Category: Game Recap

Eduardo Rodriguez Blows Up Again

Posted on July 20, 2015 in Game Recap
eduardo rodriguez blows up

Eduardo Rodriguez's jersey got stuck on his nose – he works furiously to pull it loose. (Jonathan Moore/Getty Images North America)

Eduardo Rodriguez added another chapter to a season of bizarre results, giving up 7 runs in the second inning to seal Boston’s fate. In the 10 starts since his May 28th debut, Rodriguez has held his opponent to two runs or less 7 times. In the other three games, he’s given up over 75% of his earned run total (22), with a disastrous inning of 6 runs or more in each game. It’s been all or nothing, and whether it’s the result of pitch-tipping or not, it’s become yet another maddening inconsistency on a team that’s already full of them.

Rodriguez wasn’t sharp in the first inning, but he got out of a 1st and 2nd situation when Pablo Sandoval caught a hard line drive and threw to 2nd for an inning-ending double play. He didn’t get so lucky in the second inning, giving up a single with 1 out and men on 1st and 2nd to make the score 1-0. But the shit really hit the fan after Hanley Ramirez misplayed a double in left field. It probably should have been caught, but it scored a run instead, and the floodgates opened from there, culminating in home runs by Kole Calhoun and Albert Pujols. This has become something of a pattern for Rodriguez: defensive error plays part in utter collapse.

In any case, Noe Ramirez was brought in to relieve Rodriguez, and he got out of the inning, but the damage was done, and the Sox were down 7-0. Ramirez had an 18.00 ERA heading into this one, and he got it all the way down to 5.40 with 2 1/3 innings of work. However, the journey to that new number wasn’t pretty. Ramirez gave up 4 unearned runs in the 4th inning. He should’ve been out of the inning without any damage, but Sandoval committed an error, and the wheels that the Sox had glued onto the wagon came off from there. David Freese hit a three-run homer, and it was 11-1.

One, you say! How did the Sox get that one?! It’s the first run we’ve had in a week! Well, Mike Napoli singled in David Ortiz, who had led off with a single of his own. Victorino loaded the bases after the run scored with Boston’s fourth single of the inning, but both Hanigan and Mookie struck out to end the inning and the Red Sox’ last real chance of the game.

Not much more to say here. It was a blowout. Here’s hoping they steal the nightcap.

Notes:

  • Devin Marrero recorded his first career major league hit after starting 2015 with an 0-6 streak.
  • The Red Sox brought Blake Swihart back up from his rehab assignment and designated Sandy León for assignment. This is definitely a positive move for the Sox’ offense. A fact about León’s 2015 that I forgot to include in the catchers breakdown that I’m sure everyone read: he was 1 for 22 from the right side of the plate this year. I’m not sure the switch hitting was working for him.

Red Sox Offense Still on All-Star Break

Posted on July 19, 2015 in Game Recap
Garrett Richards Dominated. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Garrett Richards Dominated. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

For the second night in a row the Red Sox offense was blanked, this time thanks to a complete game, two hit effort by Garrett Richards. It’s good to see him return to form after that awful non-contact injury he suffered last year at Fenway when I famously declared “He’s fine. I think he just rolled his ankle.”

Both hits came off the bat of Pablo Sandoval. In my mind this further proves the theory I’ve mentioned a couple times on these pages about why he’s so valuable in the postseason. The Panda’s approach at the plate is so … uh

… unique, that even when a guy has his best stuff and is shutting down your entire lineup, he can find a way to square the ball up and make solid contact.

This has been a disastrous start to the second half for the Red Sox, draining most of that momentum they built before the break when they were playing their best baseball of the season. You have to wonder why Farrell went with Porcello last night when presumably everyone else was available besides Miley. Maybe he didn’t wan’t him sitting around thinking too much about his next start? I personally think a full week-plus off would’ve been a good thing for Rick. Or at least it couldn’t have hurt, and we’d have guys with ERAs under 5.79 taking the hill in the meantime. (You know it’s bad when Righty’s optimism is waning). I guess it’s all moot because the Red Sox scored 0 runs. Not even Pedro could give up -1 runs in a start, although sometimes it felt that way.

Porcello’s final results weren’t awful:

Pitchers IP  H  R ER BB SO HR PC-ST ERA
Porcello (L, 5-10) 5.0 4 3 2 3 5 2 102-57 5.79

but he really didn’t pitch well. He struggled with his command and got away with a lot of balls up in the zone. The gopher ball has been the most glaring weakness of Porcello’s glaring weaknesses this season. He gave up two to Kole Calhoun, and has now surrendered 18 on the season, which is somehow only 4th most in the AL.

Notes:

-More good news for the Angels: The last team to shutout the Red Sox in back-to-back games was the ’09 Yankees, who went on to win the World Series. I love stats like this because they’re 100% irrelevant for so many reasons – mainly since this Red Sox team is almost completely different than the ’09 squad – but still interesting.

–Justin Masterson pitched 3 shutout innings in relief, walking no one and striking out 4.

Miley Perfect for a While, Trout Perfect Once

Posted on July 18, 2015 in Game Recap

This is a very sad picture. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

I got home from dinner last night and, during some confusion about how to operate a voice-controlled remote control, Righty pulled up the Gamecast for last night’s Red Sox-Angels game to see what was going on. “Wow, Miley’s pitching great! No walks, six strikeouts…he’s a got a no-hitter going!” As a jinx myself, I don’t have any legs to stand on, but I went in on him anyway: “What are you doing? Why would you say that?” And I knew what was coming on the other end of the conversation, since Righty had noted that Miley hadn’t given up any walks: “It’s a perfect game!” So that was obviously out the window.

Lo and behold, as so often happens in these situations, I pulled up Gamecast on my own phone to check out the situation, and Chris Iannetta was standing on first base. “You idiot,” I said, glad that I, for once, was not the one who had jinxed an important sports moment. Iannetta had walked, so that meant the no-hitter was still going, but I knew it was only a matter of time. Kole Calhoun connected on a DEEP double over Mookie Betts’ head to lead off the 7th inning, and Miley gave up a second walk to David Freese, the first batter of the 8th inning, before giving up the mound to Junichi Tazawa, who got the Angels to go 1-2-3.

Miley had gone over 100 pitches during Freese’s walk. He pitched great, and obviously deserved better than the complete lack of run support he got. C.J. Wilson also pitched pretty well, but the Sox should’ve got something across the plate. Remarkably, though Boston tallied 5 hits and 3 walks, each of those baserunners came in a different inning from the 1st to the 8th. The 9th was the only Red Sox inning without a baserunner. Talk about hard luck.

When Koji Uehara came out to get the Red Sox into extra innings, I was confident. He looked good, forcing a pop out and getting Kole Calhoun to strike out. And then Mike Trout came up. I was still confident, somehow. We were going to extras, and I’d have to stay up, and it would be miserable, but we would go to extras. I pushed all thoughts about Koji’s tendency to give up solo home runs out of my head. I did the same to thoughts about how Mike Trout is probably the best baseball player of his generation. And then this happened:

And there was nothing to say but, “Welp, time for bed.” Koji missed his spot by inches, bringing what was supposed to be an outside pitch back toward the middle of the plate. And Trout took it deep to center. I wasn’t even mad. That’s just what happens sometimes when you’re up against the best player in the world.

Notes:

  • Even when Mike Napoli should get a hit, he doesn’t. As soon as the ball kicked off Smith’s shin, I knew he’d be out at first.
  • According to Christoper Smith of MassLive, Koji was “a little surprised to enter the game in a no-save situation.” I’ll look up the stats one of these days to see how much worse he is when a save isn’t on the line, because I’m 90% sure he’s much worse when there’s no save opportunity.

Red Sox Lose Game, Series to Yankees but Head into Break Winners of 10 of 15

Posted on July 13, 2015 in Game Recap
Brian McCann takes Wade Miley deep. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Brian McCann takes Wade Miley deep. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

We’ve reached the unofficial halfway point of the season, and unfortunately the Sox will go into the All-Star break on a little bit sour note, dropping the rubber match of this series 8-6.

It started out promisingly: A-Rod didn’t go deep in the first inning.

But McCann went oppo for a two-run job in the bottom of the 2nd, putting the Red Sox in an early hole.

The Sox’ offense was up to the challenge and unleashed a squall of singles (5) in the third, grabbing a 3-2 lead.

The game turned in the top of the 5th when Miley surrendered the game-tying run on a questionable balk call by home plate umpire Angel Hernandez. Miley has one of the best pickoff moves in the game and, like all lefties with great moves, he flirts with a balk on every attempt (see: Pettite, Andy). On the pitch in question he might have stepped at an angle greater than 45°, and it looked like his body may have been moving towards the plate before he threw over but it wasn’t even clear on the replay; there’s no way Hernandez could clearly see it was a balk.

As we’ve seen in the past, Miley is a bit of a hothead, but he had every right to be upset here. The real issue is that Angel Hernandez made the call from behind the plate and would have no way of seeing the angle in question. Hernandez has shown time and again that he is both 1) awful and 2) way too eager to insert himself into the game story.

Miley would get touched for 3 runs in the 6th, and after a Shane Victorino RBI single in the bottom half of the frame the score stood at 6-4.

Alexi Ogando initially pitched well in relief, stranding inherited runners from Tommy Layne in the 7th, then tossing a 1-2-3 8th. But Farrell brought him back out in the 9th, which would prove to be costly. He gave up a leadoff walk, then Rob Refsnyder’s first major league homer, which expanded the Yankees’ lead to 8-4. The Red Sox pushed two runs across in the bottom of the 9th thanks to an awful defensive display by the Yankees, and would have tied the game at 6 had Ogando not given up that gopher ball.

Notes:

–De Aza joined #TeamHighSocks.

-Although losing this series at home leaves a little bit of a bad taste in your mouth, winning 10 out of 15 heading into the break is good no matter how you slice it. Maybe this loss will make them hungrier. I think Andrew Miller of all people said it best:

“They’re never going to quit. They have expectations of winning a World Series just like we do over here. I’m not going to give up on them until there’s an X next to their name, or whatever they do when somebody’s out of the standings. They’re too good, there’s too many veteran players that have experienced too much. You’re not going to count them out ever. They’re a good team.”