So due to injuries and particularly virulent viruses, you cobble together a seemingly unimpressive lineup one night and they manage to eek out a one-run win. The next night, due to those same constraints, you pull out one of your better hitters and throw in a not totally prepared starting pitcher and they lose by two runs. It's kind of impressive that they came that close.
Lester wasn't supposed to play today but ended up pitching the first five innings of this game after Daisuke was taken ill with the flu. His line wasn't good. He threw eighty pitches and gave up nine hits, four runs (including two home runs), walked two and struck out one.
But if he's still sticking with the plan of trying to throw first-pitch strikes, he made some progress at the beginning of the ballgame. The first four batters he faced each saw a strike on the first pitch. He missed with the last batter of the first inning (throwing a ball, three strikes, and another ball before the batter grounded out to short) but came back out to throw a first-pitch strike to the first two batters of the second inning. After that, that aspect of his performance went down hill. He saw six more batters (and was staring down the fourth batter of the third inning) before he got back on track with the first-pitch strikes eventually striking the batter out swinging. He also got ahead on the last two batters of that inning. He fell behind the first two batters of the fourth inning but threw a first-pitch strike to the last (who eventually grounded into a double play.) In his last inning, Lester fell behind the first two batters but threw strikes to the last two. Over all, it wasn't a successful bid to meet the first-pitch strike goal; he saw twenty-three batters and got ahead on only twelve of them.
Hansen came up to pitch the sixth and the beginning of the seventh inning and he didn't do too badly. It was interesting to see the contrast between the tempo at which Lester works and the much more lively tempo at which Hansen was working. He did give up a home run but he also struck out three of the eight batters he faced, got a ground out, got a fly out, and if Pedroia hadn't had a miscue in catching a pop up to shallow right, would have gotten out of his two innings only having allowed the one hit. As it ended up working out, the runner was safe at first and moved over to third on a base hit by the next batter before he was pulled.
He was replaced by Javier Lopez who walked the first batter he faced (a lefty) and loaded the bases before inducing a ground out to end the inning. Javier Lopez had a 1-2-3 inning in the eighth. He got a strike out, a ground out, and a pop out. Mike Timlin pitched the ninth inning and started off well. He got the first two batters to ground out before he gave up a base hit. On a 1-1 count, Cash lost a ball in the dirt and the runner advanced to second. The batter then hit a single up the middle and the runner came around to score. A nice defensive throw to second by Cash got the new runner out as he attempted to stretch his single into a double and ended the inning.
The defense that the Red Sox put up was the reason they stayed in the game as long as they did. In addition to that nice defensive move, Cash also tagged a runner out at home in the second inning. And in the fourth and fifth innings, Lugo helped turn a double play; the first time tagging second himself and the second time flipping the ball to Pedroia for the first out.
The offense tried. Lugo batted in Drew in the second inning. In the third inning, Cash got a double, Ellsbury a single, and then Pedroia had a sacrifice fly to get their second run of the night. In the fourth inning, Pedroia got a base hit and then Ortiz hit a homerun down the right field line to bring the Red Sox score to four. And that was it for runs.
I should preface this by saying that I love Manny and that I spend quite a bit of time defending him but I wonder if he's starting to feel a bit under the weather. Even for him, he looked sort of listless out there in left field and running the bases. I hope it isn't true. If you were forced to take out the last remaining 'big bat' it would be a sorry lineup, indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment