Red Sox Minor Lines: Jalen Beeks and Tanner Houck take the mound

Pawtucket W 5-4

Tzu-Wei Lin, 3B: 0-4, 1 K

Aneury Tavarez, RF: 1-4, 1 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI, 2 K, 1 SB

Sam Travis, LF: 0-4, 3 K

Mike Olt, 1B: 1-3, 1 HR, 1 BB, 2 R, 1 RBI, 1 K

Ramon Flores, DH: 2-3, 1 2B, 1 BB, 1 R, 1 K, 1 SB

Cole Sturgeon, CF: 2-4, 2 2B, 2 RBI, 1 K

Jalen Beeks: 6 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 6 K (95 pitches)

Hector Velazquez: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K (13 pitches)

Austin Maddox: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 4 BB, 1 K (37 pitches)

It says a whole lot about Beeks’ season to this point that I look at this performance and feel that it’s kind of disappointing. Four runs? What’s even the point?! He did allow a couple of home runs so this was a reminder that he can lose his spot once in a while, though he also didn’t walk any batters. It was also nice to see Velazquez back out there dominating, and to see Maddox make another rehab outing. The latter’s didn’t go so well, though. Still, the bullpen is returning to health and it’s going to be interesting to see how it looks in a few weeks.

Salem W 5-1

Santiago Espinal, SS: 3-5, 1 HR, 2 R, 2 RBI, 1 K

Brett Netzer, 2B: 2-5, 1 2B, 1 RBI, 1 K

Roldani Baldwin, DH: 0-4, 1 BB, 2 K, 1 SB

Bobby Dalbec, 3B: 1-3, 1 BB, 1 K

Tyler Hill, RF: 0-3, 1 BB, 2 K

Tanner Houck: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 0 K (69 pitches)

Even when Houck has an impressive outing, it doesn’t feel that exciting underneath it all. It seems wild that a pitcher with his kind of stuff can throw six innings of one-run ball and not strike out a single batter, but that’s what happened here. Of course, we don’t know what the plan was heading into the game, and it’s possible that they want him to focus solely on command right now and not worry about missing bats. He did walk three batters, which isn’t great, and he allowed five hits, though four of them were singles, but he also seemed to be able to induce double plays when he needed it. Given his season so far, this was a step in the right direction for Houck despite the lack of strikeouts.

Greenville L 10-11 (F/10)

Lorenzo Cedrola, CF: 3-6, 2 R, 1 K, 1 E

Frankie Rios, SS: 2-6, 1 2B, 2 R, 1 RBI

Zach Sterry, 1B: 2-5, 1 2B, 1 BB, 1 R, 2 RBI

Victor Acosta, LF; 3-6, 1 R, 1 RBI

Michael Osinski, DH: 2-5, 1 2B, 1 R

Marino Campana, RF: 2-5, 1 HR, 1 R, 1 RBI, 3 K, 1 E

Kervin Suarez, 2B: 2-5, 1 HR, 1 R, 2 RBI, 1 K, 1 E

Well, the Drive took the loss but the good news is they got a huge performance from the offense. Eight players in Greenville’s lineup left this game with a hit and seven of those players had multiple knocks on the day. This has been an up-and-down lineup, to put it nicely, all year, so these kinds of explosions are fun to see. Cedrola in particular is someone we want to see at least hitting for average, and he got that mark up to .333 on the year.

Player of the Day: Today, Santiago Espinal gets the nod for the best player of the day. The shortstop prospect, a tenth round pick two years ago, has quietly been great to start this season. After his big day on Monday the 23-year-old is hitting .310/.368/.524 in 37 games. The power is particularly surprising, especially since Salem is a somewhat notorious pitcher’s park. If he keeps this up, I’d expect to see him in Portland at some point this summer.