No Scoring for 12 Innings

First, one of the main reasons why the offenses in this game did nothing was that the umpire had a huge strike zone (up and wide).  Both sides had a lot of issues with him, but I didn't think one side got an advantage, but it just changed the game dramatically.

On the positive side, Sonny Gray, took advantage of the strike zone, the best breaking stuff he has had all year, poor hitting from Toronto and even a fastball that reached 96 (he is usually around 93) to pitch 8 shutout innings allowing 2 hits and 2 walks.

On the negative side, I thought our bats were awful.  The score was 0-0 in 12 innings and while the strike zone was huge, we took so many pitches down the middle and on the edges that were real strikes.  We also swung at so many very bad pitches and were out of synch. 

Clippard was brought in to face Andujar in the top of the 10th and I thought this is a great matchup because Andujar handles off-speed pitches so well.  Up came the changeup and he just missed a HR for another double to lead off the inning and we were in business, but 3 straight out left him there.

We had some chances with Bird at the plate but he didn't come through, however, our best chance that should have been a run was Romine was up with Stanton on 3rd with 2 outs.  He ripped a hard line drive one-hopper up the middle where Devon Travis made an outstanding play diving full out to his backhand and caught an in-between line drive hop.   He then, from one knee, flipped to 2nd base to get Andujar who had walked (twice in this game).  Seriously a gem of a play that saved a run and they were fortunate that Andujar was on 1st as I am not sure he could have gotten up to throw Even the slower Romine at 1st.

Another good play by Toronto saw a play where it looked like Didi was safe at 2nd base stealing but Travis let the ball go all the way to the body of Didi and caught and tagged at the same time.  This has been another one of my pet peeves where infielders take the throws from catchers and catch it too far in front of the bag.  Sometimes you have to because the throw won't reach but if the throw will reach you let it go as deep as you can.  This was the deepest possible and is more dangerous but a great tag.

FF to the top of the 13th inning:  Nobody out, Gardner on 1st base and Judge with a 1-0 count on him...Judge swung at a fastball really inside and then waived at a slider way outside (part of the bad approach all game).  the next pitch was one to kill as Thier pitcher (Biagini) hung a slider but Judge just got a piece of it to stay alive.  That was the pitch to crush especially with a 1-2 count as it was a hanger.  For some reason, he then threw a curveball for a low strike that Judge hit deep over the LC fence!!!  Stanton added an absolute bullet line drive HR that was the 2nd hardest hit ball of the season at 119.3; the hardest was a single by Judge at 119.9

Boston keeps winning