Maxbialystock

Some folks enjoy pitching duels. I'm one. No accounting for tastes. Devers up with Verdugo on 3d, JDM on 1st, and no outs. And he hits into a double play. Verdugo scores, however. It's remotely possible Kaprielian knows what he's doing.

Must be the 10th innings. Verdugo on 2b with no one out.

The last 4 in this lineup have 5 K's in 8 at bats. And no hits, of course.

This is the Sox 13th of 19 games without a break. Last night went to 12 innings and Friday night 10 innings, which was the day/night after playing the A's at Fenway and then flying across the country.

It was one of best hitters who was an easy 3d out with Sox runners on 2d and 3d.

First Sox hit to Rike.

Agree on starting a new streak! Also on getting good Pivetta. Like the little girl with a curl, when he is good, he is very, very good, and when he is bad he is horrid.

Mathematically, playoffs are a crap shoot because all the teams have winning percentages around .600, that is, from .550 to .650. If they were played now, the highest winning percentage would be the Giants .634, and the lowest would be the Rays .566. And that's a pretty small shot group--all of them win about 6 out of 10 games, so "upsets" should be no surprise. However, I think history says that pitching can take over in the postseason if only because the rotations and bullpens get rest days every 2 or 3 days. So a team with, say, three superb starters and 4 solid guys in the bullpen can expect to be more successful than teams that don't have pitching that good. Good pitching usually, not always, negates good hitting.

Why do you keep insisting Cora and bullpen were the villains last night? The real reason the Sox lost was that the lineup scored just 2 earned runs in 11 innings, the last two of course with a man on 2b base and no one out. Without the 2 unearned runs to keep them alive, the Sox lose last night in 9 innings. And before Cora finally went to Andriese, Workman miraculously held the A's scoreless in the 10th and 11th innings, but the Sox offense stunk yet again. Plus you keep forgetting that today the Sox play their 13th game of 19 straight without a break, which weighs most heavily on the bullpen. Last night you lost a ton of credibility when you said Cora's managing was so bad he must have bet on the game. You weren't serious about the betting, but you were serious that Cora was clueless in Oakland.

One more time. Last night was the 12th straight game the Sox have played without a day off and they will play 7 more, for a total of 19 straight, before the ASG break. Andriese was indeed tantamount to a flag of surrender, but only because the rest of the bullpen has been heavily taxed, which in fact is one reason why the Sox won 8 in a row. And why blame Andriese or the bullpen or the pitching for that matter when the Sox lineup scored 2 earned runs in 11 innings? Without those 2 unearned Sox runs, the A's win in 9 innings. And let's not forget that Workman miraculously held the A's at bay in the 10th and 11th innings, but the moribund Sox offense couldn't score either inning despite starting both with a man on 2b. Santana was hitless last night in 5 at bats, and Verdugo was hitless in 6. I don't like Santana one bit, but he wasn't why the Sox lost last night. Oh, Dalbec was hitless too.

Indeed. The complaint about using Andriese in the 12th ignores the fact that the Sox offense only scored enough to get to extra innings because of two unearned runs. Then in the 10th and 11th Workman miraculously (he was lucky) held the A's scoreless, but the Sox offense also didn't score despite starting both innings with a man on 2b, etc.

I never thought of that, but completely agree. Indeed, moonslav said a week or two ago that starting pitching mismatches--when a really good starter goes against a marginal one--often lead to surprises. But I do believe luck is a factor in 1 run games.

That's a cheap shot, but I for one deserve it. I think Bloom and Cora have been fantastic, but where's the fun in that? We gotta have something to talk about.

Agree completely. This loss is so telling. If they win 8 in a row and then lose the 9th, what the heck good are they? What was Cora thinking last night? Why hasn't Bloom given him the players he so desperately needs? On the other hand, maybe we should remember that last night was the Sox 12th game in 12 days and that they still have 7 to go for 19 straight games without a break. I'm no expert, but some folks think that 19 straight games can be hard on a bullpen, to say nothing of the starters and lineup players. Or haven't you noticed that Cora has been resting his position players? That's why JDM was in LF and Verdugo DH'ing.

Kimmi said it and was quoting experts/analysts. Ken Pomeroy is hands down the best college basketball stats guy in the nation. He provides 20+ spreadsheets on every one of 353 Div I basketball teams plus detailed spreadsheets (including stats on every game played) on every player on the team. But what gets Pomeroy known is that he also predicts the outcomes, the actual scores, of every single game played by every one of those 353 teams, and he updates those predictions daily based on stats and algorithms he uses (he used to be a weather forecaster). He rarely gets the exact score right, thank goodness, but his stats and predictions are so good that the Las Vegas betting line for a college game almost always starts with the margin Pomeroy predicts. He's that good. On one spreadsheet which ranks all 353 Div I teams, he has column entitled "luck." If it has a plus sign, it means that team has been lucky, and by lucky Pomeroy means they won the close games, which I think he says are a margin of 3 points or less. The Sox have won more than their share of 1 ran games this year, so yes, I think think they have been lucky. But I also think Cora has done an excellent job of putting them in position to be lucky.

I have said in the past that the neat thing about game threads is that they are opportunities for venting. So, yes, I was out of line attacking everyone who got mad at the Sox, the moves Cora made, etc. Nevertheless, it does rankle me that the Sox have vastly overperformed this season and that immediately prior to last night's game had won 8 straight, have the best record in the AL, a 4.5 game lead over the Rays, 7.5 over the Jays, and 9.5 over the Yankees (the preseason favorite in the AL East). In addition, the overwhelming majority of contributors to talksox believe that Cora is the single biggest reason for the success of the Sox. He has been great with the bullpen, with deciding when a starter needs to be pulled, etc., and we saw that happen repeatedly in the 8 game winning streak. Finally and inevitably, the streak ended last night against a team, the Oakland A's, who are currently 2d in the AL West and 1st in the wild card race. They are a competitive team and certainly not pushovers. On top of that, the Sox starter, Richards, has struggled mightily recently because he is having to adjust to not doctoring up the baseball. Backing him up was a tired bullpen which was pitching in its 12th straight game without a break going against the A's bullpen which had Thursday off. Oh, and Friday night's game went 10 innings with Whitlock, Barnes, and Ottavino--the three best Sox relievers--pitching the final 4 innings. And up ahead are 7 more back to back games before the ASG break. That's 19 straight games for the Sox bullpen to carry a pretty heavy load. And let's not forget that strategically Cora likes to rest players during the season. My view is that there were no easy decisions last night, other than to pull Richards in the 6th, by which point he had astonishingly gone 5, giving up just 2 runs. Also, to me it's clear the A's pitching was simply better last night, period. Had their defense not let them down, they win the game in 9 innings.

Andriese delivers, well, vintage Andriese. He was hopeless in the 12th.

Andriese for the save!! Well, hopefully.

Sure looks that way. I don't like him in the outfield either.

Noted.

Oh, the Sox. They're another story. Hard to root for a team having such a rotten season. I can't remember the last time these idiots even won a game.

On to the 12th.

2 outs. Gonzalez smartly ignored the guy going to 2b.

Bunter at bat. Hmm.

Finally, an honest man.