Righty Does Houston, Back to Back Blogs

Posted on July 22, 2015 in Game Recap

Thanks to a happy coincidence, I was in Houston last night on a business trip, and so were the Red Sox. As a result, I’m blogging back-to-back games, which will totally throw off the natural order of the universe, since Lefty and I have now “switched” games. Anyway, I hope my business in Texas goes smoother than the Red Sox’ business. Last night was the much-anticipated debut of Brian Johnson and it was a mixed bag.

Johnson would give up a run in the first, and have a shaky second. In the mean time, the Red Sox offense was still enjoying their extended All-Star break, striking out 4 times in the first two innings.

Sidenote: I actually liked this guy, unlike the last guy who sat near me at a game that I tweeted about.

In the top of the 3rd everything changed. 

After a Pedroia groundout moved Mookie to 3rd, Xander would knock him in with a line drive single up the middle. From my vantage point it sounded like The X broke his bat on both of his hits.

Now staked with a two-run lead (as pointed out by Mr. Righty, my father, this was the Sox’ first lead since the All-Star break) Johnson needed a shutdown inning.

Pretty impressive stuff from the rookie, who relied heavily on his curveball, which seems to be his best pitch. He certainly doesn’t throw hard. The Minute Maid Park scoreboard operator called his fastball a changeup until the 3rd. He got the side in order again in the 4th before running into trouble in the 5th.

Back-to-back singles and a sharp grounder that Sandoval was able to turn into a force out at second after a diving stop put runners on the corners with one out. At this point Torey Lovullo stood up in the Red Sox dugout and gave the defensive signals to the middle infielders and the catcher. I immediately said to my cousin “I hope that doesn’t mean throw down” because this is the 2015 Red Sox and things never work out the way they should, so playing it safe would’ve been preferable. (By “throw down” I mean try to get the runner going to second in the event of a steal instead of looking him off and making sure the runner at 3rd stays put; not fight, which would’ve been more fun to watch). Sure enough, Marisnick steals second, Hanigan throws the ball away, and both the runner on 3rd (Carter) AND Marisnick score, tying the game. I know hindsight is 20/20, and with a rookie on the mound they might’ve been thinking they could steal an out, but HOLY SHIT you could see that coming from a mile away.

Masterson would come in and do his thing (plunk a guy, give up a double, etc.), tacking another run onto Johnson’s line.

Pitchers IP  H  R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
Johnson (L, 0-1) 4.1 3 4 4 4 3 0 87-50 8.31

I’m very confused because the park had both of the “stolen base” runs as unearned but it looks like they both counted against Johnson? How can both be earned when there was an error on the run-scoring play? In either case, Johnson deserved better.

Nothing else good really happened for the Red Sox so I stopped tweeting. So now I’ll stop recapping. If you don’t have anything good to say…

Notes:

-Xander is still raking.

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