News for Mitch Moreland - 2018 5x5 Mixed League - $260 cap

Show news on or before
Sun Oct 28 201801:45Pierced! Pearce sparks top of slumping Red Sox lineup
LOS ANGELES (AP) — His team down by a run, Steve Pearce was limbering up outside the Boston dugout before the eighth inning when manager Alex Cora called him back to the bench for a quick word.Whatever Cora said, it must've worked.He might want to share that wisdom with Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez, too.Moments after the brief consult, Pearce stepped up and launched a tying homer. He added a three-run double as the Red Sox scored five more times in the ninth, rallying past the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-6 on Saturday for a 3-1 lead at the World Series."We don't only rely on two guys," Cora said.The well-traveled Pearce certainly pierced the Dodgers.But the biggest boppers at the top of Boston's lineup? They're still waiting to do damage at Dodger Stadium.Betts and Martinez, possibly the two leading candidates for AL MVP, haven't gotten a hit since the Series shifted to the West Coast.Overall, the top four spots in the Red Sox batting order are a combined 3 for 45 with 16 strikeouts in those two games for the highest-scoring team in the big leagues.Thanks to the likes of Mitch Moreland, Rafael Devers, Brock Holt and others, the Red Sox broke loose late."It's crazy. You kind of see that offensive halt for 20-something innings or however long it was," Martinez said. "Then you see them come out and score a couple of runs and sometimes that right there can spark an offense.""I think that's kind of what it did. It kind of got everything going and you saw everybody loosen up and just try to go out there and compete again," he added.Martinez took a couple more shaky swings in Game 4, striking out twice against Rich Hill and later fanning for a third time. The slugger led the majors with 130 RBIs this season and drove in two runs in each of the first two wins at Fenway Park.But Martinez rolled his ankle rounding second on a double in the opener and, despite getting treatment since landing in Los Angeles, hasn't looked locked in at the plate.Nothing so obvious with Betts, who topped the majors in batting and slugging this season. After going 0 for 7 in an 18-inning loss that ended early Saturday, he managed only a long flyball in four tries during this win.Xander Bogaerts and Andrew Benintendi haven't done much lately, either, at the top of the order.Not that the Red Sox needed them much beyond Pearce. He delivered after Moreland's pinch-hit, three-run homer in the seventh put a huge dent in the Dodgers' 4-0 lead."We've won 108 games, and obviously we've got some guys, MVPs and that type guys on our team. But it's taken all 25 of us to get where we are today," Moreland said.___More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/tag/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports