Isn’t that convenient. People work all day from nine to five just so they can come home and watch the Red Sox lose, 9-5. What a nice ending to the day: a loss and a brand-new batch of worries.
Tazawa barely lasted four innings. He gave up nine runs on ten hits with a walk and two K’s. A two-run shot by Carlos Quentin was involved. And this is worrisome because Tazawa is so young. As a pitcher, he’s very impressionable. The last thing we need is for this loss to mess with his psyche and confidence to the point where winning becomes difficult. Or this could be the first of a string of losses; a pitcher’s slump, if you will. Either way, it’s bad, and it can not happen. On the bright side, it only took him eighty-five pitches to tank, so at least he’ll be well-rested for his next start.
The relief core was fine and included…Nick Green? He pitched the eighth and ninth. Delcarmen had already pitched the fifth and sixth, and Ramirez pitched the seventh. Nobody else was available. Saito’s neck was sore, Wagner threw a session on Wednesday, and Bard and Okajima would’ve been unavailable against the Jays because of their workload the previous two games. Youk had to tell him that, at the Major League level as opposed to high school, you’ll be called for a ball if you lick your fingers between pitches. He threw thirty-five pitches, thirteen of them strikes. Three groundouts, three flyouts. He threw mostly cutters with quite a few four-seams, with a few two-seams and sliders here and there. He walked three but didn’t allow a hit or a run. More importantly, he kept the bullpen also well-rested for its next appearance. Green was the first position player to pitch multiple innings since Dave McCarty in 2004.
That’s the key to losses like this. If you’re losing by a fairly wide margin late in the game and you get the sense that it’s pretty much over, you want to do things that give your aces and big bats a rest. If you can’t win this one, win the next one, and the best way to ensure that that happens is to ensure that everyone is firing on all cylinders. So you take your young starter out after four innings and put your backup shortstop on the mound for two innings of relief.
It actually took Tazawa only three innings to lose the game, because he allowed four runs in the second, four in the third, and one in the fourth. As usual, we made a valiant effort to come back. We scored two in the fifth, two in the eighth, and one in the ninth, but we were still four runs short. Ellsbury went two for three before exiting in the fifth due to a high left ankle sprain sustained after colliding with AJ Pierzynski’s shin guard at home. Rocco Baldelli replaced him. Luckily, it doesn’t seem to be anything serious, and while he may not start tonight, he’ll be as good as new in a couple of days. Ortiz went two for four, and V-Mart made another throwing error. Gonzalez hit a home run in the fifth. The big night was unquestionably Drew’s, who went two for three with two home runs. And don’t look now, but his average is starting to climb. A solo shot in the fifth around the Pesky Pole, and another in the ninth out to center field.
If only the score had been reversed. If only we’d been on the receiving end of the win. It would’ve been a sweep of the White Sox, and it wouldn’t have mattered what the Yankees or the Rangers were doing. But, just our luck, on a night we lose, the Yankees are playing the Rangers. See, this is why I don’t like chasing the Wild Card. It gets very awkward, very quickly. We’re supposed to root for the Yankees to beat the Rangers so we can maintain our Wild Card lead. We can’t take our usual course of action by rooting for the Rangers to beat the Yankees because of the Wild Card lead. (The Yankees lost, by the way. 2-7. I really don’t know how I feel about that.) Yeah. Awkward. Well, the only thing we can do at this point is move on to tomorrow. The White Sox are out of Boston and the Blue Jays are back in. This could potentially be a very difficult series. Remember that, for some reason, the Jays always manage to play well against us in September. I hope this year is an exception. I really do. It’s Scott Richmond at Beckett, and hopefully this start will be nothing like his last two.
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