Quotes, notes and stars: Red Sox 9, Indians 1

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BOSTON -- Quotes, notes and stars from the Boston Red Sox’ 9-1 win over the Cleveland Indians:

QUOTES 

* “We had a target range of pitches we were comfortable with . . . You balance what he’s doing today versus, not only the game, but certainly Joe [Kelly’s] return to us. Didn’t want to jeopardize that in any way.” - John Farrell on managing the length of Joe Kelly’s outing.

* “Overall command of the fastball was very big today. I was throwing the fastball to both sides of the plate today and just felt super strong out there . . . It’s just good to go out there and not think about [my shoulder] and get a little bit more extension on my fastball and the other pitches.” - Kelly said on his first back since coming off the disabled list

* “As a leadoff hitter it’s my job to get things started. But luckily in this lineup we can start from anywhere and I kind of think that’s how we did [it] today and we were able to extend a some rallies with a couple walks and a couple base hits.” - Mookie Betts said on his two-homerun performance in Boston’s nine-run onslaught.

* “It’s crazy. But there was a base open so they took full advantage of it.” - Jackie Bradley, Jr. on being intentionally walked twice by the Indians.

* “No he was going to be done after the seventh . . . He came back to us not because of a sprained ankle, it was a shoulder injury. So you’ve got to certainly take that into account.” - Farrell on why he wouldn’t have pitched Kelly past the seventh inning, even if he’d maintained his no-hit bid. 

NOTES

* Jackie Bradley, Jr. extends his streak to 26 games with his sixth inning infield single. It’s now the longest streak by a Boston hitter since David Ortiz hit safely in 27 straight games from July 2, 2012 to May 7, 2013 and is the longest single season hitting streak since Manny Ramirez’s back in 2006.

* Mookie Betts had his third multi-homerun game of his career, launching his second career grand slam in the process. His five-RBI performance is a career high. Betts has now hit safely in the last 11 games at Fenway.

* Joe Kelly nearly doubled his season totals in Saturday’s win after only throwing 8.2 innings through three starts before his shoulder impingement and striking out 11. His zero earned runs will help his ERA that was 9.35 entering the game. He has now won his last 10 decisions, spanning 13 starts. He’s the 16th Red Sox pitcher to do so in the past 100 years, the first since Clay Buchholz did so in 2013.

* Ryan Hanigan’s hand was x-rayed following Saturday’s game. The results were negative and he is day-to-day according to John Farrell.

STARS

1) Joe Kelly

After starting the season on a abysmal note, the righty was dominant in his first start back form the DL allowing just the one hit with two outs in the seventh inning.

2) Mookie Betts

Betts slammed the door on the dominating win after his seventh inning grand slam, adding to his solo shot in the fourth inning.

3) Jackie Bradley, Jr.

Despite getting a total of three pitches to hit all game, Bradley scraped out a hit to extend his hitting streak to 26 games.

Nick Friar can be followed on Twitter @ngfriar.

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