Orioles Get Bogaerted

Posted on April 18, 2015 in Game Recap

We’ve had home games all week, but today was the first day that I’d really had to deal with Sox traffic on the T. I’d kinda forgotten how much it stinks. I can’t wait until it’s 90 degrees outside in late July on top of the congestion. I ended up with my right arm pressed up against this chubby dude’s back, trying to read my book (in a really boring part right now, so not even a good distraction) while actively sweating and trying to push the train towards Kenmore by sheer force of will. Needless to say, it took like a full twenty-plus minutes to get to Kenmore from South Station. FEEL THE EXCITEMENT.

Anyway, THE GAME. Joe Kelly was on the mound for the Sox, and he looked decently sharp, but his command was juuuust off enough to be a problem, as he racked up 118 pitches in 5 and 2/3 innings. The kid obviously throws gas, yeah, but he doesn’t have a real out pitch. Not yet anyway.

On the other side, the Orioles had Ubaldo Jiménez, he of the mercurial performance. Both pitchers had 1-2-3 innings in the first, including a beautiful full-count two-seam fastball on the outside edge by Jiménez that completely fooled Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia was shocked – I don’t think he believed that the ball could’ve come back into the zone.

After striking out Adam Jones with his own brand of fastball on the outside edge, Kelly gave up a wall-ball double off the Green Monster to Chris Davis, but he had a little help from Hanley Ramirez in getting to second.

Tough look. For now, let’s chalk it up to an adjustment period for Hanley. But having the last name “Ramirez” and a tenuous grasp on how to play left field at Fenway is definitely gonna get you some jokes tossed in your direction, Hanley. Head on a swivel.

Kelly eventually got out of what turned into a 1st-and-3rd situation with 2 outs by striking out Everth Cabrera with gas thrown off the plate to the outside. In the bottom half of the 2nd, Sandoval worked a walk, setting the stage for a curiously important play. The next batter, Napoli, grounded into what probably wouldn’t have been an inning-ending double play anyway, but especially not after an ambitious takeout slide by Sandoval, who plowed directly through Orioles’ second baseman Jonathan Schoop’s legs.

He was fully touching the bag for sure, and Righty thinks he had a chance to be safe at second if he’d just gone for the base instead of the takeout. In any case, it went down as a fielder’s choice, and the inning ended two batters later as Bogaerts grounded out hard to Manny Machado at third base, who ran ahead to touch the base himself.

Bogaerts made a terrific play to start off the top of the third and keep Kelly happy, diving to his right and making an iffy one-hop throw (with a great stretch from Napoli) to rob Schoop of a single. Around this time, Don and Jerry were making a real hard sell on some $300 million lottery jackpot. This quickly became a discussion about what you would do with $300 million. Don made a crack about never seeing Jerry again if Jerry were to win the jackpot, and then things got very serious and Jerry seemed mildly offended that Don assumed he would ever leave his job at NESN. It was kind of weird.

In the top of the 4th, Kelly gave up back-to-back singles, with Travis Snider advancing to third on Adam Jones’ hit. The next batter, Davis, hit into a double play (4-6-3) but the runner scored, making it 1-0. With two outs in the next inning, Jiménez plunked Sandoval and was IMMEDIATELY ejected.

The ejection was probably the right move, assuming that it was retaliation for the Sandoval takeout slide on Schoop. But it was also still one of the quicker hooks I’ve ever seen. I was shocked until Jerry brought the takeout slide to the attention of viewers with diminished memory skills (me). For what it’s worth, I don’t think Sandoval meant for the takeout slide to be a dirty play in any way – he even gave Schoop a gentleman’s butt pat after he was forced out at second on another fielder’s choice by Napoli to end the inning. It looked like Schoop ignored it, but hey, what can you do?

To lead off the 5th inning, Kelly got ahead of Baltimore catcher Caleb Joseph 0-2, but on a pitch intended to be outside, he left it over the plate. Joseph sliced it down the line towards the Pesky Pole and over the outstretched arm of Shane Victorino to double the lead to 2-0. The next 3 Orioles went down in order.

In the bottom half, Bogaerts hit another screamer down the third base line, but this one skipped over the base and careened off the wall into short left, getting Bogaerts to 1st with one out. Ryan Hanigan, who struck out looking in his other two at-bats on the night from the 9-hole, took advantage.

With the score now knotted at two thanks to Hanigan’s golf shot to left, the Orioles led off the inning with a line shot by Steve Pearce into Dustin Pedroia’s shift-aided glove…but Pedroia dropped it. Did the shift throw him off? Possibly, but it’s his second error in the first ten games of the season. Hopefully it doesn’t become something to really worry about. Three batters later, Kelly was pulled after his 118th pitch of the night and Edward Mujica came in to strike out Manny Machado and end the threat.

This is getting way too long again because I am a long-winded…windbag. So 7TH-9TH INNING LIGHTNING ROUND!:

  • Hanigan threw too high to catch a stealing Everth Cabrera (it looked like he cocked his arm back too far, according to Righty) and was visibly pissed about it. Fortunately, Cabrera was stranded at second.
  • Junichi Tazawa came in and performed dominantly, striking out both Travis Snider and Adam Jones with nasty splitters. Hanigan had to block both third strikes after they bounced off the dirt and throw the runners out at first.
  • Uehara looked equally dominant in the 9th, going 1-2-3 with two strikeouts himself.

Okay. BOTTOM OF THE NINTH. Napoli started out the inning by walking on four pitches.

Nava, who replaced Pedroia in the 6th inning, then laid down, frankly, a pretty bad bunt to the 1st base side. Steve Pearce had a legitimate chance to get Napoli at second. Instead, he hesitated and elected to toss over to 1st for the easy out. Two pitches later, Bogaerts slapped a bloop to right field and Napoli, depending on your point of view, either took a crazy chance or had an unbelievable read on the ball. He booked it towards third base virtually on contact, and scored the winning run fairly easily ahead of the throw from right.

Sorry this is so long. Bogaerts is hitting pretty well, huh? We even won this one without any contributions from Brock Holt! What are the odds? The end.

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