Boston Red Sox: Former prospect Jalen Beeks shuts down offense

The Boston Red Sox come up short of a three-game sweep as former prospect Jalen Beeks leads Tampa Bay pitching to a two-hit shutout.

Ironic wasn’t it? The same young prospect the Boston Red Sox dished away to their division neighbors came back to silence the Sox lineup Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park.

Remember back in late July Boston dealt left-handed pitcher Jalen Beeks in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays for righty Nathan Eovaldi. A trade that’s treated Alex Cora and the Red Sox pretty well since having gone down. On Sunday, Beeks made his return and came through big for Tampa.

The former Red Sox prospect took the hill as the Tampa Bay Rays “official starter” Sunday afternoon at Fenway. A pretty friendly return to Fenway for the young 25 year old actually. Beeks went 4.0 scoreless innings while allowing just one hit and striking out three batters. A much more effective outing than his previous in Boston, when a member of the Red Sox.

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Unfortunately that trend of nonexistent offense carried through beyond Beeks time on the mound. There was no momentum throughout the entire game with the bats.

Aside from an Xander Bogaerts double (with the Red Sox down 1-0) it never seemed as though Boston was in the game.

J.D. Martinez had the golden opportunity in the 4th with runners on first and second (nobody out) but failed to counter via a double play ground out. A jam in which the man himself, Jalen Beeks escaped from. Now the Rays have a pretty solid history of strong pitching development. However are they re-developing Beeks’ pitching arsenal? Who knows?

However. Pretty underwhelming nine innings overall from all ends of the diamond on Boston’s side.

Hector Velazquez not quite Chris Sale

Chris Sale was scheduled to start however a sudden return to the 10-day DL led to Hector Velazquez making the start Sunday. This a repeated trend for Sale. That’s now twice this month alone that Sale has gone down with the same injury.

In fact, August is Chris Sale’s second worst month statistically speaking. His win percentage for the month of August is .536% (15-13) with a 3.16 ERA. That’s his worst, just after the September/October time of year. Here’s why this isn’t something to look past or brush off if you’re Boston.

There’s no question that a deep playoff run will need to include Sale, the dominant Sale that we’ve all come to know and love.

Sunday against Tampa, was a waste game. Regardless of who’s on the mound, that’s a game Boston had no business losing. Now here’s where things could get interesting (hopefully they don’t).

The Cleveland Indians next come to town for a four-game road trip. With Boston up 9.5 games on New York, things can change very fast if things go wrong this series. Despite the historically phenomenal year its been, step one in clinching the division is yet to be official. This is still a race yet to be decided.

Rick Porcello, Nathan Eovaldi, Brian Johnson, and David Price will all take the mound in this series. The Boston Red Sox will face dominant righty, Corey Kluber who last struck out 12 batters through 7.2 innings against Boston in 2017 (August 23).

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They also will take on Carlos Carrasco, another strong arm. In fact since the All-Star break, Carrasco has gone 4-1 with a 1.33 ERA. That’s the second lowest through that stretch among all American League starting pitchers.

This potential playoff preview should certainty be interesting. An overall pre-examination of what we may expect from a few notables come October. However, that’s a while down the road for Boston.

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