In the first game of a day-night doubleheader versus the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday, the Red Sox and their bullpen hurt my feelings. They stripped me of my shirt, took a rusty serrated knife directly to my chest, broke each of my ribs, individually, stuck their collective hands inside of my chest and ever-so-slowly ripped my heart out. After completing a magnificent three-game sweep of the red-hot Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend and a day off on Monday due to a rainout, the Red Sox forgot how to be good. A four-game winning streak was simply too much to ask for.
The bullpen may have physically been the reason why the Red Sox lost, and I’ll get to all of those juicy details in a minute, but I think I know the real reason behind this loss to the Tigers this afternoon. I flipped NESN on at about 12:55 PM, preparing to watch a weekday matinee baseball game as one does. The start time was 1:05 and both managers were, of course, at home plate with their lineup cards ready to give them to the umpires but there was just one problem: there were no umpires in sight!!! Not one!!! At about 1:07 and after Dennis Eckersley got done initially eviscerating them, they all came strutting down the third base line taking their sweet ass time. Not a care in the world, just a couple of umpires thinking that they run the place and answer to nobody. Fellas,,,, SUCK MY ASS. Once they arrived at home plate, one of them mouthed something to the likes of “I thought it was 1:10 [instead of 1:05].” You have ONE JOB and ONE JOB ONLY!!! JUST SHOW UP!!!! It’s not like you properly call balls and strikes anyways, so at this point, please just show up on time. It’s truthfully not as difficult as it may seem.
In summary, the real reason the Red Sox lost today is that the umpires were stupid dummies and ruined the Red Sox’ mojo and momentum. If these lame-o umpires knew what a clock is then I firmly believe I would be typing up a beautiful blog about Boston’s four-game winning streak right now. But NOOOOO.
Yes, I feel much better now. Thank you. Back to actual baseball.
Chris Sale started for Boston this afternoon and put up his first double-digit strikeout outing of the 2019 season. For the most part, this was an extremely encouraging start for the lefty, many hoping and assuming that he would finally look at least a little bit like Chris Sale today. Again, for the most part, he was just that. For the first time this year, he had a consistently high-velocity first inning with his fastball, throwing 94-95 MPH out of the gate. It was working very well for him, too: through his first two innings, Sale registered two swings-and-misses on his four-seam fastball – through his first four starts combined (18 innings), he only did so twice. The only two things that brought him down and kept this outing from being a peak Chris Sale performance: his pitch count and the strike zone enforced by the home plate ump.
Through just three innings of work, Sale had already thrown a staggering 59 pitches. Through four innings, he had already recorded 8 strikeouts but on the flipside, had thrown 75 total pitches, quite obviously his downfall in his fifth start of the season. The strike zone was even uglier than Sale’s pitch count, somehow. From start to finish this guy was squeezing the entire Red Sox lineup; the strike zone isn’t the reason the Red Sox lost today but it certainly wasn’t a helping hand. I can recall multiple occasions both with Sale pitching and with the Red Sox batting where blatant balls became strikes and blatant strikes became balls, but only when it came to the Red Sox. I’m failing to recall the Tigers getting squeezed at any point in this particular game. IIIIIIIInteresting.
Sale’s offspeed pitches were very much vintage Chris Sale in this outing. After a couple of innings, his slider quickly started to look like the slider that we all fell in love with years before. This season Sale has struggled to find and command his beloved slider which has been detrimental to his performance thus far and has led him to his 0-4 start. To put into perspective how dominant his slider was in this game: Sale threw 97 pitches total, 49 of them were sliders. For the first time in 2019 Sale put multiple of his strong suits together: his slider, his fastball and his double-digit strikeout count and boy, oh boy, was it beautiful.
Sale’s final line looked a little something like this: 5 innings pitched, 5 hits, 2 earned runs, 2 walks and 10 strikeouts. Keeping his runs allowed to a minimum was essential to him making it through 5 innings. In the fourth inning he allowed an RBI double to a fella named Ronny Rodriguez. Yes, an individual actually named Ronny Rodriguez. In the fifth inning, a fella named Grayson Grenier launched a solo home run with no outs on a 90 MPH fastball by Sale to tie the game at 2 at the time. While Sale did erase Boston’s early two-run lead, I’m not overly concerned about that. I’m more concerned with how quickly he racked up pitches and how his velocity lowered as his pitch count heightened. I really thought, along with the majority, that Sale was going to put it all together at last and give us eight strong innings of work coupled with double-digit strikeouts. We only got half of that and I would have heavily preferred to see him go deep into the game as opposed to seeing him load up on strikeouts and hit 100 pitches by the end of the fifth. It is what it is, I guess.
With the game tied at 2 runs apiece entering the sixth inning, Heath Hembree replaced Sale and I genuinely have no fucking idea why. You could have called it, I could have called it, hell your dog could have called it, too: he gave up a solo home run to none other than Ronny Rodriguez to hand the Tigers the lead. Hembree let the ball hang and allowed this dude to CROAK it over the Monster and I think over everything. I know for a fact that I’m not alone when I say that I would do anything in order to get this guy off of my favorite baseball team.
Anything, you name it and I will gladly do it if it means that Heath Hembree no longer gets to wear a Red Sox uniform and continuously blow games for said Red Sox when he unreasonably gets put into every single fucking high-pressure situation in every single fucking close game. When does it end? What else does Hembree need to do in order to show the organization that he needs to go? Better yet, the Red Sox wouldn’t even need to trade Hembree in order to get rid of him. They don’t need to go through all of that work. All they need to do is grow the balls to release him and call up Durbin Feltman, AKA the Bush Man. It’s as simple as that. If I had the power to do so, Id’ have done this back in March, to be quite honest. But that’s none of my business. Hembree is one lucky guy that Sale wasn’t in line for the win or else I’d have hauled myself over to Fenway from southwestern New Hampshire and physically assaulted Hembree upon immediate arrival.
To add insult to injury, Colten Brewer ensured that the Red Sox were not going to win this ballgame when Josh Harrison doubled off of him to drive in not one, but two runs in the eighth inning to re-give the Tigers the lead, 5-3. I mean, of course. We are apparently not allowed to have good things in this month of April in the year of 2019 as Boston Red Stockings fans. It gets better, folks!!! – just kidding, it doesn’t. Our old friend Grenier drove Harrison in to make it 6-3 in this wonderful, fun and exciting eighth inning. Bobby “Big Balls” Poyner pitched the ninth inning and put on just another little bit of hurt, really rubbing it in just for shits and giggles when he allowed another run to score to graciously hand Detroit a 7-3 lead.
Here’s a couple of fun facts:
Now over just 24 innings caught since being called up, Sandy Leon has helped allow 20 earned runs. Neat-o!
Matt Barnes, Ryan Brasier, Brandon Workman and Marcus Walden have combined to pitch 42 innings and allow just 11 earned runs. The rest of the bullpen has combined to pitch 47 innings and allow 39 earned runs. Also, quite neat-o!
Red Sox pitchers combined to throw precisely 176 pitches this afternoon. Extremely neat-o!
Really awesome that none of those four guys were used in a tie or close game situation. So awesome, to be honest. Also really awesome that Sandy Leon is not as helpful as he notably has been behind the plate, assisting in making Red Sox pitchers great at throw. Also SO awesome that Red Sox pitchers seemingly forgot that high pitch counts are actually bad.
The only highlight to come out of the bullpen this afternoon was Tyler Thornburg, notably. He’s had an up-and-down season thus far, but after getting out of a jam that Hembree set up for him in the sixth inning to keep Detroit from further beating the Red Sox into the ground and pitching a 1-2-3 inning in the seventh, he’s back on my good side at least for the time being. Considering how up-and-down this entire bullpen is at its core, I’ll take the ups when I can get them and I will cling onto them for dear life, refuse to let go and make sure that I let all of my lovely readers know about them while we have them.
Boston’s offense wasn’t much more positive this afternoon, either, sadly. Unless your name is Xander Bogaerts because he hit TWO home runs in this game. Two! His first came in the sixth inning – a piss missile Monster shot, if you will, to tie it up at 3 – and one in the ninth inning to give a minimal Tuesday afternoon Fenway crowd something to live for. The Red Sox were 2-hit through almost six full innings of play and only totaled five hits as opposed to Detroit’s 12. The only other true positive on offense for the Red Sox this afternoon was Tzu-Wei Lin, AKA The Tzunami™, slicing a no-outs double into right field in the third inning which set up Mookie Betts to hit two-RBI single into left field to give Boston that early 2-0 lead which was, as you now know, later taken from us far too soon.
I was and am extremely happy to see Bogaerts launch multiple home runs in one game but the bullpen blowing this game hurts me far too much to be able to find the joy within me to celebrate them at this moment in time, unfortunately. Not only did the bullpen crap on Bogaerts’ big day, but they also shat directly on Michael Chavis’, my dear husband Michael Chavis’ first home game at Fenway Park. I think that’s what hurts me the utmost. The Red Sox were 3-0 with Chavis as a member of the 25-man roster but the moment they played a game on their home diamond they decided to violently burst that bubble. Not cool. Not cool at all.
JD Martinez played right field today and essentially ended the game with a banger: our beloved JD Martinez, knowingly a mess when given a glove and asked to play defense, recorded an outfield assist in the ninth inning, showing off quite an impressive cannon that he has up his sleeve. Take a look at this missile:
JD Martinez from right field pic.twitter.com/SM4PUduvFb
— Tucker Boynton (@Tucker_TnL) April 23, 2019
Still pissed at the bullpen, though. We’re on to game two of the doubleheader (not me tho I’ll be watching Game 7 Bruins vs. Leafs because it would be a crime otherwise hehe sorry folks).
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