If You're A Masochist, You're Gonna Love Reading About Last Night's Red Sox Game
A lot of awful things happened during last night’s Red Sox game. Instead of going in order of occurrence, I figured I’d kick off this masochism party with what hurts the most — Andrew Benintendi’s injury.
This…did not look good. I’m not an orthopedic surgeon, but Chris Geary is. He’s the Chief of Sports Medicine over at Tufts Medical Center, and he is not making me feel better.
We could dissect the play, and point out that Benintendi shouldn’t have been running on that grounder in the first place with infield playing in, but that’s just rubbing salt in the wounds. He knew he made a mistake, and owned up to that after the game, all while wondering if his season might be over. The Red Sox are calling it a sprain, but that doesn’t mean that we’re out of the woods yet. This team would label a decapitation as a “neck injury”. I followed up with Geary, and he said that if Benintendi’s injury is “just” an LCL sprain, “he might only be out for a week or two.” But it sounds like that’s the best case scenario right now. For now, he’s on the disabled list, and I’ll relay any information once it becomes available.
Now, onto this piece of shit game that the Red Sox played last night. The Red Sox led 3-0 at one point after David Ortiz hit his 30th home run of the season, which also gave him 100 RBIs to pass Ted Williams for the most 100 RBI seasons in Red Sox history with ten. It was also Ortiz’s tenth season with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBI, another Red Sox record. At the age of 40 years, 9 months and 6 days old, Ortiz became the oldest player in major league history to hit 30 home runs in a season. From August 24, 2015 to August 24, 2016, Ortiz has played in 149 games and hit .318 with a 1.061 OPS, 41 home runs, 53 doubles and 132 RBI.
Rick Porcello was in line to pick up his major league-leading 18th win of the season, after retiring 10 straight batters to finish the seventh inning at 105 pitches. Evan Longoria would go on to hammer a hanging breaking ball to tie the game in the 8th, and Porcello ended up throwing a career high 123 pitches.
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I just wanna fast forward to the debate on whether or not Porcello should’ve been out there in the first place. My initial reaction was that he shouldn’t have been out there. I don’t really feel good about any pitcher starting an inning at 105 pitches. I’m skimming through Twitter after the game, and I’m seeing tweets from people whose opinions I respect a lot, and the majority take is that they didn’t have a problem with John Farrell sending Porcello back out for the 8th. Sorry, but I did. The argument against not blaming Farrell is a good one, and I fully recognize that. Porcello had been cruising along, retired 10 straight batters, and he’s been their horse all year. I get that.
But I don’t understand trying to squeak another inning out of Porcello when he was already at 105 pitches through 7 innings, especially when you had Brad Ziegler available. I also don’t understand why Farrell can’t/won’t commit to Ziegler as his 8th inning guy. He was the closer for the Arizona Diamondbacks before he got here, and since he’s arrived in Boston, he’s now made 18 appearances, and hasn’t allowed an earned run in 16 of them. If there’s a knock on the guy, it’s that he’s allowed 33% of his inherited runners to score. There’s a pretty easy fix to that, John. Make him your 8th inning guy, and he never has inherited runners again. It also makes zero sense to put a pitch-to-contact pitcher into situations where he’d have inherited runners in the first place.
So, I guess that puts me in the minority. I’m still going to put this one on Farrell, and it’s going to make it look like I’m out to get the guy, when really, I just want the most logical decisions to be made, because that’s what wins ballgames, and that’s ultimately all I want. I know Pretty Ricky has been riding high lately, but sometimes you just gotta say no. I love that he wanted the ball in the 8th, and that’s exactly what you want from your starter, but you’ve gotta do what’s best for the team. I’ve gotta believe that a fresh Ziegler was the better option over a tired Porcello, especially since Longoria is 1-for-8 in his career against Ziegler. Beyond that, Longoria is the only hitter in that Rays lineup that you can’t let beat you, and he beat you.
Just a shitty ending to a shitty night. As if what we already discussed wasn’t bad enough, then throw in the fact that the Toronto Blue Jays lost, so the Red Sox missed a huge opportunity to move into sole possession of first place. I had seen some fans reacting to this play, suggesting that Travis Shaw’s toss to Heath Hembree was the culprit here? No way. Hembree had the ball right in his glove and he dropped it, then he panicked and made a horrible throw to the plate. You have to make that play at first base. It’s a bad loss and a bad night for the Red Sox, but they’re still 7-3 on this road trip with a chance to come back to Fenway 8-3 with a win today.
#PrayForBennysKnee
Final score: Rays 4, Red Sox 3 — 11 innings