Cincinnati Reds phenom Chase Burns on Monday went from a memorable major league debut to a miserable second start against the Boston Red Sox.
After becoming the first starting pitcher in the expansion era to strike out the first five major league hitters he faced against the New York Yankees on Tuesday last week, the 22-year-old right-hander was tagged for seven runs, five earned, and got only one out as the Red Sox beat the Reds 13-6.
Trevor Story hit a three-run homer in the first inning as Boston collected five hits and had two walks.
Photo: AFP
“I hope it doesn’t get in the way of his next start,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “That’s tough. Tough on him, tough on us. A lot of people were putting their arm around him. He’s a good kid. It’ll be real interesting to see his next start.”
Burns, selected second overall by the Reds in the amateur draft, walked the leadoff batter, Jarren Duran, on a 99.9mph (160.8kph) fastball.
“Just trying to flush it and go back to the drawing board, see what works and what didn’t work, and go from there,” Burns said.
Francona was asked if he might have been tipping his pitches.
“That’s something that you always probably need to check,” he said. “He threw some pitches that caught a lot of the plate and they were definitely looking [fastball], and those are always things we try to check for.”
Francona went on to say that one of his former players — Red Sox manager Alex Cora — is good at picking things up.
“Cora is one of the best at that,’’ he said. “They were certainly ready, they were coming out hacking and they were squaring it up pretty good.”
Burns did not know if that could have been part of his problem, despite throwing a fastball near 100mph with a hard slider in the upper 80s.
“I don’t know. They put a lot of good swings on a lot of good pitches, a lot of mistakes out there,” he said. “Couldn’t really tell you.”
His defense also let him down when Roman Anthony hit a grounder that second baseman Matt McLain threw into short left field, attempting to get a force.
Abraham Toro lined a single to left for the first run and Carlos Narvaez followed by hitting the next pitch for an RBI double off the Green Monster. After a groundout, Story belted a 1-1 slider into the center-field bleachers, making it 5-0.
Story took some extra batting practice on the field about three-and-a-half hours before the game, hitting fastballs. It might have been part of Boston’s plan.
“He’s got electric stuff,” Story said. “I think we as an offense, we had a really good plan, and we were very convicted. We practiced the execution all day, and the execution really came out today during the game.”
David Hamilton added an RBI single and Francona lifted Burns after his second walk.
Anthony added an RBI single against Brent Suter, completing Burns’ pitching line.
Elsewhere, the Phillies thrashed the Padres 4-0, the Blue Jays edged the Yankees 5-4, the Pirates crushed the Cardinals 7-0, the Mariners sank the Royals 6-2, the Diamondbacks downed the Giants 4-2, the Athletics stung the Rays 6-4 and the Orioles overcame the Rangers 10-6 in 11 innings.
Additional reporting by staff writer
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
RSS