Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports
The Boston Red Sox finished an impressive four game sweep of the Houston Astros on Sunday, but does it mean anything? After all, even Stephen Drew hit a triple against this pathetic excuse for a baseball team.
The Astros are the worst team to put on a baseball uniform since the Bad News Bears. I wrote several days ago that anything but a sweep of this team would have to be considered a failure. The Astros barely qualify as a Triple-A team. Their “ace” is Bud Norris, and their automatic selection to the All-Star team will likely be their 5-5 second basemen Jose Altuve. By sweeping the Astros the Red Sox merely did what they were supposed to do.
Going into the series the only game that seemed up for grabs was Sunday’s game. Clay Buccholz, Ryan Dempster, and Felix Doubrant cruised through the palpable Astros lineup in the first three games. However, in Sunday’s game John Lackey was making just his second start of the season after injuring his bicep during his first appearance against the Toronto Blue Jays, and was going up against Norris.
Lackey got off to a bad start and Red Sox nation collectively held their breath as he allowed the lowly Astros to score in the first inning. However, the Red Sox bats were up to the challenge in the bottom of the inning as David Ortiz continued his hitting streak, which dates back 302 days, by driving in Daniel Nava for the equalizer.
After allowing a leadoff single in the second inning to Matt Dominguez it seemed as if Lackey was reverting back to his 2011 form, when he had the worst ERA in MLB. However, all he did after that was retire 13 straight batters. The Red Sox bats continued to back him up and he departed after the sixth inning with a 5-1 Boston lead.
From that point on the bullpen did what it has done all season: put the game away. The trio of Clayton Mortensen, Koji Uehara, and Andrew Bailey threw a total of 11 balls on 40 pitches to put the game away.
So can the Red Sox take anything positive out of this series, or was the sweep merely a product of playing the worst team in baseball? The fact that Lackey remained healthy for six innings and was able to settle himself down after a rough start is a positive indicator regardless of the opponent. Additionally the consistent production of Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, and Daniel Nava is more than the result of going up against bad pitching. The Red Sox are playing every aspect of the game well right now, and if they continue to play this way they will have similar success against any opponent.
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