Red Sox trade Napoli to Texas

With Henry Owens making his second major league start against former Cy Young Award victor Justin Verlander, and Jackie Bradley Jr. coming into Sunday hitting just.121, it wasn’t a duo one would think could propel the Red Sox to a series-ending win.

David Ortiz has a home run among his three hits but Boston falls to the Tigers, 7-6.

The Red Sox were also expected to be without closer Koji Uehara, who was hit on his throwing arm by a comebacker on the final play of Friday night’s win over the Tigers. “Pitch counts? I stopped pitching when the game ended”, he said….

Schwarber, who homered the previous two games, also scored two runs to help put the Cubs 1 1/2 games ahead of San Francisco for the second wild card.

It’s already a done deal that Ortiz is going to have a Red Sox-for-life type of arrangement when his career is over. There are all kinds of stories, rumors, game coverage, and Vines of dudes getting hit in the beans every day. Hanley Ramirez and Xander Bogaerts led the Red Sox with a pair of 2-run doubles, while David Ortiz hit his 22nd home run of the season and his 20th at Comerica Park, the most by a visiting player since it opened. De Aza flied out to center fielder Gose.

Verlander’s outing was encouraging for the Tigers even if his record did drop to 1-5 with his fourth loss in as many decisions at home this season.

The Red Sox scored both of their runs against Verlander in the second inning.

3 runs, 4 hits, 0 errors, 1 left on.

In Washington, Stephen Strasburg returned to the Nationals’ rotation with a bang, striking out 12 in seven innings and contributing three hits.

The Boston Red Sox have lost six of their last eight road games. The first came earlier this season, when he appeared in five games and went 1 for 7.

Alfredo Simon, who had a couple extra days to rest a sore groin, allowed six runs on nine hits and one walk over 6 2/3 innings with one strikeout for the Tigers.

“Those innings can be frustrating if you let them”, Verlander said. “I was going right at him, and just missed”.

Those five represent a base to build around, along with developing players such as J.D. Martinez, Jose Iglesias, James McCann, Nick Castellanos and Anthony Gose.

Now, to fully understand what the Red Sox Strut is, it means to have reason to walk with a confident, proud air around you.

The Tigers, meanwhile, only accounted for two runs of offense, on a Victor Martinez RBI single in the third inning and Marte’s solo shot – his third of the season – in the seventh inning.

Although the Tigers have told Cabrera not to push his recovery and risk further injury, he is targeting the start of Detroit’s next homestand on August. 20.