Texas Series

• Taking 3 out of 4 was good against a very hot hitting team that does not pitch well
• Happ, Lynn and CC all pitched very well.  They kept the ball out of the middle of the plate and mixed eye levels, sides of the plate and speeds.  
• On the negative side, Tanaka was awful, allowing 3 HR's in 5 IP while also walking 3 batters. 
• The vaunted bullpen is not performing well of late.  Green has been struggling - in the last month with 12 IP, he has allowed 9 ER.  Chapman has been scary and Britton has not been sharp.  Holder had the nightmare game against Boston but wasn't sharp around that 7 ER without getting an out game, but he did pitch well last night and the previous two outings.
• In general, we are walking too many guys; we walked 20 in the 4 games against Texas.
• Betances, has been great and is the guy I have the most confidence in (and he still throws 1 or 2 to the back screen every game), but take a look at how great he has been over the past 30 games or so.  28 IP, 8 hits, 1 run, 14 free passes (4 HBP and 10 walks) with 49 k's - This is crazy good!
• I am worried about Andujar and his defense.  He was getting away with some of the fundamental play earlier in the year, but his defense has been awful of late.  backing up on way too many balls and getting eaten up.  he also takes a long time to throw the ball winding up so when he takes his time to throw he gives no room for error.  On top of the 2 more errors (12 on the year) last night, Voit saved him a throwing error by making a very good scoop on a bad throw (tougher than the one Bird could have made to win the game on Andjur's game losing play.  The guy has a really good stick, but he needs to have more of a sense of urgency at 3rd base (charge the ball and get rid of it) or he simply will be a DH.  He even fails to turn 2 a lot because of how long he takes to get rid of the ball.  Boone kept Walker in the game and put him at 3rd base for defense in the 9th.  When you are being replaced by Walker at 3rd base, you have to look at what you are doing wrong.
• Speaking of Walker, while he hasn't walked in August, his OPS in July and August (about 100 plate appearances) has been about .825!

• While I was pleased to see Eovaldi have one of his games where he got lit up (just seems to happen to him more than other guys with stuff like his), Sale ran his scoreless streak to 28 innings as he returned for Boston.  
• Boston has a .708 winning %.  
• Realistically, we should be rooting for Seattle and Oakland to lose more than the Red Sox now as we are 9.5 behind Boston and 4.5 and 5 ahead of Oakland and Seattle respectively.  I believe we are better than those two teams and we will host the wild-card game.  Unfortunately, one game can go either way, but why I really like the playoff system now (long time readers remember that I wrote about doing exactly what they did).  If any team can't catch another team after 162 games, they have proven that they are not as good as that team, but giving 2 more teams a chance to get in keeps interest around the league, but also is something you would much rather NOT do.  I remember before the extra Wild Card team, there were times where I would have rathered not won the division because of the matchup; that should never happen and there should be a large reward for winning the division.