Red Sox Prospect Jalen Beeks Fans 8 Batters In First Start For PawSox, Pitching Staff Combines For 20 K’s

On Monday the Pawtucket Red Sox took on the Buffalo Bisons with Red Sox pitching prospect Jalen Beeks on the mound for his first start of the season.

The final score of this one was 4-3 with Pawtucket falling to the Bisons in extras in a 4 hr 1 minute game.

Beeks On The Hill To Start

Beeks’s start was originally scheduled for Saturday but was pushed back due to a snow cancellation on Friday and a Drew Pomeranz rehab start on Sunday.

Beeks’s outing started off rather rocky giving up 1 walk and a base hit to add up to an earned run with 22 (12 strikes) pitches tossed. Beeks got out of the inning with the PawSox getting Rowdy Tellez into a rundown but before tagging Tellez for the 3rd out Bisons shortstop Danny Espinosa was able to score. Beeks bounced back with a dominant second inning striking out three batters, two of them swinging.

The third inning was much of the same for Beeks but the clean inning continued to allude him giving up one base hit.  As for his 4th and final inning of work, Beeks allowed a leadoff single and then his 2nd walk of the game with no outs to present a dangerous situation. But he didn’t back down striking out Reese McGuire to get the needle trending back in the right direction. Beeks than labored against Jason Leblebijian with an 8 pitch at-bat that ended in Beeks getting the strikeout for his seventh k in the game. Beeks didn’t stop there though, after allowing the first two runners on to start the inning Beeks proceeded to strike out the side.

Rusney Castillo‘s first at-bat of the night on April 9th. Photo credit to Louriann Mardo of LMZ Artworks

Unfortunately for Beeks, he had 92 (58 for strikes) pitches thrown through 4 innings of work. Beeks’s high pitch count caused the relatively early hook for the prospect who was pulled after the 4th inning with Pawtucket’s bullpen responsible for the final 5 innings of the game.

Beeks’s final line was 4 innings giving up 4 base hits and 2 walks allowing 1 run which was earned with 8 strikeouts in a start which will be considered a no-decision.

Overall Beeks had his fastball sitting around 93 mph which is sort of impressive given the low 40s weather he was pitching in and that it was only his first start of the season. He was able to work in

Buttrey Gives Up Monster Shots In First Regular Season Appearance

Red Sox relief prospect Ty Buttrey was the first one out of the pen for Kevin Boles with the hard-throwing reliever giving up a solo home run to Dwight Smith Jr. to make it a 2-1 ball game.

Buttrey’s rough night continued though in his second inning of work with Blue Jays catching prospect Danny Jansen launching a monster solo home run out over the PawSox bullpen in the top of the 6th inning making it a 3-1 game.

Buttrey was done after giving up 2 runs on 2 base hits in 2 innings of work. Buttrey was able to strike out 5 of the 6 outs he recorded and had his fastball topping out at 98 mph on a cold April night. Still not an ideal start to the season for Buttrey in his first outing of the season.

Right-handed reliever Kyle Martin was the second man out of the bullpen pitching the 7th inning for the PawSox. Martin had a clean 7th inning for the PawSox striking out one batter and throwing 16 pitches. Martin’s final line was 1.2 innings giving up 1 base hit and striking out 1 batter. The one hit Martin allowed which was a double should have been caught by left-fielder Jeremy Barfield who badly misjudged a fly ball that then got over his head.

Robby Scott came in to clean up and finish the 8th inning. Scott struck out the only batter he faced in the 8th inning on 6 pitches. Scott started off the top of the 9th in the same fashion getting Jason Leblebijian to strike out. The reconfiguring major leaguer then gave up an infield single to Roemon Fields causing PawSox Manager Kevin Boles to bring in Ryan Brasier.

Brasier saw time in the majors during the 2013 season with the Angels and spent the 2017 season in Japan. He started off his relief appearance striking out Tim Lopes and then completed the 9th inning by striking out Dwight Smith Jr. Brasier was back out for the start of the 10th inning and is the first PawSox pitcher to pitch under the new extra inning rules but more on that later. He was able to go the entire 10th striking out one batter to boot.

Brasier was on for the start fo the 11th as well with Boles needing to get extended action out of the journeyman. Brasier had a clean 11th recording one more strikeout as well. Boles put the cruising Brasier back out for the top of the 12 but after the runner from 2nd was moved to 3rd with one out the Bisons drove across their fourth run of the game with a Tim Lopes single bringing the run across the plate. The run was unearned since the runner that scored started the inning at second base. After the run scored Brasier was able to get a double-play to get Pawtucket to the bottom of the 12th only down one run.

As a whole, the Pawtucket Red Sox pitching staff recorded 20 strikeouts.

Chad De La Guerra Running the bases on April 9th. Photo credit to Louriann Mardo of LMZ Artworks.

At The Dish, PawSox A Little Cold With No Pop To Be Found In The Cold

Pawtucket scored their first run of the game in the first inning with Rusney Castillo scoring on a Ramon Flores groundout making it a 1-1 ball game at the time.

The PawSox lineup brought in their second run of the game in the bottom of the 6th inning with a Jeremy Barfield sacrifice fly to center field bringing in Aneury Tavarez from 3rd to make it a 3-2 ballgame. Pawtucket followed their 6th inning run up with another in the 7th tieing the game up at 3-3 with Aneury Tavarez singling up the middle driving in Chad De La Guerra from 3rd base.

PawSox batters scrapped together just 6 base hits and 5 walks in 12 innings scoring 3 runs with 12 runners left on base and a 2-for-19 line with runners in scoring position.

First Time With New Extra Inning Rules For Pawtucket

Monday nights extra inning game is the first time that the Pawtucket Red Sox have played under MiLB new extra inning rules.

Under the new rule, a runner started on second base starting in the top of the 10th inning. So history of sorts was made at McCoy Stadium.

It appears for this game that the new rule didn’t play much of a factor though with extra innings not ending right away and instead getting a typical prolonged action. Of course, the winning did come in from 2nd so in theory the rule is a success.

Next Up For The Pawtucket Red Sox

Tuesday 6:15 pm LHP Ryan Borucki vs RHP William Cuevas

Wednesday 12:05 pm RHP Deck McGuire vs RHP Chandler Shepherd

With frigid temperatures remaining in Southern New England the Pawtucket Red Sox have had to resort to drastic measures to get the fans out to McCoy Stadium.

Starting Monday night and running through Wednesday all fans will be able to attend the three-game series with the Buffalo Bisons for free.

Initially, the PawSox in a partnership with CVS Health was going to just provide kids aged 16 & under free admission with a paying adult on Monday-Thursday home games throughout the entire 2018 season. But with temperatures sitting in the 40s the team has expanded this to all ages.

“While it may not be the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, we realize it will certainly be a bit brisk at McCoy Stadium these next three days,” said PawSox Executive Vice President and General Manager Dan Rea. “With that in mind, we offer all fans free general admission tickets for the games tonight and tomorrow (both at 6:15 pm) and Wednesday afternoon at 12:05 pm.”

For fans who have already purchased tickets to these three games, they will receive a free flex ticket that can be used for future PawSox home games. As for the season ticket holders they will be invited to view the three games from the field-level suites.

Paid Attendance Through 2 Games:

Saturday (Opening Day): 2,316

Sunday: 4,369

The organization is keeping an eye out for their fans and want to try and keep them warm as baseball season gets underway in Pawtucket.

“Our hearty fans braved chilly weather this weekend-and had a great time doing so,” said PawSox President Dr. Charles Steinberg. “We seek to thank the fans who weather wintery weather-whether it’s with blankets, suites, or the warmth of being our guests.”

Based on early attendance with the cold weather this is a smart move for the organization but even with the free incentive, Monday’s attendance numbers are expected to be incredibly low with temperatures in the low 40s.

With Boston Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts going on the 10-day-dl the corresponding move is the call-up of Tzu-Wei Lin.

Shortly after Boston announced Bogaerts going on the DL the Pawtucket Red Sox announced that it would indeed be Lin receiving the call-up to the majors. Lin wasn’t in Pawtucket’s Monday night lineup against the Buffalo Bison hinting towards this being the play for Boston.

This is Lin’s third stint in the majors with his first and second coming back in 2017.

The 24-year-old hyper utility player batted .268 in 56 at-bats with a .369 OBP with appearances at second, short, and third base for Boston.

Lin is one of two Taiwan-born players to appear in a major league game for the Boston Red Sox with the other being outfielder Che-Hsuan Lin back in 2012. Lin is also only the fourth player born in Taiwan to appear in a major league game.

Baseball America has Lin as the 21st ranked prospect within the Boston Red Sox system and is currently in his 7th professional season.

So far in two games for Pawtucket Lin has gone 3-for-6 with both games coming at shortstop.

Lin does have the ability to play out of the infield though with the former international free agent seeing time centerfield at both the Double-A and Triple-A level.

The expectations with Lin is that when Bogaerts returns he will be sent back down to Pawtucket. But one cannot rule out the possibility if he outperforms Brock Holt that he could, in theory, remain on the roster with Holt still having options left.