It was Rubby De La Rosa‘s world last night and we all got to live in it. The young righty flamethrower was called up to start in place of the injured Clay Buchholz and did not disappoint in his first career start for the Boston Red Sox.
De La Rosa went seven innings, allowing four hits while striking out eight as the local nine beat the Tampa Bay Rays 7-1 at Fenway Park. It’s the sixth straight win for the Red Sox after losing 10 straight.
De La Rosa used all of his pitches effectively mixing in a changeup that the Rays hitters could do nothing with. When he fell behind in counts, he had the confidence to throw whatever A.J. Pierzynski put down. That’s a big difference from Buchholz who has been lost in his own world on the mound.
Offensively, Brock Holt hit his first big league home run as part of his two hits. Jackie Bradley, Jr. had his first home run of the season while Jonathan Herrera had three hits including a safety squeeze bunt. Herrera was starting in place of the injured Dustin Pedroia who had an MRI on his hand that came back negative.
Pierzynski and Grady Sizemore each had two hits with A.J. adding an RBI. Mike Carp had the other RBI for the Red Sox on sacrifice fly that scored Xander Bogaerts, who reached base three times last night (one hit, two walks).
PC/MOBILE/TABLET Link (full game recap)
For more slices of Red Sox goodness, head over to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, CSN New England, ESPN Boston, NESN, Providence Journal, RedSox.com and WEEI websites.
And if you must check out the enemy news, head over to the Tampa Times and Tampa Tribune websites.
photo credit: getty images
