Maxbialystock

Whatever Gausman was throwing, especially the fast ball, our guys just could not hit. Four singles. And lots of fastballs down the middle that were missed or fouled off. Porcello pitched well.

With men on 1st and 3d, Sandy Leon gets 2 fastballs right down the middle and swings and misses both of them.

Meh. Jays are 3-7 in their last 10 games. Orioles are 6-4 as are we.

I might be the world's leading advocate for throwing changeups, sliders, etc mixed in with the fast balls. But tonight the Orioles seemed to hitting Porcellos breaking balls with gusto. That pitch to Trumbo is the first inside pitch the ump has called a strike. He's giving them outside stuff, but calling the inside ones closely. Nice 1-2-3 for Porcello.

Right now Guasman has our guys mesmerized.

Tough at bat for Leon. Once the first outside pitch was a called strike, Gausman just kept working the outside .

Weird. Already two almost collisions on pop-ups to the infield, Leon caught the second pop. Good 3d inning for Porcello. Leon and Bradley leading off the 3d--not too shabby for #8 and #9.

Sure does

Two innings, no hits.

All but one of those pitches to Shaw were low in the strike zone or below it--the GIDP was almost a sure thing.

Was that a hanging slider Trumbo hammered?

Nice play by Machado, but Betts did hit it hard, as did Pedroia.

Wieters even dumber than HanRam.

Fourth batter 2 fastballs and a groundout. 21 pitches which looked suspiciously like Porcello's warmup. But it worked.

First batter gets 9 straight fast balls and flies out deep to center. Second batter gets 3 straight changeups and singles to RF. Third batter gets 6 straight fast balls and then K's swinging on slider.

Good laydown in the OP. Porcello may or may not be the ace, but he is the right guy to have going tonight. A win tonight puts the Sox up 3 on both the Orioles and the Jays (who lost 8-1 to the Rays). Against Gausman, a righty, Farrell is going with five righties, including Young in LF.

I think he said MLB is mostly white because "they want it that way." However, those might have been Howard Bryant's words because the wrote the article on Jones and earlier the book about MLB. I relooked the espn article by Bryant, and he's the one who says MLB is white because the owners or whites want it that way. But he seems to imply that Adam Jones agrees with that view.

On the surface Adam Jones is absolutely right. African Americans dominate basketball and football way out of proportion to their percentage (15%?) of the American population. Maybe they are naturally better athletes or have more desire or both, but it's clear they do. It was maybe 50 years ago (or more) when Bill Russell, lining up for the 2d half jump ball of that year's NBA All-Star game, noticed that Jerry West was the only white guy on the court and said, "Jerry, you are the great white hope." Half a century ago. Where I disagree with Jones is in the notion that whites--owners, managers, scouts, etc--are deliberately trying to keep African Americans out of baseball. More likely in my mind is that African Americans are making that choice for themselves First and foremost. the apprenticeship for MLB is really long and demanding. But the longest it takes a youngster to get into the NFL or the NBA is roughly age 22, which means four years of college. Up until a few years ago, high schoolers--some, not a lot--were going straight into the NBA, and today those guys are "one and dones." We go ape when someone that young--22--breaks into MLB. And in the NBA and the NFL they earn good money early on, whereas MLB players often take until age 30 to get their first good contract. On top of all that, basketball courts proliferate all over the place, indoors and outdoors, which makes basketball a far more accessible sport for all kids, but especially inner city kids, than any other sport. Plus it's so much easier to have a pick-up game in basketball than the other two sports. And let's not forget that over half of the American population today--I'm guessing 65%--is classified as white. For whatever reason, that 65% is vastly underrepresented in the NBA and NFL, not because of any prejudice, but because people of color are simply better. So, let's say you're a good all around white athlete as many in high school are, and you think you might be good enough to go pro. Which way will you go? Baseball takes longer, but maybe your chances are better of going pro, and you don't mind the apprenticehip requirement. Your bigger problem is that the internationalization of baseball makes MLB accessible to Latinos. I look at our current team and just don''t see what Adam Jones is sore about. We have two African-Americans starting in the outfield and everyone is nuts about them--to say nothing of the likes of Ortiz, Bogaerts, Young, Price, Ramirez, Leon, Vazquez, etc. I mean, we got white guys too, but I'm darned if I can see any tilt in their direction. Price is our highest paid player (I think the 3d or 4th highest yearly salary in the history of MLB). Ramirez is second. Ortiz is third. I am not saying we don't have racial issues in this country. I'm not even saying it's right or wrong for athletes to stand up for the national anthem. But what I am saying is that the only one keeping Adam Jones from speaking his mind or demonstrating his belief is Adam Jones.

Here we got with straight fastballs again.

Kelly throws four straight fast balls, the 4th one 100 mph, resulting in a clean single to the opposite field. Too many Sox pitchers insist on establishing their authority.

Bogaerts and Ortiz so far have each left 4 men on base.

Hanigan maybe be highly regarded, but not to me. He was zero help for Pomerantz and can't hit spit. How he managed to get that walk in the 2d is one of those mysteries that will never be solved. He is hitting maybe half his weight.

Despite the 5-2 score in the 4th, a pretty good ballgame. The Orioles starter Bundy fought thru the 2d because he actually had a breaking ball, that changeup, he could depend on. Pomerantz ended up over-relying on his fast ball, which is what happened to Buch on Sunday.

Whoever is right about the hottest or 2d hottest, the fact is that Benintendi is not exactly guaranteed to play LF. Nevertheless, he will be an option.

On top of which, the Sox have the 5th best ERA in the AL (and aren't far off the 3d best) and the best run scoring in MLB and the best road record in the AL. Nothing guaranteed, but right now I like our chances.