Game 17: Red Sox 0 Minnesotans 6

 Worse and Worserer

The Sox hit the magic twin combination of ineffective offense against a budding star and a poor performance by their own aging vet

The first thing that must be said is Mick Abel did not come out of nowhere. He was a first round pick, albeit in the weirdo draft of 2020. He was the prize pig in the deal that sent Jhoan Duran to the Phils, no slouch he. After a bit of a rough start to his minor league career — mostly BB and HR — but bear in mind that class of 2020 essentially missed a year and a half of development time — he really dominated AAA last year for both the Phils’ and Twins’ affiliates. He cut his walk rate in half and his HR rate by 2/3. Yeah, he got battered in cups of coffee with both clubs last year, and had some difficulty out of the gate this year, but the 7 innings of shutout, shutdown baseball he threw against the Sox tonight did not come out of nowhere. It was the first fantastic start of his major league career and it's just a R#U@@()ing pity it had to come against us.

There’s a formula to work on rookie pitchers finding their feet, particularly ones who’ve barely scraped 100 IP a year. And that’s to work smart: get the pitch count up, make them throw inside strikes, make them throw their worst pitches. And the Sox, to my eyes, did nothing of the sort today. Other than Roman and Yoshida, who each went 2 for 4, that was it. They literally couldn’t put back to back batters on base all night. Drew only one walk. Whiffed 12 times. 

So it seems like a dogpile to blame this on Sonny Grey, given the game would have been lost if he’d given up only one run. But Sunny got pummeled with nine hits and a walk tonight, lasting only four and being lucky to give up only five runs. He wasn’t wild, as has happened with him at times; he was just a little too easy in the zone. The Twins had a game plan and they jumped on him. The quote on the post game interview: “I just didn’t feel like myself.” Oh, OK. 

Major League Debut tonight for Jack Anderson, investigative columnist for the Worcester Press prior to joining the Sox today. If you get that joke, you are even older than I am, as I barely remember Jack Anderson from his radio spotlight program, back when nationally syndicated columnists both did actual journalism and appeared on media other than podcasts. Anderson came up basically for a fresh arm, near as I can tell, with Tyler Carmensandiego (OK, Sananiego, but I have made that mistake verbally twice now) having been used up the last few days (your ace only lasting for five outs tends to do that) and the Sox needing a sacrificial arm in the majors. Jack is 26 and another lite beer league guy, having been a 19th round pick for the Tigers from Florida State — a round that doesn’t even exist anymore — and worked his way up nearly entirely as a reliever (I count nine minor league starts, total, among his mere 282+ career minor league IP). He has got a fastball and can throw strikes, that much is certain, and it was nice to see him strike out the side in his first taste of life in the big leagues, albeit already down by five runs. He did give up a solo shot, but otherwise held down the fort for three innings, and we welcome him to the ecosystem that is the shuttle bus between Woo and the Fens. 

What was disturbing AF from the bullpen was to see Chapman come in for a mop up inning in the 8th, presumably to get the work, since the Sox haven’t had a save situation since (checks notes), I dunno, June of last year? I can’t remember that far back, in any event. It’s just never ever a good sign to burn your closer in a meaningless game situation with another game on tap for tomorrow. He did at least strikeout the side. 

OK and we’ll get to the possible real disaster of the game, which was that Willson Contreras was taken out in the fifth after being hit by a pitch in the fourth. “Back tightness” is the official report, which can be just a twinge and they took him out as a precaution, or something horrible, as back problems can be. We will just have to wait and watch there. Andrew Monasterio finished out the game at first (he is reasonably smooth there, considering he’s a utility man). 

Takeaways: the offense is really starting to look like everybody could use another year in AAA.  Sonny Grey was bad, the bullpen was good again albeit in only four innings since the Twins didn’t even have to bath in the 9th, but we’re also reaching down into AAA for innings and that’s not a good sign in April. Nice major league debut for Jack Anderson but I am afraid I’ll remember this either as the game where Willson Contreras got hurt or Mick Abel started his Hall of Fame career against Our Sox, depending on what horizon you’re looking at.  I’m at a loss here about how bad this team is right now, and the bad tonight was simply being out played and out pitched. At least it wasn’t Crochet giving up 11 runs in less than two innings.