IL1 Pawtucket Red Sox

Red Sox, PawSox Each Take Wins against Twins

March 14, 2014 - International League (IL1)
Pawtucket Red Sox News Release


Both Boston and Pawtucket drove a few miles west on Daniels Parkway to play against the Twins and Rochester, respectively, in Lee County. And both garnered one0run victories.

First, on the feature field, Hammond Stadium, the Red Sox edged the Twins 4-3. Jake Peavy made his spring debut and looked pretty sharp. He would go three plus innings allowing a run on two hits with two walks and two strikeouts while using 53 pitches (31 strikes). Peavy was removed after issuing a leadoff walk in the 4th.

Lefty Andrew Miller, who has been exceptional to this point in the spring, promptly gave up a double to Oswaldo Arcia before throwing a wild pitch to allow a run to score from third. Kurt Suzuki added an RBI single off Miller as part of a three-run inning.

Boston's pitching shut down the Twins from there allowing just four hits over the next five innings. Matty Ott (more than likely ticketed for Portland) walked two in .2 innings. Brandon Workman tossed three scoreless innings allowing just a pair of hits and striking out three. Dalier Hinojosa and Francisco Cordero finished off the game with clean frames.

Peavy has been tinkering with a new pitch, a splitter, to add to his repertoire. He gives all the credit to Koji Uehara who, "wouldn't be the pitcher he is without it". He unveiled the new pitch in his debut Thursday and according to his manager John Farrell, "It's got some action in the bottom of the zone. Not too many offered swings at it. It's something that he's been working on here as he's got to camp. But in addition to that, the one thing he talked about last year was trying to kill some of the speed of his curveball. You saw some in the mid-70s, which was good separation from his fastball. For the first time out, he had a good assortment of pitches today."

The Red Sox sent their "A" lineup and they produced four runs on seven hits against Minnesota, who started with Phil Hughes on the mound. The Twins committed three errors which led directly to all four Boston runs scoring. Seizing opportunities is the name of the game, right?

Shane Victorino had an RBI single in a 2-for-3 afternoon and Dustin Pedroia's two-run double in the 5th put Boston in front for good. Pedroia finished 2-for-3 in the game. Will Middlebrooks singled and stole a base and Deven Marrero doubled in his lone plate appearance.

A few hundred yards away on the back fields, the PawSox beat Rochester 5-4 to improve to 1-0-1 after two games of Grapefruit League play.

SS/OF Ryan Dent led the way going 4-for-4 (all singles) with two RBI and two runs scored. Third baseman Carlos Rivero went 3-for-4 with an RBI triple and a run scored, his second straight strong offensive game. Second baseman Mookie Betts had two hits, an RBI, a run scored, and a stolen base while OF Bo Greenwell, son of former PawSox and Red Sox star Mike Greenwell, delivered an RBI double which proved to be the winning run.

Lefty Henry Owens made the start for the PawSox and gave up two runs in 3.1 innings. His final line - 3.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 3 SO. The win went to Kyle Kraus (1-0) in relief who was charged with one unearned run over two-innings. The recently sent down Miguel Celestino earned the SV (#1) with two scoreless innings along with two strikeouts.

The PawSox will play Norfolk this afternoon in Fort Myers.

Today, the Red Sox will travel to Dunedin to take on the Blue Jays.

Clay Buchholz will try to continue his strong start to the spring and build off his impressive outing last Sunday against the Pirates. The rest of the lineup:

Jackie Bradley Jr. CF

Jonathan Herrera 3B

Mike Carp DH

Mike Napoli 1B

Jonny Gomes LF

Corey Brown RF

Ryan Lavarnway C

Brock Holt SS

Mike McCoy 2B

An injury update on pitcher Matt Barnes. The former first rounder has been dealing with a sore shoulder and was shut down close to two weeks ago. Barnes is now playing catch from 120 feet and the Red Sox hope to get him on a mound by the end of the month. What that means is that he would be a long shot to open the season with the PawSox. It might not be too far from the beginning of the season when he joins the club, but opening night seems far fetched at this point.

Nonetheless, John Farrell says that Barnes is making excellent progress.

Check out the Pawtucket Red Sox Statistics



International League Stories from March 14, 2014


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