Pop quiz.
Question: You are a fan of a baseball team, let's call them the "Red Sox." They lead another team -- the "Yankees" -- 2-1 in the top of the sixth inning. With one of the Yankees' best pitchers on the mound, the Red Sox do this with one out:
"Payton" doubles to left field.
"Bellhorn" singles to center field.
"Damon" singles to right field.
"Renteria" singles to left field.
"Ortiz" singles to the second baseman in shallow center field.
How many runs do you think the Red Sox have scored? And how many outs do you think there are?
Answer: One run -- and three outs. The inning is over.
Five consecutive hits and yet the Red Sox make more outs than runs scored? Can that be? ... Oh, it be. Because Dale Sveum is coaching third base for the Red Sox. And he is the flat-out, hands-down worst man for the job.
And he's like a Supreme Court judge out there, incapable of losing his job. He's a got a fucking lifetime appointment. No matter what he does -- defile and kill young boys on the mound -- his manager will defend him.
On Renteria's hit, the speedy Bellhorn was waved home. Tony Womack had the ball in shallow left before Bellhorn had touched third base. He was so dead, he couldn't even execute a decent slide. ... Then, three pitches later, on Ortiz's grounder behind second base, Robinson Cano threw out Damon, who Sveum waved around from second. On what was basically an infield hit.
If Sveum (who pulled this kind of shit all last season) uses any common sense whatsoever, the Red Sox have the bases loaded with Ortiz, Ramirez and Varitek coming up against Randy Johnson, who is over 100 pitches, has walked a season-high four batters and has been throwing 91-92, tops, all night. ... But that's not how we do things in Red Sox Land.
Adding injury to insult, in the bottom of the sixth, after Wakefield walks Bernie Williams and allows a two-run home run to Cano and a single to Derek Jeter, Terry Francona brings in Alan Embree. This is the same Embree who was used (along with Jeremi Gonzalez and Mike Myers) Thursday night when Boston was down by seven runs to Toronto, presumably so the better arms in the pen could be used in New York.
Embree gives up a single to Womack and a looooong, three-run bomb into the upper deck in left to Gary Sheffield. 6-3 Yankees -- and that's how it ended.
A few good things: Edgar Renteria three hits for the second straight game, Jay Payton had a single and a double (and a nice first inning catch on Jeter). Jason Varitek homered off Johnson in the fifth, putting the first two runs on the board, but struck out against Mariano Rivera in the ninth (when he should/could have walked).
Did I say I was no longer fuming after losses? ... Well, I'm fuming, baby!
Whilst it was a shocker, Randy hit 96 for the first time all season and that was probably his best fastball as a Yankee. Still his slider had zero bite to it and that was getting hit hard.
ReplyDeleteYES was talking about a fast gun and I thought that was showing about 94 -- so I dialed it down.
ReplyDeleteActually, it sounded like he was having the problems Pedro had last season -- able to hit high speeds every now and again, but consistently a few mph below what he used to throw.
Either way, he was certainly hittable.
My girlfriend asked me last night what it took to get rid of a base coach and I said I honestly wasn't sure; that he was the manager's pick but that was about it. I do know the Dale Sveum is the first base coach I've really known by name...and not for good reasons.
ReplyDeleteSveum is actually WORSE than Wendell Kim. (He's the only other former RS 3b coach I can remember. Maybe that's the key to being a good 3b coach: the fans don't know you by name because you don't foolishly send runners and create unnecessary outs). At least Wendell wrote cryptic messages in the 3b coach dirt.
ReplyDeleteWhen Sveum sent Bellhorn I thought to myself: There's all the ammo Theo needs to fire Dale himself. If Tito tried to stick up for Sveum and pulled a "If you fire him then I quit.." maneuver, it would give Theo the perfect opportunity to get rid of him too. I mean, anyone watching the game with half a clue knew that Bellhorn should've been held up in order to give Papi a chance to bat with the bases juiced and only one out.
And then the Damon fiasco occurred. In that instance, Sveum is basically hoping that Cano panics and throws the ball offline. Again, he's got to know that Manny is on deck. MANNY!! Sure, ManRam is batting .225 but he still has 11 dongs and the ability to blast it into the upper deck.
The Sox had a chance in that inning to knock out Johnson and knock out the crowd. Instead, Johnson got the W and Spankee fans were rolling in the stands at the RS incompetence.
And then when Francona brought in Embree I thought to myself, "he's already conceding a tie ballgame". Let's face it, Embree is cooked. He's failed in every pressure situation he's been in this season. He needs to be relegated to mop-up man. Mantei definitely should've been in the game to face Sheffield at that point.
Allan, I'm with you in that I had kicked back and taken this season in stride so far. But last night's shamefully ill-played game put me back in the breaking furniture, hand-to-the-forehead, pre-World Champs mode. Sure, it's still early and the Sox can definitely turn it around and win the division, but Tito and Co. have already spent their World Champion "capital" and it's not even June yet.
--the blogger formerly known as "The Sheriff"