Last night, at Fenway Park, it was James Paxton's turn to get rocked early. His control was good: He threw 67 of his 99 pitches for strikes . But it took him only 4 innings to throw those 99 pitches, and he gave up 7 runs.
This included 3 home runs by Mookie Betts. The Red Sox' Twitter account was talking about the fact that their team has never had a 4-homwr game, and that this could be it, because they had 4 innings to go. (They wouldn't be batting in the bottom of the 9th.)
It didn't happen, because the Yankees' bullpen wasn't as bad. But any loss to the Red Sox is bad enough. I don't care if it's 19-3, like it was the night before, or 19-18, or 1-0. It still counts as a loss, and I do not want to lose, especially to The Scum.
David Hale allowed 3 more runs, before Adam Ottavino and Zack Britton calmed things down. It may have made a difference after all, because the Yankee bats eventually got going, too little, too late.
A Luke Voit single drove home a run, to get the Yankees on the board in the 6th. They got two more runs in the seventh, including one on a single by Austin Romine, normally the team's backup catcher, starting in place of the injured Gary Sanchez, and, sad to say, the previous night's best Yankee pitcher.
They went into the 9th down 10-3. Mike Tauchman led off with a single. Romine doubled him home. They each had 3 hits. DJ LeMahieu drew a walk. Xander Bogaerts mishandled a grounder by Aaron Judge.
Suddenly, the bases were loaded with nobody out. The next 3 batters were Edwin Encarnación, Didi Gregorius and Voit. Red Sox fans were tweeting about the possibility of blowing the game. Apparently, the 4 World Championships their team has cheated its way to hasn't healed the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) they got from 2003, 1999, 1986, 1978, depending on how far back they go.
Encarnación flew out to right, and it was too close to score Romine. Gregorius flew out to left, and that got Romine home. And Voit grounded into a fielder's choice to end it.
Red Sox 10, Yankees 5. WP: Andrew Cashner (10-5). No save. LP: Paxton (5-6).
I don't know about you, but I'm starting to get nervous about the Yankees' starting pitching. Nobody is looking particularly good. The lead in the American League Eastern Division has dropped to 8 1/2 games over the Tampa Bay Rays, and 9 games over the Red Sox.
Is the Big Choke underway? On August 2, 2015, the Yankees were 6 games up, and finished 6 games back. On July 18, 2012, the Yankees were 10 games up, and were still 8 1/2 up as late as July 28, but got tied for 1st place on September 4, before finishing 1st by 2 games. In 2010, the Yankees were 4 games up on July 23, fell out of 1st on August 2, were 2 1/2 games up as late as September 21, were tied going into the last day, October 3, and finished a game out.
And, all 3 times, the Yankees had better starting pitching than they do now.
"Pitching is 75 percent of baseball." -- Connie Mack
"Connie Mack lied." -- Billy Martin
"Shut up, Billy." -- Uncle Mike
The trading deadline is now 4 days away, and Brian Cashman's history of trade deadline deals -- the ones he's made, and the ones he's refused to make -- suggests that we are not going to win the Division after all, much less the Pennant and the World Series.
The series continues this afternoon, at 4:05. CC Sabathia, who also hasn't looked good in this, his final season, starts against Eduardo Rodriguez.
No comments:
Post a Comment