Maxbialystock

He thought the throw was going home plus he got a good jump by running from 1b with 2 outs. Smart play by the Rays.,

Agree with the 3 of 6, but that doesn't mean I'm confident. Athletics pitching sucks, but not their starter Morales tonight. And right now the Sox are missing their best hitter Anthony and one of their best Abreu--plus Bregman and Duran both seem to be in slumps. Tonight is a big deal because we have our ace Crochet starting.

If they get more than 1 run against Morales, it will be a big deal.

Stunning. Thanks.

Tough month so far and with a lot on the line. Hitting/scoring and pitching both seem to be faltering. Before he was injured, Anthony was arguably the best hitter on the team and led off. He has been replaced by bad jokes since Sep 2. It does not help that the 2d batter, Bregman, is in a slump, nor that Abreu has been on the IL since Aug 17 and has made no progress in his recovery. Duran's OPS in September is .477. Time and again it's been the pitching that has led the way in the winning streaks, but right now the otherwise excellent rotation is faltering. Our ace Crochet is up tonight but 6 days ago he gave up 7 runs to Cleveland. Tomorrow and Wed the starters are May and Tolle, both of whom struggled their last starts. The Athletics can't pitch, but they can hit. They just scored 30 runs @ the Angels (but lost the 3d game, 3-4). Tonight the Athletics starter is 22 year old rookie Luis Morales with 5 starts and an ERA of 1.91. He seem to rely mostly on 3 pitches--his 97 mph 4 seamer, a changeup (apparently a good one), and a sweeper. Sox are going with their best Crochet. I think a win tonight would be huge, but also think Morales could shut down our weak lineup.

I felt exactly the same way after 6. Good thing there were 3 more innings to play.

Very sensible. You've said this before, but it bears repeating.

I think Yoshida has the best K/at bats ratio on the team. Plus, of the players available for tonight, he has the 8th best OPS vs righties. Eaton is playing because he isn't on the IL.

Excellent laydown. Thanks.

I'm not talking about 1 game. In the last 5 starts, including last night, only Giolito had a good game. I completely agree we should not condemn Tolle for last night--an away game against a very good hitting Diamondbacks team.

It's huge, I agree. So no way, no how can Cleveland catch the Jays. Nevertheless, the Jays win just 58% of their games and the Guardians win 50%. That means, depending on matchups of course, the Jays win 6 of 10 games vs the Guardians or 3 out of 5. If you're a Cleveland fan, you gotta like those odds--which ignore matchups--going in.

No system's perfect, and the WAR folks will tell you that in a heartbeat. That's why I put in all that stuff about pitching and hitting. Who would have thunk the Pirates could score 7 runs off our ace Crochet? Or how about last night against lefty ERod who held the Sox to 1 ER in 6 innings? Lowe can't hit lefties worth a darn, but last night he tripled his first time up for the Sox only rbi against ERod.

Need a win tonight. Giolito's ERA in August was 2.39 in six starts and 37.2 IP--easily the best on the Sox. However, on August 9 @ San Diego, he gave up 4 ER in 4.2 IP. And the Diamondbacks are better hitters/scorers than San Diego and last night showed why with 10 runs and 3 dingers. Davey Johnson died. I regret I had forgotten much about him. His degree from Trinity was in mathematics and he was one of the first to apply what is now called sabermetrics in figuring out lineups, etc. In the freaking 1970's when he played for Earl Weaver he developed FORTRAN-based computer simulations to determine batting orders which Weaver happily ignored. Today everyone uses some version of sabermetrics/computer analysis pretty much routinely to determine batting orders, positioning of defensive players in the outfield and infield, how pitchers should pitch to each batter they face and what each batter should expect from a given pitcher, etc. Nevertheless, the unpredictability of baseball games is driven by the fact that hitting a round ball with a round bat squarely is difficult and can sometimes result in hard hit outs. Same goes for every pitcher who takes the mound and tries to throw the right pitch in the right part of the strike zone (or outside it) with the right spin and velocity. Right now in the AL there are realistically 9 teams out of 15 in the hunt for wild card slots and/or Division titles. And their winning percentages ranged from .500 (Guardians) to .582 (Jays). 8 freaking per cent separates the best from the 9th best. That's miniscule. In the NL it's 7%, only it's for 6 teams, not 9. The Cubs, Padres and Mets are virtual shoo-ins for the 3 wild card slots. Brewers winning percentage is .613 and both the Mets and Padres, who have pretty much nailed down the 2d and 3d wild card slots, are at .539.

As do I.

No argument with the OP's analysis. However, the simple fact is that losing the bats of both Anthony and Abreu has had an effect on the lineup. A related issue is that the Sox rotation and bullpen both looked awful last night, and pitching is the real strength of this team. Given the above, who the heck cares whether Ref plays RF or Garcia is brought up or whatever?

Sox have hit a bunch of balls hard for outs.

Meanwhile, Tolle also accumulated 4 BB's in 3 IP.

The real problem with Tolle in this game is lack of command. It's like a giant magnet in the center of the strike zone--all the Diamondbacks have to do is look for those fat pitches.

Tolle definitely tired.

That's true of every team in MLB.

Agree completely. Sox let him go just in time.

Sox are actually hitting ERod as hard as they are hitting Tolle. ERod has 65 pitches in 3 IP and Tolle 52 in 2. The look back by Narvaez cost him a step.

ERod, on the other hand, good command and a better changeup.

Horrible at bat by Story. Horrible.

Sorry. I missed it.