Trea Turner tied a career high with five hits, but Xander Bogaerts set the tone with a three-run shot off Aníbal Sánchez and the Red Sox made the early offense stand up in a 5-3 win over the Nationals at Fenway Park on Saturday night.
Turner went 5-for-5 with two doubles and a run scored. It was his third career five-hit game.
“Just be relaxed and getting a good pitch to hit in the zone,” Turner said on a postgame Zoom video call. “I felt like I got pitches to hit and didn’t miss them. That’s what it comes down to really. I feel like you can replay your at-bats from previous games and you could say, ‘Oh, this is when the at-bat should have been over, I should have hit this pitch at this time.’ Tonight I was good at executing that kind of game plan.”
But Sánchez allowed two homers on the night. The first one to Bogaerts came on a first-pitch fastball.
“The first inning, I thought the ball was up again, and then after that, he started settling in,” said manager Davey Martinez said of Sánchez’s night. “We talk about that with him all the time is that he has got to establish the bottom part of the strike zone for him to be successful. He knows that. Once he started getting the ball down, then he could elevate when he wants to. He was frustrated when he came out of the game because he knew he left some balls up that should have been down.”
Kurt Suzuki had two hits for the Nats offense that despite many opportunities was unable to generate more than a three-run outburst in the third inning. The Nats left 14 men on base in the loss and fell to 12-18.
In the first inning, Sánchez gave up a single to Alex Verdugo and a double off the Green Monster to J.D. Martinez. Bogaerts then crushed a three-run shot to center field, his ninth of the season, to give the Red Sox a 3-0 lead.
In the second inning, Kevin Pillar tripled after Victor Robles was unable to grab his long drive to deep center field. Pillar raced home on a Jackie Bradley Jr., grounder to first base for a 4-0 lead.
Boston tallied four runs and five hits off of Sánchez in the first two frames.
“In the first couple of innings, I feel (the) ball really weird,” Sánchez said. “I don’t know why. I don’t have an explanation for that. After that, I figured out how to put the ball down, especially because I need to work it with my changeup. I think I got a couple of pitches that I missed up, but I did it with a purpose. All the time, the key for me is working down. As soon as I elevate the ball when I don’t want to, I pay the price.”
The Nats battled back in the third thanks to some timely hitting and a fielding mistake from Red Sox starter Chris Mazza, all with no outs.
Turner doubled for the second time on the night to lead off the inning. Juan Soto’s grounder to the right of the mound was scooped by Mazza, but his glove flip went over the lead of first baseman Mitch Moreland. Turner raced home from second base and Soto ended up at second base. Mazza was charged with a throwing error.
Howie Kendrick brought Soto home with an RBI single to right field, cutting the Red Sox lead to 4-2. Adam Eaton lined a single to center field to score Kendrick and the Nats were within a run.
Pillar provided the Red Sox a critical insurance run with a solo homer in the fourth.
The Nats had a good shot to score in the fifth. Suzuki opened the inning with a single and moved to second on a groundout. After a walk to Eric Thames, Turner singled to left. With third base coach Chip Hale waving him home, Suzuki attempted to score from second, but was thrown out at the plate by the left fielder Verdugo.
“That’s tough but I think Chip had the right intent,” Martinez said. “The left fielder, when you go laterally away from home plate, you typically send the guy. I watched Suzuki, too. Suzuki had a great jump. So when he went left, I was with Chip. I thought he should send him right there. It just happened the guy made a good throw, put it right on the base. If the throw is up the line, he scores, but he put it right on home plate.”
Sánchez finished five innings, allowing five runs on eight hits with no walks and four strikeouts. He threw 85 pitches, 55 for strikes.
Suzuki extended his hitting streak to 11 games. Turner’s hitting streak has reached a career-high 14 games.
“Unlucky,” said Martinez on the 14 men left on base. “We are swinging the bats well, just one of those days. We had one or two hits in a big moment the game is different. Just keep playing hard, I think they swung really well today, so just got to come back tomorrow.”
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Turner has five hits, but early Red Sox runs stand up in 5-3 loss (updated) - MASNsports.com
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