth inning, it was good the team gave Sale an eventual cushion to master the mound the way he did in the later innings.
With the Red Sox etching out the five runs, Matt Barnes and Joe Kelly both pitched an inning to complete the combined shutout, a game Boston really needed to win to gain some momentum back headed into a series with the Anaheim Angels.