July 9, 2022

The Wild Card Standings Are The Only Standings That Matter
After A 19-4 Run, The Red Sox Have Lost 8 Of 11

The Red Sox lost two of three games to the Rays and have lost the first two games of a four-game series against the Yankees.

I tuned in last night, but did not last three innings. New York scored four runs in the top of the first and even though Boston got two back in its half, they trailed 7-2 as they batted in the third and lost 12-5. It was the most runs the MFY had scored at Fenway since September 2, 2015 (13-8).

Sad to say, it's "Wild Card Or Bust" this season. Friday night's loss dropped the third-place Red Sox a whopping 16 GB the Yankees in the AL East. A Reverse-78 ain't happening in '22. New York (61-23) is on pace to win 118 games, which would break the AL record of 116 set by the 2001 Mariners. Boston does hold the second WC spot, 0.5 GB the Rays and 0.5 GB the Blue Jays.

The Red Sox have lost four straight games and 8 of their last 11. In those 11 games, they are 18-for-101 (.178) with RATS. They are 9-20 against AL East teams (with a -36 run diff.), which is super-shitty; even the Orioles are 15-19. Boston also has a losing record against teams under .500 (19-21).

Things have not been right for nearly two weeks:
June 1-26:      19-4 
June 27-July 8:  3-8
Jackie Bradley pitched the ninth inning. He allowed a leadoff single, which came around to score because he also walked three batters. Of his 30 pitches, only 13 were strikes. But he actually changed speeds well and struck out D.J. LeMahieu — swinging!

JBJ was the first Boston position player to pitch against the Yankees since Mike Carp, who walked five of the seven batters he faced on April 24, 2014.

Also: Rob Refsnyder went 4-for-5 and J.D. Martinez and Christian Vázquez each had three hits.

French novelist and journalist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr must have had NESN on his mind back in 1849, when he wrote: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose":

2 comments:

johngoldfine said...

Corrected quotation: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même fucking chose."

Jere said...

Hey it's cool to have a bunch of these in one place, thanks. That day-to-night one still cracks me up--unless they're just messing with us to see if anyone at all cares, my guess is they had planned that for the first inning or something, and couldn't squeeze it in until later. What I don't get is why they can't just admit it?? "Here's Jahmai with a report he filed earlier." Easy! Instead you've got Dave talking to someone via time machine! He couldn't even bring himself to say, "thanks Jahmai" afterwards, he just moved on. (The whole thing was made even funnier by the fact that right before that, their audio dropped out and we could vaguely hear the Spanish announcers in scary growly monster voices. Then it went out entirely, and just when I was going to rewind and post that, I saw Jahmai in the daylight and forgot all about it.)