Game 2 Against the Red Sox

Happ was a little off early and had trouble spotting his changeup.  He wasn't able to expand the strike zone inside (which is important to him), but they were balls and when he leaked a fastball over the plate Martinez hit a HR to CF.  Martinez is an excellent hitter as he is able to pull his hands in to get the barrel on the ball but not lose much power.  The big blow was the 2 run HR he gave up to Vazquez who is a very weak hitter.

Now we are down 3-0 early against Eovaldi, who has been lit up this year, but has pitched very well against us. 

In the 4th we got a leadoff walk by Voit on a 3-2 count and then Torres got on with a fielders choice where Nunez dropped the ball at 2nd base.  Nunez was always weak with the glove and he played out his rear for the Red Sox last year.  After LeMahieu was called out on strikes (good pitch), Frazier ripped a double down the line scoring 1.  With 2nd and 3rd and 1 out, Tauchman struck on a 3-2 pitch that landed in front of home plate (ruining what was a decent AB and would have been very good if he worked the walk).  He should have expected something off the plate with 1B open.  Urshela hit a line drive that Steve Pearce made a 2-run saving dive on to end the inning. 

In the 6th and still down 3-1, the ump started giving the Red Sox the pitches off the plate and while we went down 1,2,3 in the 6th, Voit shoudl have walked on a 3-2 count but was called out on a pitch off the plate and as teh leadoff guy, the inning could have been much different where Eovaldi was closing in on 100 pitches and woudl have been from the stretch. 

Meanwhile, Happ settled in and kept the Sox off the board, but did allow Devers to get a single that Luk probably should have turned into an out.  He made the stop on a half sliding dive and then stumbled a bit and from his knees threw very low to Happ and Happ couldn't corral the bad throw.  It wasn't an easy stop so they gave him a hit, but I wouldn't have had an issue with an error either as a smooth 1B gets that.  Kahnle came and after allowing a SB, he pitched out of trouble, pumping a 98 MPH fastball by Bradley to end the inning.

Now we got into the weak Red Sox pen.  Frazier lined a single on the first pitch and Tauchman walked.  The ump again called a first pitch curve a strike to Urshela that was a ball and he ended up striking out.  Romine walked to load the bases and Workman was pulled for not throwing strikes.  Brasier came in and threw 2 curveballs to Gardner for strikes (one taken and one fouled off).  Down 0-2, I was expecting another curve in the dirt or a very high fastball, but Brasier threw a fastball down the middle of the plate and Gardner hit perhaps the most meaningful hit of the year as he ripped a Grand Slam for what was also his 100th HR!  It was a bad pitch but gave us a 5-3 lead and Gardner was pumped (as was the crowd, myself and I am sure some of you who watched it) and you could see him open-mouthed going "woo" around the bases.  What a great way to get your 100th HR, with a slam against the Sox!

With only a 5-3 lead the game was far from over, and I was annoyed when Judge was called out on a pitch across his shins.  The box showed this to be a little low, possibly just touching the box, but the review showed it was 5 inches low.  This is one of the reasons I really don't like the box live.  It is not adjusted to the size of the batter and just isn't that accurate.  For those reasons and the fact it blocks the view of the catcher some and the perspective that we have of the plate.  Finally, they have now changed the color inside the box so it is lighter than the rest.  It is annoying to me and I am fine superimposing the pitch after every live pitch, in fact, they should do that, but give me the live feed without disrupting the view.

Ottavino came in for the 8th and his first pitch was a slider closer to the strike calls that we had called against us but it was called a ball.  Interestingly, he did strike out Betts on a fastball in the same spot.  Ottavino made us sweat by loading the bases with a very inconsistent slider, sometimes just spinning, but he got Nunez to fly out on the 1st pitch to end the inning. 

Chapman had a good 9th and we swept the two-game series!

Other Notes:

At 14-4 should we start to take Tampa seriously?  Any time a team is off to a good start you have to look at them, but they are very young and almost everyone is playing above their expected level.  That being said, this is not a fluke team; they won 90 games last year and very close to division winners last year (Cleveland 91, Dodgers 92 and Atlanta 90).  They are also very forward thinking, using that one inning starter at times.  There are pros and cons to it but now that they are not doing it all the time, I think it has merit.  I had written in this blog a few times that in a postseason game if I had a lefty and righty, I would have started the tough lefty to get their lineup with the righties in it (or vice versa) and then at the first sign of trouble bring in the starter I wanted anyway. This way, you have better matchups.

Onto KC where German pitches against Homer Bailey(who has not been good since 2014).