You Cannot Make This Stuff Up: Eric Gagne, While Watching The ALCS At Home, Noticed Craig Kimbrel Was Tipping His Pitches, So He Texted Alex Cora. Eric Gagne!!

After the Red Sox won the American League pennant two nights ago, Craig Kimbrel had a message for the team's fans:

I'm sorry that I gave quite a few of you heart attacks the last few days. Let's hope in the World Series I can make them nice and clean.

As incredible as this sounds - and I'm having a hard time believing it myself - it was Eric Gagne, who noticed Kimbrel was tipping his pitches during Game 4. The Dimmer is a good friend of Alex Cora and he texted the Red Sox manager and was able to get a message to Kimbrel before the clinching Game 5.

Cora: "We knew he was tipping his pitches yesterday and that he was gonna be fine. We saw his hands today. Yesterday they were up, today they were down. He was tipping his pitches for two weeks."

Looking at Kimbrel's game logs, from August 12 to September 25, he allowed only one run in 13 innings, though he did walk seven batters. On September 26, Kimbrel gave up four runs in one-third of an inning to Baltimore. In his last regular season appearance on September 30, he struck out all three Yankees he faced.

Perhaps Kimbrel began tipping in the ALDS? In Game 1, he gave up a leadoff dong to Aaron Judge in the top of the ninth, but struck out the next three batters and the Red Sox won 5-4. Kimbrel had a bad outing in Game 4 of the ALDS (October 9), walking two and hitting one and allowing two runs, even though the Red Sox won the game and series that night.