That wasn’t a ballgame; that was a circus. I know what a ballgame looks like, and last night wasn’t it. It was so bad, it got to the point of being almost funny. Except for the fact that, by the time we got around to playing real ball, it was the tenth inning, it was too little too late, and we lost.
We scored four runs in the first two innings. In the first, Scutaro scored on Youk’s double for our first run. Papi tried to do the same but was thrown out at the plate.
In the second, with one out, Hall singled into right field, and Gross fired the ball home to keep Cameron from scoring. But Hall rounded first base by a mile, and Suzuki wanted to throw him out, but the throw ended up in right field because Barton and Ellis had no idea who should catch it. So, in the end, Cameron scored his run, and Hall was safe at second base. Then Davis tried diving for Scutaro’s bloop single, which ended up being ruled a double, and a stand-up at that, because he failed miserably; Hall scored on the play. Then Scutaro came around on McDonald’s double.
We continued hammering away at Braden in the fifth, loading the bases with two out, but Hall grounded out. So we loaded the basis in the sixth with only one out, but Papi struck out and Beltre grounded out.
Those were huge opportunities. I think we lost the game in those innings. We wouldn’t score another run last night, and in baseball you never know which run will be the winning run so you have to score when you can. It turned out that the game was decided by only one run. So if we made good on those bases-loaded situations, it’s not unreasonable to say that we would’ve won.
Meanwhile, the A’s had tied it up in the third with four runs, only three of which were earned. (Cust had moved to third on Cash’s passed ball before scoring.) He gave up only three hits during his six innings of work, walking two, striking out five, and tossing 115 pitches. His knuckleball was perfectly fine. It was dancing, it was in the zone, for the most part. He just got roughed up. We’ve seen one-inning badness from him before. His pitch counts per inning were mostly around twenty; his pitch count in that third inning was thirty-four. It was a double, a walk, a hit-by-pich, a double, and a sac fly. Some of that, namely the walk and the hit-by-pitch, are just part of the nature of the knuckleball; with a pitch so unpredictable and difficult to control, those things happen sometimes, and it’s a tribute to Wake’s skill that he only walked two. So he definitely got his work in, even if our offense didn’t.
After that, the relief corps held the fort perfectly. Needless to say, we’re going to need a quality start from Buchholz tonight because we used six relievers: Delcarmen, Okajima, Bard, Ramirez, Richardson, and Bowden. The first three cruised. In fact, after that third inning, Wake and the bullpen combined to retire the next fifteen batters they faced. But now we come to the other part of the story. The circus part. The morbidly comical tenth inning part.
The tenth inning started with Ramirez, who was somehow called for a balk that put Barton in scoring position. That was ridiculous. He didn’t balk. He just didn’t. And to be honest with you I’m getting exasperated with all these bad calls. Richardson got an out after that. But then Bowden, who just got called up, was thrown into the mix with the game on the line and left a pitch up. It was a four-seam. The at-bat lasted for five pitches; the first three were four-seams, followed by a curveball, followed by the mistake. Kouzmanoff jumped on it for a single, scoring Barton for a walkoff. Ramirez ended up taking the loss.
And finally, last but not least, the ejections. Crisp was ejected for arguing balls and strikes. He swung and missed, he actually walked away from the plate, and then he actually walked all the way back and started it up. John Farrell was ejected for arguing that Rosales didn’t check his swing and did indeed strike out. How the umpire missed that, I have absolutely no idea. His bat was so far in front of the plate, it looked like he was swinging for the fences. Then Tito came out, and he wasn’t happy either. Thankfully he didn’t get ejected, but still. If he strikes out, the game is still tied.
In other news, the brass wants to upgrade the video screens in Fenway and bring int a new jumbotron. As in, high definition. The plans have to pass the Boston Landmarks Commission first, though. I’m just thankful that our brass isn’t interested in something like the Dallas Cowboys monstrosity. After all, we go to Fenway to watch a ballgame live, not to watch it on TV.
So that’s it. That’s the whole story. Every mistake that can be made in a ballgame – defensive, offensive, pitching, fielding, arguing – was indeed made. All told, we left twelve on base, half of which were left in scoring position with two outs. We had twice as many hits as Oakland did, but baseball games aren’t won by hits; they’re won by runs, which makes that our ninth loss in thirteen games. Like I said, we need Buchholz to step up big tonight. Actually, I’m pretty psyched. We’re starting to get healthy.
Boston Soul 