Welcome to July (Boston and Atlanta)

The Red Sox series' almost always give more attention to the games and while none of the games were good/close, I enjoyed games 1 and 3 infinitely more than game 2.

After Judge's towering fly ball to CF for the 1st run, the game turned on the strength of our 21-year-old 2nd baseman (who plays SS pretty well too).  2nd and 3rd with one out after holding Stanton at 3rd with 1 out (good move) on Didi's double.  Torres jumped on the 1st pitch from Price and drove the fairly ordinary 93 MPH fastball out to RF for a 3 run HR and the rout was on.  Price used to have a better fastball which made his other pitches better.  He can still be effective when his changeup is on (it is usually good) and his cutter is working well, but his cutter didn't have much movement and his fastball is just 92-94.  That being said, what a great swing by Torres!  Seems like we have more success against price than others?

After flashing the stat that Higashioka was 0-22 on the major league club (0-18 last year), he hit a deep fly ball that was just inside the foul pole for his first major league hit...a HR; pretty cool!  What a great moment for him.

Hicks had a monster day with 3 HR's, It is good to see him get his OPS up to .848 and while he tends to do well against weaker pitching (I remember his 2-22 in the Houston series), if he can give us a mid .800 OPS it would be a huge boost to our offense.

I don't really understand the end of the game and why Boone had Boston get more looks at our best relievers in a blowout? I get that they need work, but I don't want Boston to see them any more than they have to.

Took 2 of 3 and that is the goal against an excellent team.

Now we move to play Atlanta; a solid team.

This was a good game...

With the score at 3-3 after Torres did a great job of stealing a run by getting a big lead and a good secondary lead followed by a quick response to a ball in the dirt to get home before the errant throw.

In the 8th with bases loaded and two outs, Walker pinch hit and K'd.

In the 9th, Gardner was up after a leadoff single by Torres (his first 3 hit game) and against a lefty Gardner didn't bunt.  I felt a bunt was the move and Gardner hit into a DP.  Rare for him to hit into a DP, but I still would have bunted, knowing they would lose Judge (unless something went wrong on the bunt - good or bad)

Then in the 10th after another leadoff single, Stanton K'd and we got unlucky in that Hicks hit one down the RF line that bounced out of play for a ground-rule double that Did would have scored on and the game would have been over if it didn't bounce out of play.  With only one out, they intentionally walked Andujar to pitch to Bird, who took a fastball down the middle, fouled off a hanging curve inside that should have ended the game and then swung at a fastball out of the zone.  Romine then struck out as well to make the Yankees 0-12 with RISP.

Robertson allowed a 2 run HR that Judge might have slightly mistimed his jump and the ball went off his mitt (looked like he could have had it) and that was the game.

It is hard to win going 0-12, but some tough breaks and some bad situational hitting.

Boston won too...Ugh!