Wade delivering another shutdown pitch. Classic Wade. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
For the first time in the month of May 2015, the Red Sox have won a series. It wasn’t exactly a magical performance, but 2 out of 3 is 2 out of 3. That’s just basic math.
The listed highlights on MLB.com for this one are mostly A’s videos, even though they put up zero runs against Wade Miley and the 1-2 combination of Tazawa and Uehara. In fact, out of 14 videos, there are as many Red Sox highlights (5) as there are Coco Crisp highlights. I guess what I’m saying is COCO IS BACK BABY.
From a certain perspective, Miley had a terrible start. He let people on base because he liked the cut of their jib, including the first two batters of the game on eight straight balls after a strike to start things off. In the first six innings he pitched, Miley allowed at least one runner into scoring position 5 separate times (the 5th inning being the only exception), each time with less than 2 outs. In each of the first three innings, Miley allowed a runner to reach third but no farther, including Marcus Semien, who led off the 3rd inning with a triple over Mookie Betts‘ head. Mookie misplayed it pretty badly – possibly losing it in the sun? – by running pretty nonchalantly in its general direction until he realized it was going over his head, turning on the afterburners a little too late to catch up.
But as in every other inning, Miley found a way out of the jam. He wasn’t doing it with nasty stuff: he only had one strikeout on the day. He wasn’t necessarily doing it with the sinker: he actually got the A’s to fly out (10) more than ground out (9). He wasn’t getting bailed out by his defense: most of the plays made by the Sox were fairly routine (excepting this outstanding pick by Sandoval that kept the game-tying run at second base). The best you could say for ol’ Wade was that he induced weak contact, serving up pitches that looked hittable but never resulted in anything better than a triple over the center fielder’s head that Jackie Bradley, Jr. would’ve caught with his eyes closed.
So is inducing weak contact a thing? So far this year for Miley, it is, according to Fangraphs. He’s giving up less line drives and less hard-hit balls. As the statheads say though, things always regress to the mean, and Miley hasn’t been good even with these possible anomalies.
On a day when five Red Sox went 0-4, including Brock Holt, who’s now below .300 for the first time since he went 0-1 on April 9, and the team as a whole only managed to draw one walk, they still managed to plate two runs. How? Righty’s blog title from yesterday’s game comes to mind – the ugly way, with a struggling Daniel Nava as the key cog.
Sonny Gray pitched seven innings, with five 1-2-3 appearances. But where the Athletics struggled to plate runners in scoring position, Boston managed to bring home its only runner to reach second base against Gray in the second inning. After a leadoff single by Hanley, the next two batters struck out, but the pitch got away from Oakland catcher Phegley (that is one ugly last name) and Ramirez trotted as slowly as possible to second. Then, according to MLB.com, “Nava flare[d] a run-scoring single to left,” which is probably the kindest possible description of what happened. Make no mistake, this was a pop-up. But it was one of those pop-ups that immediately looked uncatchable, and so it was, bouncing easily in front of Crisp to score Ramirez from second easily, as he’d obviously been running on contact. Better lucky than good.
After a much cleaner single by Nava to lead off the eighth and a botched bunt by Jackie Bradley, Sandy León managed to get plunked by a curveball, pushing Nava into scoring position, just the second runner to touch second base for the Sox all afternoon. And after a disappointing full count strikeout by Mookie, Marcus Semien (currently tied for the league lead in errors with Ian Desmond, with 11) airmailed a would-be inning-ending ground ball by Pedroia over Canha’s head at first, allowing Nava to score. For what it’s worth, the scorer gave Pedey an infield single and awarded the Sox’ baserunners another base on Semien’s throwing error. Again – better lucky than good. This is one of those games that drive stat guys crazy, a game that, by the numbers, the Red Sox should not have been in position to win…and yet they did. The 2015 Red Sox, everybody!
P.S. Forgot to mention, Tazawa was lights out over 1.1 and Uehara was near enough to lights out to make no difference. I love those guys.