Brayan Bello on the slab tonight. Can you have a must-win game five games into the season?
Tonight Duran and Durbin get the bench in the early season lineup carousel; Yoshida batting third at DH, Rafaela back in CF, Connor Wong getting his second start. Andrew Monasterio with his first start of the year, at third. AL MVP Wilyer Abreu batting fifth against the righty Hunter Brown for the ‘stros. This dude was nails last year, 2.43 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 185 IP. Going to be a tall order to pep up the offense. What the Sox really need right now is a Rockies fifth starter, not an ace for the Stros pitching fifth.
- well, Masa to the rescue after back to back Ks by Roman and Story to start the game. The kid knows how to draw a walk! Me, I’m Brown, I coast one down the middle until Masa proves he can get around. Talk to my agent, Scott Boras.
- and already we’re into challenge territory and the Astros pick up a catcher’s challenge.
- Brayan gives up a rap to the first hitter and we’re off to the races. Race to the bottom.
- ooh, a professional ice job by Brayan on a 1-2 count, coming down to one second on the clock. Didn’t make the pitch though.
- and Yordan Alvarez rips one to center. So much for the freeze show. Oh boy a great read by Pena on first base on the ball Rafaela couldn’t quite track down in center. I almost thought he was going to get that but it giddyuped on him and got him twisted around, just glanced off his glove. Cedanne looks pissed off about that. So two batters in we’re down 1-0 with a runner at second. Gerf.
- I’ll say this for Bello tonight: he does not look rattled out there. The kid from a couple of years ago had a tendency to have his strings come unraveled when he got the tug of a rally like this. He’s come back with a grounder and a well-worked strikeout and is on the verge of putting out this early grass fire.
And that he does, inducing a soft grounder to Mayer to end the inning. Well done, kid.
- Nice at-bat by Marcelo with two out in the top of the second, working the count to 3-2, but it ends with a meek rap to second base.
- First NESN directorial balk of the year: missed the shot entirely in real time on the infield hit dribbled right in front of the plate. Tough little break for Bello, who’s looking a lot more assured.
- Groundout too soft for a DP, and a swinging strikeout. Bello’s looking positively icy! On to the top of the third and the bottom of the Sox order.
- once through the lineup for Hunter, and all the Sox have to show for it is a walk from Yoshida. Anthony whiffs for the second time and his seasonal OBP dips to below .300.
- Marcelo has great footwork out there in the infield. He’s had a couple of balls he’s had to head off on an awkward angle and he looks like a broadway dancer doing a sidestep. Really nice.
- Bah, four pitch walk to Altuve with two outs. I think the fourth pitch was actually in there but the Sox are learning, and didn’t challenge. ABS seems a little off on the high strikes, and Altuve is short (news flash).
- Oh the Sox finally catch a break as Wilyer can’t reach a gapper by Correa with Altuve running all out with two outs, but it one hops over the fence and Altuve is stuck on third…for now. Another big moment for Bello here, and there’s a mound conference with Andrew Bailey.
MLB has to rethink the book rule double advance rule. It may be a bad break that breaks equally for both teams, over time, to have that runner not score, but it flies against the expectation.
- Oh rats, two run single.
- Second NESN balk as they stuck to the angle on the play at the plate that allowed a fan to stick his fist, raised in triumph, right in front of the camera as the play is made. Or not made in this case.
Bello was so close to a perfect inning and three batters later the Sox are down 3-0. Disappointed for the kid, who seems much more in control of his emotions out there than in previous years. Now up to 55 pitches through three. We’ll be lucky to get five from him tonight. This is where sticking with Oviedo yesterday gives the Sox options; I expect Alex will pull Brayan at the next sign of him having difficulty.
In the meantime, Brown has no-hit the Sox through three plus and starts the inning at a reasonable 41 pitches.
- I’d like to see Yoshida and Altuve back to back to compare. Masa is…wee, compared to the average major leaguer. All ballplayer.
- 9 pitch inning for Brown. 50 PC, that gets him back on track to go deep.
- This start, which is teetering on the edge of another disaster for the Sox, doesn’t feel like Gray or Suarez’ starts. Bello has had an idea all night and is making mistakes here and there, clearly, but he’s also gotten the best of the Astros and up until the two out single, hadn’t given up good contact on back to back hitters.
- I don’t know this umpire’s name, and as I’ve been posting the last couple of games, that’s a very good thing. Bello gets a tapper to third for the third out and Bello’s first 1-2-3 inning. That is a good sign. But we’re already almost halfway through this game just an hour in.
- MLB the Video Game is being advertised on the break on the Gameday feed, and for some reason
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| This is a bar graph of Red Sox- Astros runs scored, formed by Fred Patek and Frank Howard |
they’ve got a little featured set of video game players of short stature, including our very own Dustin Pedroia. Maybe they’re focusing on the role playing aspect of gaming. But they neglected The Flea, Freddie Patek, who was likely 5’ 4” and far less robust of girth than Altuve. I saw him play, back in the day, and I believe I was taller than he was by the fourth grade. That was actually pretty inspiring to a kid, down on the field, looking down (literally) on Freddie Patek. You don’t even really have to grow up to be a specimen to be a baseball player. OK, you do have to be gargantuan to be selected as a pitcher these days, but there’s still room in the game for the Peteys and Altuves.
- Marcelo draws a 3-2 walk with two outs for our second baserunner. Much needed after two quick outs, once again, to start the fifth. Brown showing just a little bit of squishiness in his delivery right now.
- Does ABS reflect the three dimensional nature of the strike zone? When I umped the biggest misconception I had among both batters and coaches, when complaining about balls and strikes, was that a pitch does not have to be a strike at the front of the plate to be called a strike. Plenty of high pitches dip down into the rear of the zone. If ABS is just looking at a two dimensional plane at the front of the plate, it’s going to really radically shift the strike zone in a perhaps unintended way.
- Oh, sweet swing by Connor Wong after a seven-pitch AB — a gapper to right on a fastball that rode up, that not only gets the Sox their first hit, but their first run with Marcelo running all out from first. And Wong has an RBI in March — three months before he got his first in 2025…! That has to feel good. And they’re all of a sudden getting Brown’s pitch count up, now pressing 70.
Cedanne whiffs, leaving Wong stranded at second. It’s satisfying, but not nearly as satisfying a two out bottom of the order rally could have been. 3-1 Houston.
- Great play by Andrew Monasterio on a broken bat grounder to open the bottom of the inning! He kinda hopped over the barrel just after he threw to first with a leap.
- Alvarez is dialed in this year. He looked at two pitches just low and below the zone from Bello, swinging and missing on the first, fouling off the second, and then Bello elevates it just a little to the bottom of the zone and he launches it into the right field stands. Bello’s not exactly nails here but the 4-1 score is as much credit to the Astros as it is mistakes from Bello. He’s had a lot of swing and misses but just can’t manage to close the shutdown inning off.
- Walked Correa with two out and a 3-2 count, Walker has to be the last batter of the evening for Bello at 78 pitches. I don’t know if anybody’s warming up, though.
- Walker doubles down the line but once again the Sox catch a break and a clean hop back to Anthony keeps the lead runner at third. Still, here we are one hit away from a 6-1 deficit. Out comes Andrew Bailey.
- Joey Loperfido seems like the thing-that-doesn’t-belong in the lineup tonight, and I’m hoping Bello can get him.
BAH TWO STRIKE TWO OUT PITCH UP IN THE ZONE. This is the rails coming off. Again, the Sox catch a break with the ball going right to Anthony, keeping the runner at third, but if we keep catching breaks like this it’ll be a 17-1 final. Houston 5, Boston 1.
- Oh hell now the Sox play Little League, muffing a throw on a steal and then screwing up the play at the plate to give up an extra base, so Loperfido ends up at third with another run across. 6-1. Error has to go to Wong, who should have eaten it. Desperation doth make monsters of us all.
- Official scorer gives two errors on the play — one on Wong, the other one on Mayer. Deserved, I think, but unusual, until we remember the scorer is appointed by the home team, and in such cases close errors are awarded to the visiting team.
- Bello is now up to 91 pitches and a full count with two outs.
- Wait a sec, WTAF?!? The batter has swung and missed at three consecutive pitches by my count. That, last time I checked, is a strikeout. Did the ump miss strike two during that blown double-error call and count that up as a ball?!?
- Ugh, batter draws a 9-pitch AB and that’s it for Bello. NOBODY CAUGHT THE STRIKEOUT. If nobody else, Wong should have noticed. I'm sorry for Brayan because so much better to end on a whiff than a walk and get yanked in the middle of what looks like a four-out inning.
Pretty ugly outing, especially this last inning. Great AB by Cam Smith, who has been scuffling at the plate this year (1 for 7, I think) and it’s all the more piteous that Bello couldn’t put him away. But I think every major league batter would fare better if they got four strikes per AB. I checked on video, I am not hallucinating here.
The key pitch this inning has to be that 1-2 ball to Alvarez, which he elevated. Bello’s got to live on the outside corner more to lefties.
- Ryan Watson, our Rule 5 guy, comes on. That’s the usual role for Rule 5 guys, to eat the innings in blow outs, but his first game way back in Game 1 he came on with a lead and held the lead for two innings. But I can’t see going to our better guys in this game. Moran likely on later, but Watson will be in there a while.
- Now is the game situation when I would like to slip into a coma. It’s not that we’re down 6-1, but we’re getting dominated by the opposing starter, who’s got at least one inning left in the tank.
It’s a good thing I can’t get Boston AM radio, because if I did I would have to turn it off. I can feel the heat coming. Really cruddy start.
- No longer on pace for a two hour game!
- Ryan Watson is playing with house money in a weird way because he gets to face the heart of the Houston lineup with very low stakes on the line. He’s pitching his second major league game and has Alvarez, Altuve, and Correa coming up against him. Let’s hope this is a confidence-building exercise, not a rude welcome to the big time.
- God, I jinxed the kid. Bases loaded with one out for Correa after he gives up back to back walks. The infield huddles at the mound.
- FUTZ. Correa singles home two and the Sox are facing their worst deficit of the year, 8-1. I am so sorry, Watson: I will take full blame here. Sox win probability getting toward the zero point zero one territory. He gets out of it eventually but it’s going to be a different kind of introduction to the big leagues than I had envisioned ten minutes ago.
- Guessing Hunter Brown will be taken out at this point in the game and season. Nothing much to be gained by letting a premium starter hang out for another inning with an 8-1 lead.
- Enron —> MinuteMaid —> Daikin. From financial services to OJ to air conditioning repair. I suppose the point of sponsoring a ballpark is to raise name recognition. I mean, I did have to google what a Daikin is, and it turns out the ballpark is NOT being sponsored by a delicious Japanese radish.
- We’re going to need our Stopper tomorrow. I’m already thinking about Crochet. At this point I would rather be doing any kind of needlecraft than suffering further torture. I really need to see some kind of meaningless rally to falsely raise my hope, because it’s way too early in the season to feel this bad about the team.
- The Houston pitcher is Cody Bolton, and he may end up with a three inning save after striking out the side in the 7th. Remember Tom Bolton? Maybe because he was a key part of the rotation for the 1990 division winning team he looms a bit larger than he should, but I’d completely missed the fact he was gone off the Sox at age 30 and out of the majors at 32. I would have guessed he had at least 1000 IP in his career, not 540. That was a good year, though, with a 3.2 WAR and a 10-5 record with an ERA of 3.38. It was a real outlier in an otherwise well below average career — his career ERA+ was 93 — but one good year for a winner, you get to sit around in my memory box quite a long time.
- As I had imagined, Moran now on to try to mop up the last two innings, after Watson really got used last inning. Of course he gives up a leadoff homer. We are not getting any easy exits tonight. 9-1 Houston.
- Now is the time of the blowout game when I take down my baseball off the shelf and practice grips I would have used if I had a bigger hand. I was an all-star and all-area pitcher up through Pony, but as soon as I hit 60 feet six inches (PONY is 54 feet, with 80 foot base paths) my hands failed to grow with the rest of my body and I remained a two and a half pitch pitcher. (The half pitch was a half-assed knuckler my father taught me, which I could get to break a quarter of the time.) I threw a total of one inning in high school. I preferred third base, anyway, you get more action, on average, over the course of a week of games. Still, it’s always been helpful to have had at least a little experience with the slab, in understanding what’s going on.
- Nice little dinky homer by Cedanne, off the top of the wall, and if there are any silver linings, it will be each and every hit. Sox 2 Houston 9.
What are the Sox homer celebrations this year? No more Wally head? I didn’t see if they were having one tonight, and of course we’ve only had three on the year. I like the Pirates’ new ritual: donning a welding mask. I hope they took out the filter because otherwise there’s going to be some tripping in the dugout.
- Oh god, Roman with the Golden Sombrero. Not looking comfortable up there at all. I wonder if Alex will give him a night off or lower in the lineup until he rights himself.
- A single by Story and a walk to Yoshida and Houston actually gets a guy up in the bullpen and sends the pitching coach out. No three-inning save in the offing for Bolton now, methinks. But a first pitch ground out ends the threat. I realize a three-run homer may not have been enough but a 9-5 score would look better than 9-2…yes, I am grasping at straws now. Where did I put that baseball?
- the greatest thing about the eighth inning for Red Sox pitching is that it will be the last inning we pitch tonight. Moran out there, he works a 1-2-3 inning against the Houston bench players.
- The last good thing that has happened to the Sox was the game-tying homer in the 9th back in game 2 to send it to extra innings. Otherwise the best we’ve had since are brief lulls in the misery. Off the top of my head, I don’t think we’ve had a lead since Game 1.
- I stand corrected, Bolton is out there for the three inning save, and the game is so off the rails the broadcast team have resurrected weak Michael Bolton jokes. I award my first Phil Rizzuto Memorial Point for Awful Broadcasting of the year to Kevin Millar, Lou Merloni, and Dave O'Brien collectively.
Sox go 1-2-3 in the 9th to put me out of my misery quickly.
Takeaways: Bello didn’t look terrible, until he did. His inability to put hitters away on key pitches looms over his talent, and while he’s clearly a bit more in command of himself out there than in previous years, this is still not the maturity I’d like to see at this point. The first time through the rotation was ugly: we got two decent starts, but lost a close game, and on top of three bad starts and sleepy offense and we need to do a reset already. We have a new worst loss of the season, but at least we didn’t lose any ABS challenges because we didn't make any, which seems to be the Sox strategy for success.
