Miracles Abound
We get back to back good offensive days, a homer, and somehow the Sox are no longer in 5th place in the division...and only two back from the division leaders
He’s going up against Andre Pallante, also the Cards’ fifth starter, who is another organization guy and pretty close in seasonal age to Bello (27 to 26). They’re both “little” righties, right around six feet, so not the prototypical modern hulking starters with long deliveries. Unlike Bello he wasn’t touted early on, and was an innings eater last year, but also gave up 21 HR in only 163 IP, and gave up a walk for every two strikeouts.
Of course the issue with the Sox this year has been homers; they’ve only hit nine so far (compare to Jordan Walker’s six all by himself for the Cards) and that’s the fourth fewest in the majors. And Pallante is the kind of guy you want to beat with the big sticks. Yesterday’s season-high five run outburst in the top of the ninth was quite welcome, but it came without benefit of a single extra base hit!
The other puzzling part is this very, very speedy team hasn’t been running much. Only six steals, and the only guy with as many as two is Duran. It may simply have been an issue of lack of running situations but I can recall a half dozen times where I expected the runner to go and he didn’t even really show.
The Cards have two really exciting young players in their lineups. One is JJ Wetherholt, who’s been leading off and hasn’t shown a lot just yet, but was judged the most adept hitting talent to come out of the draft two years ago and made it from college to the bigs in less than a year and a half. The other is Jordan Walker, the guy who seemed can’t miss as a 20 year old three years ago but who struggled up and down, perhaps in part because the Cards seem to have lost their touch with younger hitters. They play them inconsistently, and a lot of guys who were deemed top prospects, from our old friend Tyler O’Neill to Nolan Gorman and Alec Burleson (both in the lineup today) have seen great play at times but have largely been really inconsistent. But they stuck with Walker and he’s looked like a monster thus far this year, with an OPS of 1.092 coming into the game.
Pregame quotation of the year from Caleb Durbin, who’d never even visited Boston prior to the first home series: “It’s going to take a little while to get used to the roads.” I like his biggest pet peeve: “Fans not paying attention to the game.”
It’s yesterday’s lineup with Anthony still DHing, only with Wong hitting 8th instead of Narvaez for the traditional back up catcher’s Sunday start. Anthony we might speculate is being held out of left field while he tries to get his accuracy back on throws. Jaren in left batting third, no Yoshida, leaving AL MVP Wilyer Abreu as the only OFer who has started every game in the field.
Roman works the count full and fouls off one, so is being patient but flies out softly and we’re underway. Durbin gets plunked. The kid is built like a fireplug and he kind of reminds me of an old school number two hitter, not a classic cornerman but more the slow-footed second sacker who can do all the little things well except run, including taking a ball for the team. Only Durbin can indeed run: I’d like to see him on base enough to get a chance to go. Duran is baffled by a knuckle curve for strike three, bringing Contreras up. They’ve thrown over to first three times now. Contreras works the count full, and saves his timeout for this moment and disrupts it.
The TV is either experimenting with a lot of new camera angles in the first or they’ve got one out of order. as we very gratifyingly see a third base dugout view of pitches actually being delivered and pickoff attempts to first. Without any camera changes. It’s highly unconventional and I heartily approve. Among other things it gives us a good view of the stands, showing it half-full, if that.
WILLSON HOMERS! Fantastic shot, but they don’t even show this on the TV angle, sticking to the third base camera, which makes me think they’re only doing this because of some glitch down in the truck. It’s fn watching Contreras round the bases but I’d like to see that homer. Willson is delivering the right handed power we were looking for in the off-season, and is leading the club with three dingers. He’s no Pete Alonso but the guy is a gamer.
Wilyer strikes out to end the inning but that was a very nice two out homer. And the TV snaps back to the center field camera for the last whiff, which does make me think somebody was asleep at the directorial switch (or the mixer was on the fritz briefly). So much for the “let’s watch the whole game from the third base dugout” approach. A boy can dream!
Sox up 2-0 in the first! I like first inning leads! Let’s see Brayan come out throwing.
What happened to the Wallyhead before? It’s back in the dugout, Dave reports, but there’s no accounting for where it had gone.
Nice play by Cedanne on a sharply hit 3-1 pitch by Wetherholt! Sliding, diving catch forward to pick if up. We’ll call that one a Defensive Gem already! Especially since if he’d missed it, it would have been three bases and maybe even an inside the parker.
ABS drama: Burleson with two outs and nobody on in the first on an 0-1 count gets away with it, as it’s just barely a ball inside. No matter, as he grounds out on the next pitch. Nice inning by Brayan, particularly the way he seemed to completely ignore the ABS replay. 10 pitches, albeit only five for strikes.
Trevor leads off with a single to start the second, and now we’re going to see about the running game. Marcelo is straddling the Mendoza line but plunks a dinker into left field and we have a rally again. Connor Wong up and showing bunt: back to scientific baseball? After fouling off the first he takes another pitch and then swings on 1-1 so I guess the bunt is off. Wong pops a little loop to the second baseman and it’s one down. Cedanne gets plunked and Cedanne throws down the bat again in disgust like he did yesterday. He’s feeling it — almost the same spot as yesterday. Injuries to the hands are a big danger zone in baseball. But he’s OK and we have the bases loaded and one out and the top of the order up. Boy do we need a big hit here. Instead Roman goes the other way and what normally would have been a ground ball double play produces a run because there’s nobody there to cover second! They have to retire Anthony at first, he gets an RBI, and the Sox are up 3-0 with runners at second and third and Durbin up. Durbin grounds out, I feel like we should have gotten more out of that inning, but it’s a three nil lead so I should not kvetch too much just yet about lost opportunities.
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Old Busch. Note the ballpark wasn't aligned with |
The St. Louis ballpark bothers me. I haven’t been to it yet but I went to old Busch a few times. I didn’t like the old park, which was nearly identical to Riverfront, Three Rivers, The Vet (all of which I suffered through as well), but you could see more of the Arch. If you’re building a retro park facing directly at one of the most iconic national monuments — unique in the world, really — why not show more of it? It barely peeks above right center. If I had built the ballpark there would have been a cut out, and I would also have demolished the building that blocks the view of the left base of the arch, even if it had to come out of the construction budget. St. Louis has to show itself off, there isn’t a lot more to show than the Arch. They at least oriented the ballpark correctly, compared to the old one, but it is a major missed opportunity.
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| New Busch. They aligned the arch with homeplate, but it's surprisingly hard to spot and completely obscured from many parts of the field. The new construction since the 1960's has added obstructions between the park and the arch, even though the new park site is right next to the site of the old park. |
GOOD LORD JORDAN WALKER DEMOLISHES ANOTHER ONE to lead off the second. At least there was nobody on. Bello kind of shakes his head and smirks as if to say ‘whatta ya gonna do about that??’ Sox up 3-1. Brayan bounces back attacking the next hitters and gets them retired in order after that, and that’s what we like to see from this kid. If you have to get beat by their best, not a problem, work with that lead and then just get back to work. It’s the walks in front a guy like Walker that will kill you.
Pallante’s pitch count is over 40 after two and it would be very nice to get him into trouble again. Duran does work a 7 pitch count but grounds out. He kind of had to wait on a big looper and could only make weak contact. Contreras has a nice at-bat, working the inside part of the plate, and serves one into left for a single. Season average up to .280 with an OPS of .938. Abreu gives a good rip to a ball but just gets under it and it’s a can of corn to right. Two outs for Trevor with a runner on first. Nice rip by Trevor, who does seem to be warming up, and it’s just a little too shallow to go for a double down the right field line, enough for Contreras to go to third. Time for a nice two out hit for Marcelo. I’m wondering here why Trevor hasn’t tried to steal after three pitches, as he draws a pickoff throw. Alas Marcelo grounds out, they did run Pallante’s pitch count to a whopping 63 after three, but they will have to really work on putting the nail in the coffin next inning. It’s still only a two run lead.
Brayan comes back with a nifty 1-2-3 inning on three ground balls and the ball is back in our court again against the struggling Pallante. This is definitely a good time for a put away inning.
The Sox rally again in the 9th to counter two more solo blasts by the Cards, Bello gets out of trouble in the 6th and works into the 7th, the Sox pen holds it, and just like that the Sox are 6-9 and two games back of the Yanks, who are on a five game skid.
Takeaways: Bello finally has a pretty good game, not perfect, but he extracted himself from situations twice, which is the best sign for him moving forward. A two out big fly from Contreras got us started on the scoring, but we won despite the Cards out-homering us, thanks to a whole set of good situational hitting. It was good to see the season high for runs scored, especially with back to back days of decent run production.
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