Red Sox extend win streak to 10 with shutout of Rays
Baseball
Associated Press
Rookie Jake Bennett tossed six innings of one-hit ball, and Masataka Yoshida and Carlos Narvaez each homered as the Boston Red Sox extended their winning streak to 10 games with a 10-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday in the first game of a doubleheader.
Narvaez and Jarren Duran each drove in three runs for Boston, which had entered the All-Star break with nine straight wins, all on the road. With their first 10-game win streak since last July, the Red Sox (47-48) moved within one game of .500 for the first time since their third game of this season.
Boston has allowed 14 runs during the streak, its fewest over a 10-game span during the live ball era (since 1920).
Yoshida, Navarez and Caleb Durbin each had three hits. The Red Sox outhit the AL East-leading Rays 15-3.
Bennett (5-3) struck out three as he won his fourth straight start. After issuing his only walk with one out in the first, the left-hander retired nine straight before Junior Caminero singled in the fourth.
Alex Gamboa worked the final three innings for his first save.
Judge not healed: Aaron Judge’s broken rib has not completely healed, and the New York Yankees captain still hasn’t been cleared to resume baseball activities.
Judge hasn’t played since May 31 because of the stress fracture in his right ribs. He had a scan during the All-Star break and called the result positive news.
“Part of it’s healing. The other part of its still trying to bridge together,” the three-time AL MVP said before the Yankees started the second half Friday night against the two-time World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers.
Judge and the Yankees were waiting for an evaluation of the scans from Dr. Gregory J. Pearl, chair of the department of vascular surgery at Baylor Hamilton Heart and Vascular Hospital in Texas. Judge will need another scan before he is cleared for baseball activities and given a time frame for a return.
“I’m going to wait for the doctors to kind of tell us what to do and what they see when they look at it,” Judge said. “We got a big team of guys looking at this just so we get the best answer and have the right plan.”
Judge is hitting .248 with 17 homers and 38 RBIs but had just one homer in his last 18 games. The 34-year-old outfielder has done lower-body work, treadmill and climbing steps but no baseball activities or heavy weightlifting. He’s stopped the bicycle work he did earlier in the layoff.
“It’s feeling better. It was a couple weeks that were tough, couldn’t do a lot, but now we’re feeling 10 times better,” he said. “So that was my big complaint, well, if I’m feeling better, how about we start moving? But I think they just don’t want to start adding baseball activities and other stuff and all of a sudden we have a setback and it pushes everything back.”
When he is able to play, Judge doesn’t want to go on a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment.
Rooker out for season: Athletics designated hitter and outfielder Brent Rooker had season-ending left knee surgery Friday, a tough loss of a leader both on and off the field for the club.
The team expects him to return in time for the start of spring training next year.
Dr. Tim McAdams and Dr. Mike Freehill performed the debridement procedure of Rooker’s articular cartilage tear at Stanford Orthopedic Hospital in Redwood City and also removed loose bodies.
Rooker, who has had an injury-plagued year after he played in all 162 games last season, had received a cortisone shot last month for the knee and was rehabilitating from a bone bruise before seeking further evaluation at Stanford.
He also missed 15 games in April with a strained right oblique muscle.
A two-time All-Star, he batted .200 with 10 home runs and 29 RBIs over 48 games this season. Rooker received a five-year contract worth $60 million ahead of last season.
Interleague
MLB restricts dugout iPad use: Major League Baseball is restricting iPad usage in dugouts to prevent the tablets from running artificial intelligence to help make decisions.
The tablets have access to video and league-provided data, and also included a custom tab where teams could access other programs. MLB made the custom tabs inaccessible to teams starting Wednesday night, when the second half of the season started.
“In many cases, the custom tab had expanded the use of the dugout iPads beyond their originally intended purpose to include recommendations regarding substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches,” MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword wrote in a June 11 memo to general managers, assistant GMs and video coordinators.
A review by the competition committee found clubs had been compliant with the regulations.
“Instituting this prohibition beginning with the second half of the season is intended to provide clubs that have relied on the custom tab with appropriate lead-time to make any necessary adjustments,” Sword wrote.
MLB started a pilot program allowing use of iPads in dugouts with restrictions late in the 2015 season and expanded their use in 2016 under a deal with Apple. Video was eliminated in the 2020 COVID season following the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, then returned in 2021.