Ryan Dempster was taking the mound and still looking for his first win in a Red Sox uniform. He has pitched well, but been on the other side of some bad luck. The Sox have been on a roll lately and Dempster hoped to roll to his first win.
The Sox bats got Dempster some runs in the early innings to get him to his first win. Ells got on base in the 1st inning and then Pedey hit an RBI double to bring him home. In the 2nd, David Ross hit a solo HR and then in the 3rd, Mike Napoli hit an RBI double. In the 4th, Ross hit another HR and was followed by a HR from Middlebrooks. In the 5th, David Ortiz got into the HR Derby with a solo HR of his own. That is 2 HRs in two days for Papi. In the 8th, the Sox scored their final run with a Gomes RBI single. The bats were alive tonight, especially David Ross who was 4 for 4 with 2 HRs.
Dempster held his own on the pitching side as well. Dempster continued to be a strikeout machine in a Sox uniform. Dempster has long been known as a groundout pitcher, but with the Sox he has been racking up the Ks. In the 3rd, Dempster gave up a run with an RBI groundout. Sox 2-1. In the 5th, the Astros got one more run from Dempster with a sac fly from Altuve. Sox 6-2. Dempster got himself through the 6th inning and was done for the night. Dempster's pitching line for the night was 104 pitches, 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 3 BB and 10 Ks.
Clayton Mortensen took the mound in the 7th and found a little bit of trouble. Morty hit a batter and then another one reached on an error from Napoli. The Astros had a possible rally going on and with one out in the inning, Mortensen was out and Junichi Tazawa came into the game. Taz gave up a sac fly to Altuve to bring the Astros within 3 runs. Tazawa got out of the inning and handed the ball over to Uehara. Uehara pitched a scoreless 8th inning and headed into the dugout for a high five fest. With the Sox scoring another run in the 8th, the Sox sent in rookie Alex Wilson to finish off the 9th. Wilson had himself a 1-2-3 inning and the Sox had a win in the books.
The water was dirty and continue to be tied for the best record in the AL.
Red Sox 7 Astros 3 BOXSCORE
WP: Dempster (1-2) LP: Bedard (0-2)
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