Game 2: Red Sox 5, Cincinnati Reds 6 (11 innings) (1-1)

The ABS Game 

- Roman sure likes the first pitch. We know he can be super selective, so unlike most other young players of his profile, I’m not too concerned the opposition pitching is going to exploit it. But…it’s worth watching. He hasn’t really driven the ball thus far. And I’d like AC to make sure he’s running up pitch counts and getting good looks as the leadoff guy.

- so Sonny Gray is not getting whacked too much in the first inning, but he’s not fooling anybody either. Flat in the zone with fastballs, breaking stuff going wildly out of the zone. And just like that the ubiquitous Eugenio Suarez is up with runners on the corners and a run across with only one out.

- oh boy. That dribbler back to Gray ALMOST resulted in a 1 unassisted out at the plate, which would have been a cool play (it has to be quite rare). But he forgot a fundamental of playing infield: if you’re trying to do a tag out and the runner has committed to a base, you head towards the base, not the runner. Sox down 2-0 with still only one out, even though the ball hasn’t been lifted once. 

The saving grace to that first inning rally has to have been the Reds had tough late afternoon  lighting. They were putting it in play but late on the swings. Gray gets a whiff for the third out but is over thirty pitches, which does not augur well.

Pretty clear the Sox bats are going to have to step up today, one way or another, and we’re going to see what the middle part of the bullpen is like. I wonder if AC has Oviedo on tap for a long relief appearance…

- Marcelo doubles in the second, now three for three, now slugging 1.666 on the season. 

- I can’t blame Carlos for making the challenge in the bottom of the second, because it was only a tenth of an inch off, but…maybe the use needs to be a little strategic. Given Gray whiffed him on the next pitch, 1-2 does not feel like the time. 

- Trevor seems to have the yips leftover from his bad stretch at the end of last year. That was an oddball throwing error in the 2nd, on a ball he had no need to hurry. It was like he didn’t know where his feet were when he planted for the throw. There’s no good time to give up outs, but when your starter is over 40 pitches with an out in the 2nd…ugh. It ends up as an unearned run. 

- oh boy, are we not doing a great job on ABS.  Narvaez lost the challenge in a meaningless situation, and then Roman, after using it for an egregiously bad strike call successfully, pushes his luck on the next pitch and loses the gamble by a tiny fraction of an inch. Players have to be cautious about this at the bottom of the zone; it’s harder to see the angle. As a former umpire, I’m all too familiar with the difference between the catcher’s angle, the umpire’s in the slot, and the batter’s; the batter has the worst view.

- Trevor makes amends with a great line drive dinger, and it’s good to get the HR monkey off the collective back. 

- Too bad it’s undone with a first pitch homer in the bottom of the inning. At 55 pitches and down by three runs,  Gray seems to be teetering on the edge of being yanked.

- back to back to back two out hits — that’s what I like to see. They then worked Brady Singer’s pitch count up and induced a wild pitch to bring the Sox to within one run. But unfortunately the inning ends on another atrocious CB Bucknor call — this time inches outside — with the Sox out of challenges. Still, back to a 3-4 deficit after the way this game started out is a pretty good inning, especially with the runs scoring with both outs and largely the work of the bottom of the lineup.

- Catching Friedl stealing for the third out in the bottom of the 4th (likely finishing Gray’s day at 77 pitches) is a sign of how the game has changed. The throw would have been considered off-line just a few years ago, but it was right to the glove on the first base side for a textbook (well, a new edition of a textbook) tag on the tush. Not even reviewed by the Reds. 

- Weissert’s season off to a bad start with an infinite ERA (well, mathematically, undefined) as EDC launches a fat pitch. Dave informs me he gave up only one earned run in his last 28 appearances in 2025.  He wiggles out of a first and third jam on a whiff, but he looks a little spring-training-y. 3-5 Reds.

- Coulombe making his Sox debut in the bottom of the 7th. I don’t know him at all, didn’t get a chance to see him during the spring. But he’s now my son’s favorite Red Sox. Because…his number is 67. Zoomers….!

- EDC challenges an inside strike call…successfully. Because it’s 2.4” inside. A baseball, for reference, is 2.9” across. Ladies and Gentlemen, C B Bucknor. I think we should nickname him ABS Bucknor. I am really looking forward to seeing Umpires’ statistics for challenges this year…

- Woo hoo, Ryan Watson, our Rule 5 guy, comes in with two outs and two on in the bottom of the sixth. Throw him feet first into the deep end of the flaming pool — those jitters will be there no matter what. Of course, Bucknor misses the 2-1 call but with no appeal it goes 3-1. Welcome to the show, kid. I bet the umpiring was better in the minors. Two strikes on check-swing appeals — yet another way Bucknor is overruled, but there are no limits on catchers’ appeals.  But the kid loads them up on the 3-2 count anyway.

- I love seeing the way Narvaez is encouraging Watson with tiny gestures of his head. I do not like the way Narvaez has dropped two strikes (one called a ball, see above) for Watson, though. There’s some kind of late movement on that sinker that’s fooling him. And of course, here comes Eugenio Suarez with the bases loaded and two outs. And finally the kid benefits from a bad CB Bucknor call…Cincy appeals…and it’s called a ball. The poor kid was walking off the mound. But a ball’s a ball. It was a nice pitch, though. And the next pitch is another CB Bucknor special! Called a strike off the outside part of the plate! And…Bucknor has back to back calls in different parts of the zone overturned, and we go to 3-2. Fortunately Watson gets out of it with one of those danger zone groundballs, which Marcelo fields to the shortstop side of the diamond and has to throw across the diamond. But Suarez is not fleet of foot and Contreras makes a nice stretch. Mayer gets our first official Run Saving Defensive Play of the year.

THAT IS AN OFFICIAL WHEW INNING (tm).

The Sox are still in this thing but they have been walking the balance beam all game…

- I agree with Will Middlebrook that Graham Ashcraft has closer-stuff…that consistency he lacked during his phenom-starter days still has to be tamed, though. What a frisbee he throws when he’s off. So Duran is on second with a walk and a wild pitch.

- Wilyer gets a ball in there with a bit of a cross between a liner and a dying quail that lands at the RFer’s feet, for either a double and an RBI  or a two base error. Personally I’d call it an error, because a major league player has to have better judgement, at least a hit and an error. But official scorers, as they are so prone to do in this era, makes the hometown call in favor of the fielder. The batter won’t complain, the fielder won’t complain, leaving the poor pitcher with a runner on his record. Either way, it’s 4-5 so I’m not complaining. Ashcroft chased with two outs and a runner in scoring position. Going for the matchup against Durbin in the six hole.

- Oh god, another awful called strike, with Marcelo Mayer the victim. ABS makes this all the more painful.

- Masa makes his season debut as a pinch hitter in the top of the 8th! And he stares down…CB Bucknor to draw a four pitch walk. Connor Wong in for his season debut, as a pinch runner, and he’ll no doubt catch the bottom of the inning. It’s another reason I’m happy they kept Connor as the backup — his ability as a pinch runner adds just that much more roster flexibility.

- Santillan was once a candidate to become the closer, and even held the job pro tempore for a while, before his erratic command moved him back to the set-up role. His first three batters demonstrated why both of those things happened. He’s tight around the zone, and then completely out of it. It was only Cedanne clearly looking for something else and being called out (legitimately, this time) that got him off the hook for the second out. K, BB, K, BB…pitching change.

- A moment to catch my breath at one of those critical junctures of the game…checking Fangraphs, the Sox have only a 25% win probability. That feels right because the Sox should have been blown out, the way they’ve executed today (and been burned by using up their challenges). The problem is this game is going to be remembered mostly as the “CB Bucknor - ABS game” because frankly I have no idea what the game would look like if it weren’t for him.

- Forcing the closer into the 8th inning may be one of those small victories, if Pagan is called upon again tomorrow, but I’d’ve preferred a three-run homer.

- Bucknor manages to bow yet another call — by ringing up Story on a check swing that should have been appealed, because there’s no way Trevor swung that ball.

- AC gets tossed out for the first time of the year, in the second game. I normally am not a fan of the manager tantrum, but if ever it was justified, this was it. I’ve never seen an umpire be so sheepish when tossing a guy out of a game, though. CB has to know he is in the zone….the Dead Zone. Supernaturally bad.

- Dave and Will point out Trevor Story went ballistic over what may be the worst ball-strike call I’ve ever seen, and he’s famously mild-mannered.

- Watson comes back out and gets his first major league whiff! He was pretty impressive, considering the zone issues and the exhaustion of Sox ABS appeals in the second inning, and it’s nifty Alex had enough confidence in him to leave him in there in a close and late game. 

- I like seeing 44 on EDC’s back. Henry Aaron was one of the greatest players I ever saw play live; I got the opportunity because he was a DH for the Brewers his last two years in the bigs. I got to see one of his homers, though, which had to have been one of the last four or five of his career. My favorite coincidental Aaron trivia: he hit 44 homers 4 times in his career. 

- WILYEERRRRR! Abreu seems so clutch. That was not a cheap homer, and it could not have been better timed.  We were at Fenway for the game against the Marlins where he hit the homer that was bobbled over the fence, and it seemed like it was going to be all Abreu.  The Venezuela magic from the WBC carries over. 

- I hope we get to the tag this post “Extra Innings” today! Chapman pitched yesterday, as did Whitlock, but I expect either one of them could be out there in the bottom of the ninth, anyway. 

- Yup, Aroldis out on the mound. A very Alex move. 

- Man, I HATE seeing empty seats in the expensive boxes right behind home plate. It’s 5-5! Too many lightweight fans in corporate seats. If you had real fans there, with a commitment to the team, the seats would be full. This isn’t LA on a weeknight; it’s Cincinnati on a Saturday night. Trust me, Cincy isn’t exactly gridlocked downtown on a typical Saturday.

- Aroldis’ stare at another missed call by Bucknor — which should have ended the inning on a called strike three and sent the game to extra innings — should be enshrined in sculpture. That, friends, is a LOOK.

- We go to the tenth anyway. Aroldis’ previous five outs this season have all been on long, loud, flyball outs. It’s good to see him climb the ladder at 100 MPH and make the batter look silly. He gets that first K of the season, after all.

- OK, Sox, let’s see if you can avoid losing your extra innings challenge.

- Connor Wong gets his first AB of the year and whiffs. Yeah, early to panic on him, but he sure looked like Wong ’25, not Wong ’26. He had a decent spring, though.

- 1-2-3 in the 10th. The Sox briefly had a win probability of 55% opening the inning - Fangraphs measuring the road team advantage of the softball-player-on-second extra innings rule - but it drops to 35% with a quiet inning.

- Listen, no fan of the bunt am I, but somebody’s got to start teaching it and drilling it more if it’s going to be used. Whitlock fielded a one hopper and looked back the runner at second — something you rarely see — and after a groundout to Contreras, the Reds have a runner at third with two outs. 

- Man I love Garrett Whitlock. He’s the main reason I am not too nervous about Chapman’s age and probable reversion to mean. Sweet inning: failed sacrifice bunt, harmless groundout with Contreras winning a sprint to the bag, strikeout. On to the 11th.

- Here’s something I don’t get about win probability, as calculated live by Fangraphs. How can the game truly be a 50-50 proposition with the visiting team coming up in the 11th? Empirically, since the adoption of the softball-zombie-runner rule, the visitors have won 50.6% of the time. I suppose Fangraphs looks at lineups and such, but exactly 50% seems just a little too on.  Speaking of which: the home team won extra innings 51.5% of the time prior to the new rule. I suppose technically this makes everything more interesting, but eliminating the home field advantage of batting second one we get to extras seems wrong.

- Trevor line drive double play to end the visitors’ half of the 11th. I don’t blame the Sox for sending the runner: you have to have made this decision before the pitch comes in. It was well-hit, just right at the second sacker.

- Slaten in the game in the 11th. That 9th-10th-11th lineup is really good, but you have to start looking at the 12th on the road, and I do wonder when the long relief is going to come out.

- Wong made an excellent stop on a ball in the dirt that was twisting away from the batter, on the backhand, to prevent the zombie softball runner from advancing to third. I don’t mind a walk in this situation, it’s sudden death. You benefit from a force everywhere and the “second run” can never score.

- Do you play the outfield a little bit further in in this game situation? I would think so, but from the broadcast I can’t see what they’re doing. A bit of a directorial faux pas by NESN - and play by play flaw — not to call this. 

- UGH. What a horrible end to an agonizing game. Reds walk it off in the 11th. I’m not sure if Roman had a genuine shot at this but a sinker to left ought to have resulted in a closer play at the plate. See my penultimate game comment, above.

Takeaways: Bill is now not the most notorious Buckne/or in Sox history.

What an agonizing game. The mess that Bucknor made — and the Sox by blowing their ABS challenges, and with Story’s error resulting in a run — just makes all the what-if scenarios in this game incomprehensibly complex. You should leave the game not knowing any umpire’s name. At the same time the Sox dug their own grave by using up their ABS challenges early.

There were bright spots — Wilyer Abreu’s homer heroics in the bottom of the ninth shan’t be forgotten in these quarters — and Ryan Watson's major league debut and a generally pretty good outing by the bullpen were key to keeping the team in the game -- but in the end it will be a game one will want to forget. One of those close losses somehow harder to bear than a blow out.

End Notes:

- I tend to switch between the radio and TV play by play, and it’s amazing how laggy the radio part gets. I have to pause the TV with some frequency to keep up. But it’s worth it: I like both broadcast teams, but I would never miss Dave Fleming’s play by play and acidic commentary. He walks a fine line between being a homer and the neural game caller. 

That said, it’s been agony listening to the MLB radio feed (I am out of WEEI / Red Sox network territory, by about 20 miles) because there have been unaccountable delays and then weird audio glitches in every broadcast I’ve tuned in since the start of spring training. Today I had to turn it off when Dave Fleming started sounding like a broken record. No, I don’t mean that metaphorically, as in he kept saying “CB Bucknor makes a terrible call!” It literally sounded like somebody was scratching an LP, repeating the same phrase over and over. It’s clearly a digital buffering artifact and it’s also clearly a problem of the feed, not my internet connection(s).

- the ABS rule in extra innings is dumb. If you still have your two challenges, and the other team has zero, why should you be penalized by not getting an extra one when your profligate opponents — in this case the Sox — have used all theirs up and get one back to use in extras? It didn't come into play this time, but if ever you want to have the benefit of a doubt of having an extra ABS challenge, it's when you get umpiring behind the plate like this.