GAME #136 - SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2023 - BOSTON RED SOX @ KANSAS CITY ROYALS

[markj]

7:10PM Eastern

Red Sox

Tanner Houck (R)

Alex Verdugo (L) RF
Rafael Devers (L) 3B
Justin Turner (R) DH
Triston Casas (L) 1B
Adam Duvall (R) CF
Masataka Yoshida (L) LF
Trevor Story (R) SS
Reese McGuire (L) C
Enmanuel Valdez (L) 2B

Royals

Alec Marsh (R)

Maikel Garcia (R) 3B
Bobby Witt Jr. (R) SS
MJ Melendez (L) LF
Salvador Perez (R) 1B
Freddy Fermin (R) C
Michael Massey (L) 2B
Drew Waters (S) CF
Matt Beaty (L) DH
Nelson Velazquez (R) RF

Gametime Temp: 90F
Chance of Precip: 0%

[SeaBeachFred]

Thanks for the update markj but I will be watching football today until the Dodgers and Braves play at 6:00 PT.  Why I would subject myself to seeing our team's poop show is something only a glutton for punishment could endure.

[Schloicka]

Nice start to the game for the Sox for a change. 6-1 Sox so far.

[MongoLikeSox]

We saw most of the last 5-6 innings. I was rooting for Verdugo to hit a cycle.

The lead let them try to stretch Houck out a bit more. His pitch count in the 3 starts since coming back was 69, 80 and 95. It will be interesting to see if he can get up in the 90's again next week with a little less damage. Hitting the same batter 3 times was interesting.

Casas up to 265 now. People say the All-Star break, but I went and looked at the game log. He's actually had two plateaus this season. The first one was very late in May (26th) until the AS break when he hit .271 with 10 2b's, but only 2 HR's and an OPS of .793. His period after the All-Star break was even bigger, of course. He hit .338 with 13 HR's with a .338/.436/.669 slash line adding up to 1.105 OPS over 43 games.

The May 26th to Sept 2nd numbers puts him at about 1/2 a season (78 games). Double that to transpose the numbers to a 156 game season with a .307/.397/.563 slash line with a .960 OPS, 32 HR, 30 2B's and 83 RBI from mostly the 6th/7th spots. This is about where he should be next year if he lived up to the billing and the Red Sox's highest hopes. We'll also seeing improvement  at 1B with his scoops, positioning and decisiveness with his throws. It would be nice for us if it ended up working out this way, eh?