Wed, Apr 22, 2015 page20

• Chen’s wildness, errors lead to Orioles loss

  • AP, BOSTON
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  Taiwan’s Chen Wei-yin’s start was drastically different from his previous one at Fenway Park.

  Chen (0-1) walked five, gave up five unearned runs and even bobbled a grounder for an error in Baltimore’s rain-shortened 7-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox in Monday’s annual Patriots’ Day game.

  “I didn’t really allow a lot of hard-hits balls out there,” Chen said through a translator. “Maybe I was trying to be too fine. I didn’t have a large strike zone, which leads to a lot of walks. I feel bad for my teammates.”

  

  Chen Wei-yin of the Baltimore Orioles pitches against the Boston Red Sox in their American League game at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, on Monday.

  Photo: USA Today

  The game was called after 6-1/2 innings following a 1 hour, 42 minute delay.

  In his prior start in Boston, Chen threw 5-2/3 perfect innings before allowing a hit on Sept. 10 last year in an Orioles victory.

  On Monday, he did not make it out of the fifth inning, allowing three hits and also hitting a batter.

  “The walks usually aren’t a challenge for him unless they’re intentional unintentional,” Baltimore manager Buck Showalter said. “I think I’ll chalk that off to the conditions. Everybody that was in had trouble throwing the ball where they wanted to, but, like I said, it’s a convenient excuse. Everybody knew when they came here this morning the conditions they’d be under.”

  Justin Masterson (2-0) benefited from five unearned runs, holding Baltimore to one run and three hits in five innings.

  “The errors kind of gift-wrapped or built into the four-run inning, along with some bases on balls,” Boston manager John Farrell said.

  The first pitch was thrown at 11:04am under cloudy skies on the Massachusetts holiday after Boston Marathon runners already were on the course that passes close to Fenway Park.

  With the score tied 1-1, Boston scored four runs in the third when Chen walked four and made an error, then third baseman Manny Machado committed another error.

  Chen gave up three hits and five walks after getting the win in Baltimore’s 7-6 victory at Fenway last year on Patriots’ Day, which commemorates the first battles of the Revolutionary War.

  Boston took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Mookie Betts singled, stole second, took third on catcher Ryan Lavarnway’s wild throw and scored on David Ortiz’s sacrifice fly.

  Baltimore tied it in the second on Travis Snider’s triple and Ryan Flaherty’s double.

  Xander Bogaerts led off the third with a walk, took third on a single by Ryan Hanigan and scored when Chen bobbled Betts’ grounder. Dustin Pedroia sacrificed and Allen Craig loaded the bases with a walk.

  Mike Napoli walked, forcing in a run, and Machado’s error allowed Betts and Craig to score.

  The Orioles made three errors, the first game this season in which they committed more than one. They have seven errors this year, three by pitchers.

  Boston made it 7-1 in the sixth inning. Hanigan was hit for the second time and scored on Pedroia’s double off Jason Garcia. After Ortiz was walked intentionally, Craig singled in Pedroia.

  Baltimore’s Adam Jones had his nine-game hitting streak snapped after going seven for 10 in the previous two games.
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