Yesterday, Nathan Eovaldi pitched like an Opening Day starter in his four innings, but that wasn’t the case with Martin Perez who is projected to be the #2 starter after Eduardo Rodriguez tested positive for COVID-19.
Perez only recorded one out in the first inning because the Red Sox stopped the inning short due to his pitch count. The game started off with him loading the bases before Jackie Bradley Jr. came to the plate.
The rest of his start wasn’t terrible but I recognized that he was having some trouble hitting his spots, specifically on inside pitches to right-handed hitters.
Andrew Benintendi looked amazing in his first three at-bats. He was 3-3 with two doubles in his first two plate appearances and then singled up the middle in his third appearance.
J.D. Martinez hit a fifth-inning home run to left field off Mike Shawaryn, which is certainly encouraging after getting off to a little bit of a slow start in Thursday’s intrasquad game. Martinez followed that up with a double down the left-field line his next at-bat. The crowd noise after the home run was weird and I could see why some players aren’t in favor of it.
Just as a reminder, as of now, all Red Sox intrasquad games are streamed on their official social media platforms.
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(Photo: John Tlumacki/Boston Globe)
