Ortiz, Porcello lead Red Sox to 10-2 rout of Tigers

A short break appears to have gotten Justin Upton back on the fast track.

Sunday, he might have started to prove it once again.

“He’s a very good pitcher who is very aggressive”, he said. Things hadn’t gone any better in Detroit, though.

With two hits Sunday following two more Saturday, Upton exceeded his trips to first base in the 10 games leading up to the weekend.

PHILLIES 5, DODGERS 4 (at Philadelphia) – Maikel Franco hit a go-ahead two-run home run in the seventh and Philadelphia beat the Los Angeles. Both homers cleared the bullpens before landing deep in the left-field seats. That is correct, I said THIRTEEN. “Nobody likes to struggle, but at the end of the day, I was kind of buried in it”.

“Absolutely not. I felt great”.

Benintendi struck out in his last at-bat Friday night, then went 0 for 3 with three whiffs on Saturday.

“That meant a lot to me, because those two guys are brothers to me – they are family”, Ortiz said. The Tigers took game one of this series on Thursday, 4-3.

Justin Verlander (13-7) allowed one run on three hits in six innings.

George Springer (4-for-5, two RBIs), Alex Bregman (3-for-5, two RBIs), Evan Gattis (3-for-4, one RBI) and Teoscar Hernandez (3-for-4, three RBIs) led the Houston offense.

Porcello has hinted that he might have been trying too hard to impress his new team or to live up to his first big contract. “If he was tired I don’t think you’d see that”. The Red Sox recalled him from the minors after Eduardo Rodriguez experienced left hamstring tightness.

In the third, the Tigers put runners on second and third with no outs.

NOTES: Boston manager John Farrell said Friday, “I think the game is ready” for a 20-second pitch clock. But Travis Shaw couldn’t quite corral what ended up being a double for Erick Aybar, and after the Sox elected to walk Miguel Cabrera, the blazing hot J.D. Martinez made it 2-0 by cueing a ground ball down the right field line.

“They all genuinely like Upton”, he said.

I don’t know that there is a more aesthetically pleasing Tiger to watch homer than Justin Upton.

Neither side would manage much offense until the bottom of the fifth, when Cabrera’s two-out single triggered a double from Martinez and a three-run homer from Upton to make the score 8-0.

The Tigers jumped on Red Sox spot starter Henry Owens with five runs in the third inning despite the lefty almost dancing out of a two-on, nobody out jam.

Porcello, who spent the first six seasons of his career with the Tigers before moving to Boston before the 2015 season, was pitching in Detroit for the first time since the trade.

“I wasn’t sure it was going to get out until I saw J.D. give up on it”.

“Honestly, at this point in my career, I can’t say I was putting pressure on myself; I just wanted to perform”, he said.

David Ortiz received a standing ovation in his last at-bat at Comerica Park and tipped his cap after a groundout to the right side.