Undefeated at Home!
Sonny Gray gets the ball today and gets a chance at redemption after a messy first start. He's always been off and on, but when he's on he's really good. Guys like that fall off a cliff when they get to be about Gray's age, but with modern medicine and his injury history, who knows. He has over 1900 IP in the majors and is in his 14th season.
The big board at Fenway is doing a retrospective of the 1986 team, which (takes off socks to count toes) is...40 years ago?!? If 1975 was the defining series of my childhood idolatry of Carbo, Petrocelli, Yaz, Bill Lee, Fisk, Lynn, Rice, Evans, and El Tiante, 1986 was the year of my young adulthood that set me up for what is looking like a life-long affliction. The recap is useful in reminding me the Sox came back big-time against the Angels in the LCS that year, and Buckner was one of the heroes, because you know, even with having broken the curse, I still get whiplash thinking about '86. That I watched it with housemates who were all Mets fans made it especially painful at the time, but whenever I see one of those guys, I hold up four fingers with one hand and a big zero with the other to indicate the ring count since then.
Seeing the '86 team come out on the field, though, boy that's something. Evans and Rice look like they could play today. Spike Owen and Marty Barrett! I will always feel for Marty's 17 pitch at-bat that pretty much ended his career. He was scrappy to the end. Having him throw out the first pitch to Bruce Hurst is peak Red Sox. Marty had a post-season for the ages in '86.
And Tollway Joe Morgan -- at 95 -- looking great. I wonder if they'll do a Morgan Magic reunion in 2028?
(BTW what idiot decided to play background music with lyrics while the players were being introduced? You can't hear half the introductions. )
Notably absent: where is the Rocket? He and Geddy threw out the first pitch at Worcester last week, and Gedman is here today. Maybe I missed his name while Dire Straits were playing? (Did they just pick that song because it was from the 1980's? It certainly wasn't associated with the '86 team, which didn't have a song as far as I recall).
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First pitch at 2:22 and we're off! Reset, right?
Reason #412 I love the Sox fans: a standing ovation for Xander Bogaerts, batting second for the Padres, years after he left in free agency. Xander tips his cap to them graciously.
Great start by Gray, eight pitch inning, soft contact and six for strikes…! That is (throws salt over shoulder, knocks on wood, crosses fingers) complete game stuff for an afternoon game in April. It’s warmer now that it was earlier, and sunny, but still in the low 50’s.
The lineup is the A list lineup: Roman back into the leadoff spot after a day off (with a pinch hit homer in the 9th) last game, but at DH with Duran in left and Yoshida getting a day off. Narvaez is back in there, his late scratch yesterday still unexplained AFAIK. I guess that’s going to stay between him and Cora.
Roman grounds meekly to Manny Machado, who I swear was at the second base position by the time he threw the ball to first. That would have been too slow a ball to get Anthony at first had the shortstop fielded it — as it was Roman nearly beat it out. That is insanely good infield positioning.
10 pitch 1-2-3 first for the Sox so I can see how this is going. Michael King, pitching for the Pads, has to be feared if for no other reason he was a Yankee prospect and one of the guys traded for Soto a couple of years ago.
Reason #413 I love Sox fans: they know how to hold a grudge. Booing Manny Machado…how many of them remember him spiking Dustin Pedroia?
Surprising stat on the screen: Gray lead the majors in K/BB ratio last year, 5.29, even better than Skenes. But he also had the 7th worst opponents; batting average in the NL (.262) and gave up 25 HR. So it wasn’t just the Cardinals being bad across the board that kept his quality numbers other than WHIP mediocre. Lots of hard contact.
But he gets them in order again in the second, and is pitching very efficiently. Strikeouts are seriously overrated when you can induce soft contact and keep your arm fresh. More of the same, please, Sonny.
Contreras makes the most confident ABS challenge I’ve ever seen to lead off the 2nd: he walked to first on a 3 ball count after it got called a strike, right after tapping his hat. Didn’t even look up at the scoreboard to see the result. The Sox get their first baserunner but groundballs on consecutive pitches, the second a strange dribbler by Durbin two feet in front of the plate, and just like that the inning’s over on a 2-6-3 double play. We are flying! Combined pitch count for both pitchers after two innings….41. 21 for Gray, 20 for King.
Oh Trevor: you used to be gold. He has a difficult catch to make going back on a soft dying pop but the ball glances off his glove. Ruled a hit but IMHO he shoulda had it. The first S.h.it of the season defensively, after I declined to make similar calls on Cedanne and Wilyer in the outfield in the Houston series.
(The other of my invented stats I have surprisingly been unable to award as yet this year, six games in, is the GTJD — Got the Job Done — which I award for one of those things that advances the strategic situation, like getting the runner over by hitting the ball to the right side, that can only be considered in the context of the game. You don’t get a GTJD for advancing a runner from second to third with nobody out and a ground ball to the right when you’re down by seven runs in the third inning, but you do get it with the game tied in the 10th.)
Nice play by Abreu closing the gap to his right to end the top of the third inning, on a play that could have been trouble with a higher sun. First baserunner is stranded at second and we move on again in a relatively brisk fashion.
I try to mute and ignore the commercials but it is difficult to avoid my brain screaming at the Who’s Baba O’Riley (“Teenage Wasteland”) being used to advertise…the Whopper. I think I broke the mute button punching it as hard as I could. The Who Sell Out, indeed. I digress.
The Padres have the closest thing you can get to a full shift on Marcelo, with Machado well to the first base side of the shortstop position and Xander as close to the second base invisible line as you can legally get under the new rules. It’s extreme, with both the second baseman and first baseman back, getting close to that three-on-the-right lefty pull hitter Williams shift. But: Marcelo very pleasingly just pokes it the other way off the monster and hustling all the way has an easy wall double. First Sox hit, second baserunner.
Marcelo has looked really good for the most part this year, after some hair-pulling about his bat during spring training. That’s his third double.
Oh, our sweet, sweet number nine secret! Cedanne pokes one into left center, and Mayer gets a tremendous read on it and heads straight tot he plate, and the Padres fail to cut it off and Rafaela gets to second on the throw. 1-0 Sox and a runner in scoring position with one out still. We have a LEAD! AT HOME! WOOOOOOT!
Roman very improvidently swings early — I really wish we’d get King’s pitch count up — and pops out. Two down and Story coming up. But Trevor whiffs and our first little rally ends, at least with a run. On to the fourth.
Xander strokes one towards the monster, which looks like trouble, but Duran tracks it well and takes a huge metallic THUNK crashing off but handling the ball well. Not quite an official Defensive Gem but a good play. Definitely a home field advantage defensive play. Continuity among defensive left fielders is an asset for the Sox.
One of the things I miss about the era of replacing every ball as soon as it’s touched a bat or hit dirt: they used to throw the ball around the horn after an infield play. You only ever see that on a strikeout these days. I always had a lot of fun with that when I played, and when I coached I enjoyed teaching my kids about when and how (and why) to do this. It’s a piece of baseball craft that is dying out.
Wow! Nice AB by Gray against Machado, getting him to foul tip strikeout on a 2-2 count. Gray working fast and well. 4 innings, 1 hit, no walks, two strikeouts, only 54 pitches. He’s off complete game pace now but looking very promising to pitch into the 7th, which would be a good start for the series matchup Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here but I don’t think it’s premature, especially as the shadows start to cross the batter’s box.
Nice dink double by Jarren Duran to start off the inning, with his characteristic all-out hustle out of the box making second base a foregone conclusion. How many extra bases has he taken in his Sox career, that few others would have or could have taken? Yet he rarely gets called out on a bad decision. It’s an underrated part of the running game: decision making. You have to know your own feel of the ball off the bat, the fielders, and hustle. It’s a sweet bouquet of skills.
Contreras hasn’t looked real comfortable at the plate all season — other than his strutting down to first after the ABS challenge, that is — I wonder if Alex might consider flipping AL-MVP-Wilyer-Abreu and Contreras in the order.
Oh, great two out hit by Durbin to drive in Duran! 2-0 Sox! Durbin’s first hit of the year after a…oh wow, oh for 19 start. Well timed.
Marcelo gets on a catcher’s interference as Campusano, the Padres catcher, tries to get out in front as Durbin tries to steal. Another thing that wasn’t on Your-Father’s-Red-Sox team, this omnipresent running threat, that produces results in odd ways. Now we’ve got a runner in scoring position and a potential three run homer with two outs, after King was almost out of it, an this pitch count mounting (albeit still only in the low fifties.)
Boy, King makes a great pitch to catch Narvaez looking to end the inning: some kind of breaking pitch that looked inside all the way and just backed up into the inside top corner of the zone. Good call by the ump, and Carlos doesn’t even look like he wants to challenge.
They just showed Gray’s pitch selection for the day, and his 4-seamer is only the third most-thrown pitch thus far — cutter and sinker dominating. Gray maybe taking advantage of the lighting conditions.
Oh, bad bad play by Cedanne in center, creating a triple. he took a step in, shielded his eyes, and it went over his head by a foot. Second S.h.it of the game and year. I can see why the scorer didn’t want to call it an error by the book, but it’s hardly an earned triple, either. You sort of wish the rule book allowed a half a hit or a half error. (Cedanne sort of balks on a ball subsequently, one that’s hit straight at him, so you know it has to be the sun.)
Unfortunately the next batter singles to right, and it’s now 2-1 Sox with a runner on first and one out.
On a 1-0 count the ball is well out of the strike zone outside and low but it’s called a strike, and the batter — the Pads’ catcher, Campusano — just shrugs it off and doesn’t challenge with two outs. It may have been a 90% call but the batters are either under instructions or the use of ABS is getting more strategic. I didn’t check before the game to see the Pads’ ABS stats coming into this series — it will be another Manager Tendency to track if we see a big discrepancy not only among total ABS challenges but the latitude given to catcher, pitcher, and hitter.
Rats, Campusano doubles with a cling off the wall and it’s 2-2 and we’re back to square one with two out and a runner on second. That brings Andrew Bailey out for a conference with Gray at 70 pitches. I once again jinxed a Sox pitcher by talking about how far he’d go in the game way too early. Sorry about that Sonny. Gray does retire the side on a grounder after the mound conference, so while we don’t get an Andrew Bailey Genius Point awarded, I will notice this as a reasonable correlation for future reference and discussion as the year progresses.
Bottom of the fifth, tie game, and I take my first peek at Win Probability. They’ve dropped from a game-high 77% to 56%.
As they show the Sox’ 1986 pennant banner on the screen, I am reminded that the 1986 Mets team was really one of the great teams, all-time. They won 108 games and really had it all. They were heavily favored going into the series and I remember a lot of talk about sweeps, after the Sox squeaked in against the Angels (who memory serves were also favored in the LCS). It was small comfort at the time but hats off to a great team, in retrospect. See, it only takes me forty years to be gracious in a loss.
They’re also showing Boggs’ retired number a lot, and I wonder if they’re supposed to be interviewing him. I don’t know that because the audio feed has disappeared.
As much as I love the Sox broadcasters, when the audio from their feed - but not the ballpark — drops out to star the fifth I remember how much I love the experience of being at the ballpark and not having the whole game narrated for me by talking heads. The sounds of the game are enough all by themselves, and you can follow along fine. It’s just really nice. One broadcast feed a few years ago was offering the option of a broadcaster-less broadcast — can’t quite remember which one it was, but it was one of those cable channels where they had a side channel for an alternative feed — and I couldn’t get enough of that. I hope MLB decides to offer this regularly.
Roman finally pokes one through and the Sox have a runner with one out in the fifth. But the inning ends on yet another weirdo double play, as the second baseman, Cronenworth, runs 8 or 10 feet from directly behind second on a grounder up through the middle, steps on second and throws to first in one motion, to just barely get Trevor Story on the back end. Really phenomenal play but I wonder if Trevor has lost half a step. I thought he’d be safe all the way.
ABS challenge by Xander against Gray and Xander wins it on a 2-1 pitch. Machs nicht: he grounds out. Gray closing in on 80 pitches with one out in the sixth. That six pitch first really playing big now. He’s in the third time through the order, of course, but not deep. He’s only +4 after retiring Machado on a soft liner to end the inning. That’s six and anything after this is a bonus. Good start, overall. the runs were both kind of tough luck.
OVER THE WALL! Contreras gets his first Sox homer and it’s a classic! Sox 3-2. Win probability back to 73%. (Has Chapman worked since Game 1? I don’t think so…!)
No Wally mask! Is there no Sox home run celebration this year? I wasn’t hallucinating or missing coverage on the previous three homers apparently.
AL-MVP-Wilyer-Abreu follows up with a 113 MPH single and I think we’re going to see the bullpen if another guy gets on. Yep, mound visit and it’s a languorous walk out there as the Pads pen gets busy. King at 76 PC.
MARCELO! Jumps on the first pitch from the reliever and it’s a two run shot and just like that we’re up 5-2! Which is (checks toes) our biggest lead since the 3-0 win opening day. (Fake) Opening Day, that is.
Weissert on to pitch the top of the 7th with the three run lead and the bottom of the lineup. He had a rough start to the year and here’s hoping this is a quiet, confidence-building outing. We really need him for the 7th (and today Whitlock is out on paternity leave, so we may need him for the 8th as well.) He gets a nice 1-2-3 and we move on to the bottom of the 7th just shy of the two hour mark.
Boy the top of the lineup has been quiet this year, after Roman’s 3 for 3 on (fake) opening day. That was as quiet as 7th as we’ve had all year. On to the 8th, where Justin Slaten is the answer to the question who is going to take Whitlock’s spot today…
Flyout, strikeout, groundout! It’s a pitchers’ trifecta! And we are going to be in Chapman time in the 9th with at least a three run lead. Win probability up to 97%!
The Sox swing like they want to get to the 9th and here we are, with Chapman pitching for the first time in a week.
Wilyer makes a nice play coming in for the first out, and Marcelo Mayer wisely choosing to peel off before there’s a collision. Lazy fly ball, though, despite the sun. Called strikeout and of course it’s Machado up with two outs. Machado wins an ABS challenge and it’s 1-0., and the count is run up to 3-0. Let’s see if Chappie challenge him. He does come back hard, running the count to 3-2, and we have a runner on. Tying run in the hole, still, so no reason not to go after Laureano.
Machado down to second on defensive indifference. Don’t get me started on “defensive indifference”. It doesn’t exist and it shouldn’t be in the rule book. Will save that for another day.
Lazy fly ball on a 2-2 pitch and Chapman moves up above Papelbon on the all-time saves list and the RED SOX WIN 5-2!
Game time closer to 2:20 but still pretty fast. Afternoon baseball. Love.
Takeaways: There is nothing like Fenway Park. Sonny Gray looked very good and the runs were really hard-luck aided by the sun-crossed triple over Cedanne’s head. Marcelo Mayer continues to look very good at the plate, smacking his first homer of the year and having another multihit game. Wilson Contreras not only homered but he had the best ABS challenge in major league baseball thus far this year as he “walked away” and didn’t even check to see if his challenge was upheld. We can hope for a win streak at home to set the ship right, and while one win isn’t enough to reverse course, last I checked you can only win one game at a time.
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