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Red Sox 8, Astros 4: Felix Doubront rebounds from rough first, Red Sox take series

Felix Doubront locked down after shaky first, and the Red Sox backed him up with plenty of offense as Boston secured the series win over the Houston Astros.

By Ben Buchanan
Jared Wickerham

The Red Sox secured a series win over the Houston Astros Saturday night with an 8-4 win in Fenway Park.

While he Sox would eventually walk away winners, the first inning provided anything but promise. For whatever reason, Felix Doubront started the game with his best impression of 2012 Daniel Bard, throwing ball after ball after ball. He would allow only one hit, but surrendered three walks and hit a batter, allowing the Astros to take a 2-0 lead which, frankly, was mercifully small.

From then on, oddly, Felix started dealing. It was as if he started the game an inning late. The combination of Doubront's propensity for strikeouts and the Astro's propensity to provide them finally did what was expected. Boston's southpaw would strike out eight batters over the next 5.2 innings, only slipping up again to allow a third run in the seventh, allowing a leadoff single that would score on a groundout..

The Red Sox lineup, meanwhile, had erased the deficit with a big second inning. Brad Peacock got it started by taking a page out of Doubront's book and walking Jarrod Saltalamacchia, but went in an entirely different direction by allowing a followup double to Will Middlebrooks. Stephen Drew went back to the walk, but it was a singe dropped into center by Jacoby Ellsbury that tied the game up. A diving play from Jose Altuve would rob Daniel Nava of a hit, but after another walk from Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz provided the big hit with a line drive to left that brought in two more, making it a 4-2 Boston lead. Ortiz would again bring in a run in the bottom of the fourth, this time on a sacrifice fly.

The Astros would briefly get back within two in the seventh inning, when Doubront allowed his third run, but the offense would see to putting the game away in the bottom of the inning, when the Sox would score three more on a series of singles against Hector Ambriz.

Unfortunately, the game would also feature a brief, disappointing appearance from Daniel Bard, who walked two batters, one of whom would eventually.score to make it 8-4. But Alex Wilson and Andrew Miller were able to close it out, giving the Red Sox their 17th win of the season.

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