After being embarrassed in Saturday's contest, a game in which the Boston Red Sox lineup only combined for two hits, the Red Sox offense exploded in a big way on Sunday against the Blue Jays. The Red Sox hitters pounded out a total of 15 hits en route to scoring 13 runs, turning the game into the baseball version of a massacre.
Leading the offensive charge for the Red Sox was third baseman Will Middlebrooks, whose greatest hitting asset, hitting for a tremendous amount of power, was on full display. Middlebrooks was responsible for hitting three of the six Red Sox home runs, finishing the game with a monstrous batting line of .800 BA/.800 OBP/2.800 SLG with a 1.515 wOBA.
Thanks in large part to his home run hitting prowess, Middlebrooks's day at the plate allowed him to add a win probability of 0.11, tying him for the Red Sox game lead.
The player Middlebrooks tied with in win probability added, Mike Napoli, was the other offensive star. Each of Napoli's two hits in the game knocked in two runs, giving him four RBIs for the contest.
Together, Middlebrooks and Napoli batted in eight of the thirteen runs the Red Sox scored, propelling the team to a most deciding victory.
Although the offensive exploits of the Red Sox are most likely to capture the imagination, backing up the win was the stellar pitching by both starting pitching Jon Lester and relief pitcher Clayton Mortensen.
The two pitchers combined to sprinkle seven Blue Jays hits across nine innings and also struck out 10 batters while not distributing a single walk. They also failed to give up a single earned run, and as a result of their dominant pitching, they pitched to just a 0.91 fielding-independent ERA and a 1.92 expected fielding-independent ERA.
There will not be any more impressive victories for the Red Sox this season than this one where the team received such great contributions from both the offense (.539 wOBA) and the defense (0.00 ERA).
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