How Sweep It Is

We played the last game of our series on the road, and I’m looking forward to the team coming home.  They’re needed here.

We were the first to get on the board.  Napoli led off the second with a triple and scored on a single by Nava.  But then the Tribe tied the game at one in the bottom of the frame after Lester gave up a double that became a run on a groundout, ironically brought in by Mike Aviles.

We pulled back ahead in the fourth; Salty smacked a solo shot with two out in the fourth.  He took a curveball for a ball, then a swinging strike, then a ball.  Then he fouled off two two-seams and took another curveball for a ball.  Then he got all of a ninety-two mile-per-hour four-seam and sent it healthily over the right field fence.  It was awesome.  It was all power, all swing long.

We added insurance in the fifth.  With one out, Ellsbury doubled and scored on a single by Pedroia.  The Indians pulled within one run when Aviles doubled and scored on a groundout.  Neither team scored in the sixth.  And then we basically ended the game in the seventh.

Ellsbury led off the inning with a single.  That was when the Indians made a pitching change, which was one of the poorer decisions they made last night.  Victorino reached on a fielding error.  Pedroia flied out, which moved Ellsbury to third, and he scored on a single by Napoli.  Nava hit a sac fly that scored Victorino.  And Napoli scored on a single by Carp.

So as you can see, Lester had quite the fine night.  Seven innings, two runs, four hits, one walk, five K’s.  115 pitches, seventy-two of which were strikes.  Great cut fastball, and great off-speed pitches as well.  Lower strikeout total than usual, but outs are outs no matter how they’re recorded.  By the way, his ERA is still under two.  Miller came on in relief and gave up a walk and a single.  Coming in with two inherited runners, Uehara let one score thanks to a double.  And then Bailey picked up the save.

So the final score was 6-3, not 6-2.  Fortunately, that run didn’t matter, and we won anyway, completing the sweep.

In other news, the Sabres beat the Bruins, 3-2, in a shootout, so we still get a point.

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Sweet Caroline

We thank the baseball community for its support during this somber and difficult time.  On Tuesday, “Sweet Caroline” serenaded baseball fans throughout the country as teams played it during their games in solidarity.  We appreciate the salute.

We got off to a great start.  Ellsbury, the game’s first batter, singled in the game’s first at-bat.  Then Victorino got hit, and Pedroia singled to load the bases.  So, to review, we had the bases loaded with nobody out in the first inning.  The first third of our lineup successfully got on base.  Then Napoli stepped up to the plate and singled in two runs.  And Nava stepped up to the plate and singled in one more.  Unfortunately, we followed that epically solid rally with three straight outs.  But we had three runs on the board before the Tribe even took the field, and things looked good when they went down in order in the bottom of the frame.

Neither team scored until the fifth, when we were back at it.  Middlebrooks and Salty provided two quick outs, but Drew walked on five pitches and scored on a triple by Carp.  We added yet another run in the following frame.  Victorino led off with a single.  Pedroia struck out, Napoli doubled, and Nava singled in Victorino.

Until that point, Aceves was doing extremely well.  He had just pitched five shutout innings.  But he imploded in the sixth.  He allowed a walk and two consecutive home runs for a grand total of three runs.  If we hadn’t added on those two insurance runs, Aceves’s complete and total fail would have tied the game.  Aceves didn’t even record a single out that inning.  It was absolutely awful.  In the blink of an eye, he lost all command and control, and he just couldn’t find the strike zone at all.  Fortunately, John made the switch to Tazawa just in time; Tazawa sent down the Indians in order after that.  Just in time indeed.

In the end, the game finished similarly to how it began.  Ellsbury singled to lead off the eighth, moved to second on a wild pitch, and scored on a fantastic combination of a sac bunt by Victorino and a throwing error.

Uehara pitched a great eighth, Bailey pitched a great ninth, and we won, 6-3!

In other news, the Bruins beat the Sabres, 2-1.

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One-Inning Wonder

The black arm bands and the ceremonial uniforms in solidarity with the city following the tragic events at the Boston Marathon were a very appropriate touch and a reminder of the gravity of the situation.  But baseball has always had a positive effect on fans; that’s probably one of the reasons why it’s the national pastime.  I suppose that one of the best things that the team did for us today was play.

So, we got to say hello to Terry Francona once again.  He said he didn’t want this series to be about him.  So far, it hasn’t been.  It’s been about how we won and all.  Still, it was good to see him.

Doubront turned in a great start.  Still brief at five innings, but he gave up only two runs on four hits while walking four and striking out seven.  In the second, there was a single, then a runner on third base thanks to another single, and then a run on a sac fly.  I’d like to see him go deeper into games, but fortunately, with a relief corps like ours, we can support him if he doesn’t.  Mortensen pitched two shutout frames following his start, and Alex Wilson pitched two more.

Both teams scored in the second, but since we were away, we played first and scored first, and in a big, big way.  Napoli doubled to lead it off, Middlebrooks walked, Nava struck out, and then Gomes walked to load the bases.  And then the opposing pitcher allowed a run in one of the most embarrassing ways possible: he walked it in.  It was great.  We scored a run, and the bases were still loaded.  Middlebrooks scored on a sac fly by Ciriaco, and Ellsbury singled in Gomes and stole second base.  Victorino walked to reload the bases, and as if it weren’t embarrassing enough having walked in one run, our generous opponents walked in yet another.  It was awesome.  How often do you see pitchers walk in runs? And how often do you see pitchers walk in runs more than once in a single game? And how often do you see pitchers walk in runs more than once in a single inning? Wow.  I would not want to be Cleveland right now.

But we weren’t done.  Napoli hit a bases clearing double that brought home three in one swing.  Then we were done.  One inning.  Seven runs.  We sent eleven batters to the plate during that inning alone, and Napoli took two turns at the bat, doubling in both.  We didn’t score again in the whole game, but seven runs was all we needed.  So we were really lucky that that held up, because we struck out sixteen times.  So the rest of the game was not something to necessarily be proud of.  But in addition to the seven runs, we walked nine times.  And the final score was 7-2.  So I guess it all worked out.

USA Today Staff/David Richard

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Moving On

The wait is finally over; Mike Napoli is officially ours, but for a lot less, in terms of both time and money.  The original deal was three years worth thirty-nine million dollars.  The new deal is one year worth five million plus incentives to thirteen million.  The problem, as I and probably anyone else suspected, was physical.  During a physical, our doctors noticed something with his hip that caused some concern.  Though a catcher by trade, he’ll be our first baseman.  That’s certainly a better fit for his hip anyway.  So now we can stop wondering and get on with the rest of our baseball lives.

As usual, we avoided arbitration with quite a few guys.  Salty signed a one-year contract with no guarantee.  Ellsbury signed a one-year deal worth nine million dollars, which is an extra-criminal steal.  He’ll be a free agent after this year, so this is probably the last time in his career that he’ll earn less than ten million dollars per year, and even that’s low.  Breslow signed a multi-year deal.

Vicente Padilla has signed a one-year deal to pitch in Japan.  Lastly, Terry Francona, who now manages the Cleveland Indians, will have a memoir coming out tomorrow about his time with us.  It’s called “Francona: The Red Sox Years” and was co-written with Dan Shaughnessy.  An excerpt published earlier painted a less-than-rosy picture of Francona’s relationship with the brass, which he now says is a misrepresentation of his book overall.  Oh, the drama.

In other news, our Super Bowl drought continues.  The Pats beat the Texans in the division playoff, 41-28, but lost the conference championship to the Ravens last night, 28-13.  So that’s it.  Our season is over.  Yet another example of the fact that our offense, outstanding as it is, was a bad match against Baltimore’s defense, and our defense a bad match against Baltimore’s offense.  It was agonizing to watch and painful to recall.  On the bright side, the Bruins have come to the rescue! We beat the Rangers, 3-1, on Saturday in the first game of the shortened season.

The Joy of Sox

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Cut Down

Honestly, it doesn’t get much more infuriating than that.  I’m just going to jump right in because it’s really tough to deal with it all.

Cook pitched decently.  He only lasted five innings, and he gave up three runs on seven hits while walking none and striking out two.  He went one-two-three in the first and second, and gave up a double in the third.  He gave up a solo shot to lead off the fourth followed by a single and then a two-run home run.  Following  two quick outs, he gave up a single, and then a fielding error put another runner on, but the inning ended there.  He allowed a single in the fifth and a double to lead off the sixth, at which point he was replaced by Hill, who was replaced by Aceves after three batters.

Meanwhile, we reduced our deficit from three runs to two; in the bottom of the fourth, Pedroia doubled with one out and scored on a single by Loney.

Aceves came out for the seventh and gave up a single followed by a two-run home run of his own, which made the score 5-1.  Two outs later, he gave up a double and was replaced by Carpenter, who ended the inning.  In the bottom of the seventh, we made another dent in the score.  Ross began the inning by striking out, but then Salty and Nava hit back-to-back doubles.  The Yanks sent out their third pitcher of the inning, and then Salty scored on a groundout by Gomez and Nava scored on a double by Aviles.  5-3.

Carpenter handled the eighth without incident baseball-wise but with incident drama-wise; when Bobby V. came out to the mound and Aceves saw Carpenter coming in, he walked to the other side of the mound to avoid Bobby V. when he left the field.  In terms of the bottom of the inning, we failed to score.  But it was not without further drama.

Ross ended the inning on a called strike; the at-bat featured seven pitches, all but one of them sliders, and the count had been full.  Ross and everyone else who had a pair of decently functioning eyes could see that that last supposed strike was actually a ball because it was low, and he let home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez know it immediately. So Marquez rejected him; it was only the second rejection in Ross’s career.  Several minutes later, Bobby V., who had separated Ross and Marquez, went back out there to have a talk with him that obviously got heated pretty quickly and was ejected for the sixth time this year, which sets the record for the most single-season ejections by any manager we’ve ever had in our long, illustrious history.  And at some point even third base coach Jerry Royster was ejected for some reason, so bench coach Tim Bogar was managing and coaching third at the same time at the end of it all.  The whole situation was just absurd and could have been neatly avoided had Marquez just done his job and saw reality.

Anyway, Miller and Padilla teamed up to shut out the Yanks in the top of the ninth, and the stage was set for another possible walkoff.  Salty’s leadoff at-bat was exactly the kind of at-bat you hope for most in those situations.  The count was full and he got an eighty-three mile-per-hour slide as his sixth pitch.  He’s a big guy, and he unleashed his formidable power on it and sent it out of the park to right field for a solo shot that only he could have powered out of the park.  We were now one run away with nobody out, and between Salty having made it look so easy and our last-minute heroics of the previous night, we were daring to believe that we could potentially pull it off again.

But we didn’t.  Nava flied out, Gomez grounded out, and Aviles reached on a fielding error.  Ellsbury could have put the whole thing away right then and there.  But he grounded out instead.

So we lost, 5-4.  But no one can say we didn’t put up a fight.  Because we did, both literally and figuratively.  We manufactured our own runs and pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps in the face of a deficit and dared to call a ball, a ball.  We just kept going at it all night long, but we came up just short in the end.  It’s just so infuriating.  I mean, I have to think that we’ve lost this way to plenty of other teams this year since clearly we’re in the business of losing every way to every other team this year, but to do it against the Yankees is particularly brutal.  We were almost there; we just needed one more run to tie it, and we could take care of them in extras.  And we couldn’t get it done.  It’s the story of our 2012 baseball lives.

On a more cheerful note, we have next year’s schedule, so assuming that we’re optimistic, it’s a reminder of something to look forward to.  The season starts for us on April 1 in the Bronx; we follow Opening Day with a day off and then conclude the three-game series.  We then head off to Toronto for three games, and then we head home for our home opener against Baltimore, which is followed by another day off.  We then finish our series with Baltimore and play the Rays before spending three games in Cleveland and going back home to face the Royals, A’s, and newly-AL Astros.  Then we have a day off and we go back to Toronto and then to Arlington, our first full series of May.  The Twins and Jays comprise another homestand, followed by a day off and another road trip against the Rays, Twins, and Other Sox.  Then back home we’ve got the Tribe and the Phillies, followed by a series at Philadelphia and then the Bronx, followed by a day off.  That takes us to June, our first full series of which is at home against the Rangers and then the Angels.  Then we head off to Toronto and Baltimore before another day off and coming home to face the Rays.  Then we head off to Detriot before another day off and another homestand featuring the Rockies, the Jays, a day off, and the Padres in July.  Then it’s off to the West Coast for the Angels, Mariners, and A’s before the All-Star break.  When play resumes, we host the Yanks and Rays before a trip to Baltimore and a day off.  The west then comes to us as we host the Mariners and D-Backs at home, which brings us to August.  We then travel to Houston and Kansas City before taking a day off and traveling to Toronto.  We host the Yanks at home after that, followed by a trip to San Francisco, a day off, a trip to Los Angeles for the Blue Sox, another day off, and then a homestand featuring the Orioles, Other Sox, and Tigers, which brings us to September.  We go to the Bronx after that, take a day off, go to Tampa Bay, and return home for the Yanks, a day off, the Orioles, the Jays, and another day off.  Then we go to Colorado for two games, take a day off, and go to Baltimore for the last series of the season.  So we’ve got at least three days off every month except one: May, our most packed month, when we only have one day off.  But it’s a good schedule.  It’s interesting that Interleague is sort of spread out this year instead of being clustered in June.  It’s often a tough schedule, and we have to play some worthy opponents, but if all goes according to plan, we’ll be able to hold our own next year.

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