Month: October 2015

Red Sox Season Ends, Don Orsillo Rounds Third

Posted on October 5, 2015 in Game Recap

I love this team.

The Red Sox scored their final run of the season in the top of the 1st on Sunday afternoon. With two outs, Xander Bogaerts hit a double down the right field line. It was his 196th and last hit of the season. Five pitches later, David Ortiz collected his 108th RBI of the year with a double of his own to give Boston and Rick Porcello an early 1-0 lead. Papi’s hit was an absolute laser off the wall in left-center.

The side was retired in hilarious fashion when Ortiz optimistically attempted to steal third base.

I mean, I guess it could have worked if the third baseman just didn’t notice. Jerry Remy suggested that he was trying to speed up the pace of the game, or that maybe he just wanted to add a stolen base to his 2015 stat sheet. Either way, the fact that the MLB.com video description says that it was a delayed steal is great, because he was absolutely off with the pitch. Never change, Papi.

For the second time in three starts, Porcello gave us the “Platonic Ideal of a Rick Porcello” start, as coined by Righty. Seriously, today’s performance was only statistically different from his September 23rd start by the barest of margins.

PITCHERS IP  H  R ER BB SO HR ERA
Porcello (L, 9-15) 7.0 10 3 2 1 7 0 4.92

Even though he took home the loss, he got his ERA under 5.00 for the first time since May 16th, so bully for you, Rick.

The game-tying run came quickly. In the bottom of the 2nd inning, Porcello gave up a full count, 2-out double to Roberto Pérez. He’d come around from second base a moment later on a single to center by Giovanny Urshela.

The game-winning runs, unfortunately, also came quickly. In the bottom of the third, with men on the corners and 1 out, Porcello threw the ball away while trying to hold the runner,  Lonnie Chisenhall, on at first. Michael Martínez scored without incident from third to make the score 2-1, Cleveland. Chisenhall advanced to third himself on a groundout and scored on a single to make it 3-1 before Porcello struck out Abraham Almonte to get out of the inning.

After the 1st inning, the Red Sox had a runner on second base with 1 out or less in 4 out of the 8 remaining innings, but got no farther. In the meantime, Rusney Castillo made sure that the deficit remained only 2 runs with an outstanding scoop and throw to home plate in the 5th inning. But the Boston offense failed to plate any runners of its own.

So the Red Sox lost their final game of the season, finishing 78-84. After a brief flirtation with a positive run differential, a four-game losing streak to end the season put them at a -5 mark on the year.

But this day was about Don Orsillo, the Red Sox play-by-play man for the majority of my lifetime. There’s not much more I can add to stuff like this:

Barstool Sports put together an incredible montage collection of most of the best Don Orsillo moments from tonight’s game, including the presentation that was shown at Orsillo’s last home game at Fenway. It’s a must-watch, and it includes most of the material I’ve included below. Enjoy: http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/an-emotional-don-orsillo-bids-farewell-to-red-sox-nation

Don and Jerry remember how Don got ripped for his call of Hideo Nomo’s no-hitter in his first game working for the Red Sox: http://m.redsox.mlb.com/bos/video/v518870283/?game_pk=416066

Goddammit.

Notes:

Thank you all for reading Lefty and Righty’s valiant attempts at sportswriting from April to October. Stay tuned for a season wrap-up podcast and some other final thoughts, and keep an eye out for blogs on the Patriots, Celtics, and Bruins over the next 6 months.

Shutout by the Tribe

Posted on October 4, 2015 in Game Recap
Craig Breslow performed admirably in his second career start. (AP Photo/Ron Schwane)

Craig Breslow performed admirably in his second career start. (AP Photo/Ron Schwane)

Craig Breslow made his second career start on Saturday and performed admirably, giving up only five hits and walking no one over five and one-third innings. Unfortunately two of those hits were solo home runs, one by Carlos Santana, and one by Ryan Raburn. Still, a solid effort by the little brainiac.

Pitchers IP  H  R ER BB SO HR ERA
Breslow (L, 0-4) 5.1 5 2 2 0 2 2 4.15

Under normal circumstances, the Sox would be in great position to pick up a W. But a Corey Kluber start isn’t “normal circumstances.” While his numbers aren’t what they were last year when he won the AL Cy Young Award, Kluber has still been very good.  His FIP is just 2.97, indicating that’s he’s been much better than his 3.49 ERA and 9-16 record would lead you to believe. Kluber will go from leading the league in wins to leading the league in losses without a huge drop off in production. It’s becoming harder and harder to defend the relevancy of that stat.

Anyway, Kluber was dominant, shutting out the Red Sox over 8 innings, allowing only three hits and walking two while striking out nine. Somewhat surprisingly, two of the Sox’ three hits came off the bat of Sandy Leon.

Rick Porcello takes the mound this afternoon to close out the season. Hopefully he and the offense can give us something to cheer for heading into what should be an exciting offseason.

Notes:

-As I mentioned, Lefty and I are playing each other in our fantasy league’s championship. He has Kluber, so it was doubly painful to watch him mow down the Red Sox hitters like he was riding a John Deere. Kluber’s outing was good for 60.2 points. If that wasn’t bad enough, that jerk (Lefty) also had Max Scherzer, who if you haven’t heard, threw a 17-strikeout no-hitter. That’s good for 100.4 points. On top of all of that, my two aces Sonny Gray and David Price each missed their last scheduled start.

-Thus concludes my 81st game recap and my season covering Red Sox games. I’ll probably write an in-depth post on my experiences sometime after the season ends, but for now thanks for reading Mom, Dad, Lish, Paul and Jared’s family! I know we had other assorted family and friends read at various points of the season but you guys were our rocks.

Owens’ Last Start of 2015 Is One to Forget

Posted on October 3, 2015 in Game Recap
owens' last start

Orsillo vs. Francona was easily the best part of the game.

Henry Owens, making his last start of 2015, got into trouble right away in the 1st inning. He walked two consecutive Indians, and a Carlos Santana single to center field had Francisco Lindor coming around from second base. But Mookie Betts delivered an absolute strike to Blake Swihart to cut Lindor down at the plate, and Owens got out of the inning clean.

By the time Owens came back out in the bottom of the 3rd inning, the Boston offense had managed only a single by Swihart, but he’d been eliminated on a 4-6-3 double play by Jackie Bradley, Jr. to end the top of the 3rd, so they’d technically gone 9 up, 9 down.

Without any run support behind him, Owens loaded the bases with 1 out. Santana came up next, and he didn’t waste his second chance with runners in scoring position, clearing the bases with a double to center to make it 3-0, Cleveland. Santana himself came around on an RBI single by Chris Johnson to make it 4-0 before Owens escaped.

The Red Sox’ offense did its best to respond in the top of the 4th. Xander Bogaerts started a 2-out rally with an RBI single, and David Ortiz finished it with a 2-run home run, the 503rd of his career.

Dustin Pedroia kept the momentum going in the bottom of the 4th by flipping to first for the out on a good leadoff bunt by Abraham Almonte.

With the score still 4-2 in the bottom of the 5th, Owens got Ryan Raburn to pop out before completely falling to pieces. He walked Santana on four pitches and threw three more balls to Yan Gomes before throwing a strike and giving up a double just out of Betts’ reach that scored Santana. Bradley made an attempt at throwing home for the out, and it probably would have been the greatest throw of all time if it had traveled straight to home plate, but Swihart caught it slightly up the third base line.

Johnson singled, Sands doubled to score Gomes, and Almonte had the bloopiest single of all time over Bogaerts’ head to score Johnson. With the score 7-2 and after 107 pitches from Owens, Jonathan Aro came in to relieve him. He gave Boston 2.2 innings of solid relief, but gave up a solo shot to Jerry Sands in the 7th to make it 8-2.

Notes:

1. If you love Don Orsillo, and especially if you love watching Terry Francona bullying Orsillo, watch:

Red Sox Drop Finale to Yankees

Posted on October 2, 2015 in Game Recap
Rich Hill deals in the rain. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Rich Hill deals in the rain. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The Sox fell in a rain-soaked affair on Thursday night in New York. Given the forecast and the extra-inning game last night, manager Torey Lovullo gave most of his starters the night off. Let’s just say the lineup was, uh, not the Red Sox’ best.

  1. Betts
  2. Bradley
  3. Bogaerts
  4. Shaw
  5. Castillo
  6. Craig
  7. Marrero
  8. Leon
  9. Rutledge

For those of you keeping score at home, that’s only two (2) players who played the whole season with the big club. Predictably, there weren’t any offensive fireworks. The Red Sox were held to one run on seven singles by a washed up C.C. Sabathia, and sometimes-starter sometimes-reliever Adam Warren.

Two of those hits came off the bat of Markus Lynn Betts, one of which was an RBI single, accounting for Boston’s only run. It was a great at-bat by Mookie. After falling behind 1-2, he laid off of a changeup in the dirt. C.C. then tried to double up on the changeups, and Betts was ready for it, lining it into centerfield.

Mookie also had a homer taken away from him in the 7th by the wind and the rain. Hit it about as far as you can to left field in Yankee stadium without it going out — the wind and rain clearly knocked it down. He’s really dialed in and is now hitting .297 for the year. During the game NESN flashed an interesting stat, courtesy of Alex Speier:

Betts and Bogaerts have the opportunity to be the first pair of teammates aged 22 or younger to hit .300 since 1939.

Pretty cool. Just another reminder that the future is bright in Boston.

Surprise ace Rich Hill toed the rubber for the Red Sox and pitched well, but wasn’t dominant as we’ve come to expect. His only bad inning was the second, when his breaking ball wasn’t the widow-maker we know and love, and he left a couple of fastballs up in the zone.

Outside of that, he was pretty sharp

but thanks to the 37-pitch second inning, Rich was only able to go six.

Pitchers IP  H  R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
Hill (L, 2-1) 6.0 4 2 2 3 6 1 102-67 1.55

The Yankees got to the bullpen for a pair of runs, and the Sox would lose by a final score of 4-1.

Notes:

-In the bottom of the 4th, Rusney uncorked an absolutely incredible throw from right to hold a runner at third. He caught a routine fly ball in right field, so it wasn’t that it was a really long throw, it was just functionally and aesthetically perfect. Catch slightly over right shoulder, quick transfer, and uncork an absolute seed, on a line, hip-high to the catcher.

-In the top of the 5th, the broadcast cut to a suspicious-looking NYPD officer sporting an orange rain slicker. I don’t know what he was doing out there but it seems like he was kind of in the way…

Ahh he got me again!

The Yankees’ Brendan Ryan obviously thought Jean was far from the best, because he threw his bat at Jean while trying to make contact on a hit-and-run in the 6th.