June 1

Before I get into the Red Sox game, “David from Cal” left a comment about the play a few weeks ago where Austin Romine was not able to tag the runner out on a play that the ball beat him.  Romine played that terribly as he took the throw behind home plate instead of catching it almost on the runner (I assume this is the play you are referring too and if not please leave in the comment section).  This is no different than if a SS took a throw on a steal on the OF side of 2^nd base (or when sometimes they take the throw far in front of the base and don’t let it travel almost to the batter.  It was a very poor play by Romine and it wasn’t as if the throw caused that issue.  This was one of the plays I wanted to comment on, but I simply have not had the time to write many of the notes I take when watching a game (even mental notes).

Onto the Red Sox game…CC looked as good as he has in a while.  The Red Sox didn’t swing too well, but CC didn’t center many pitches and he actually hit 94 once and hit 93 a bunch of times.  His curve was sharp and his changeup was effective.

Gardner had a lot of good AB’s, but man I wish he were better at reading pitchers.  In the first inning, we had a great chance with Gardner on 1^st and Youk up and after a 5 pitches of gauging Lester’s move Gardner went on a 3-2 pitch and Youk did a terrible job striking out and Gardner was thrown out.  The replay showed how poor a jump Gardner got and he still was barely out.  This was a hit and run so Youk gets the blame, but still.

Gardner did get a big hit later.

Robby Thompson needs to know that his job is not just to wave the runner at 3^rd home he needs to put the brakes on Stewart when he runs into the 3^rd out of an inning (at 3^rd no less) instead of 2 outs and 2 guys on.  Bad play by Stewart, but again that is why a coach is there and Thompson needs to move quickly once he sends his runner home (who was easily safe).

Girardi argued a play that live I thought he was right on, but on replay the fielder kept his foot on the bag and he was out.  Earlier another similar play happened and Pedrioa did a great job of keeping his foot on the bag and I think Girardi thought one of them was called wrong, but neither was.  I think he wanted to get thrown out. I still think the coaches’ arguing is stupid.  I would be OK with IR because it would stop the arguing and probably speed up the game.  The umps check with another ump on a check swing, why not on a close play?

I didn’t like the ump behind the plat on some of the outside pitches, but I realized he just had a wide outside strike zone against lefties, but when a righty was up he didn’t call the inside pitches the same way…kind of odd, but he was consistent.

Robertson looked good again.

Rivera actually didn’t look good as he made some very bad pitches, including the 0-2 pitch to Napoli that he fouled back into Stewart’s glove and the first out to Gomes. The speed was good, the movement was average but the location was very poor for Mo…but he got the easy save (Tex should have gotten that grounder by Ortiz)