One Of The Best Starts Of Chris Sale's Career Spoiled By Some Bum
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Who the fuck is Luke Maile, and why is he hitting game-tying home runs against Chris Sale and walk-off homers in extra innings?
This dude played 103 games over three seasons coming into this year, a career .183 hitter with a .496 OPS AKA a complete bum, who hadn’t hit a major league home run since May 31 of LAST YEAR, and he goes deep twice against the Red Sox tonight. Again, one off of Chris fucking Sale to tie the game, snapping a streak of fifteen consecutive hitters retired on a night that he struck out fifteen goddamn batters to tie a career high. And if that wasn’t enough, he hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th. Un-fucking-believable. Fifteen strikeouts, no walks, and a no-decision.
As much as I wanna blame the bullpen for this one, because they have collectively been painful to watch since the start of the Yankee series — where the fuck did the offense go? There was a stretch in this game where they got no-hit for seven straight innings. How does that happen? Mookie Betts 0-for-5, Hanley Ramirez 0-for-4. As a team, the Red Sox were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight runners on base.
Also, the Blue Jays put a couple quick runs on the board in the first two innings against Sale. The Red Sox suspected that the Blue Jays were stealing signs, which they’ve been accused of multiple times in the past, so they switched up the signs in the second inning and Sale didn’t allow another hit until the game-tying home run by Maile in the bottom of the seventh.
Tyler Thornburg can’t get here fast enough. Heath Hembree was an unmitigated disaster in New York, Joe Kelly was unable to prevent inherited runners from scoring in both of his appearances against the Yankees, you’ve got Matt Barnes walking a small village, and Brian Johnson threw five pitches on Friday night. The first four were balls to the leadoff batter and the fifth pitch was in the seats to end the game. I mean, even Craig Kimbrel belongs on this list for imploding on Wednesday in the 8th inning to lose the game.
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I think the only guy who doesn’t deserve to get chewed out for recent performances would be Carson Smith. In his last 12 appearances, 11 of them have been scoreless. Smith pitched a scoreless 11th inning in the series opener in Toronto, and punched out two batters. He’s allowed just one earned run in his last 10 innings of work with 13 strikeouts and four walks.
For Saturday’s middle game at 4:07pm, it’s the return of Davey Tingle Fingers. David Price was skipped for his last start against the Yankees after experiencing numbness in his fingers, which was later diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome. Something about video games or some shit. I dunno, man. The people that are getting on Price for playing video games are the biggest losers. Is it a silly reason to miss a baseball game? Yes. Are people treating Price like he’s been hiding a secret meth addiction or something? Yes. But are we actually just talking about video games? Yes. For what it’s worth, Sale also plays Fortnite in the clubhouse, too. Would like to hear the hot takes about how he needs to stop doing that.
Anyways, back to BASEBALL. Christ. Price hasn’t pitched well in his last three starts, and that’s putting it lightly. He’s allowed 16 earned runs in his last 17 innings of work. How much of that was impacted by the numbness in his fingers, we’re not entirely sure, but Alex Cora did mention that Price was experiencing the numbness prior to his most recent outing against the Rangers when he allowed seven earned runs in three and two thirds innings.
For the Blue Jays, it’s Marco Estrada who tossed six shutout innings his last time out against the Rays with four strikeouts. The veteran right-hander has faced Boston once already this year, and they teed off on him for five earned runs on eight hits, one homer, in five innings. He took the loss.
Final score: Blue Jays 5, Red Sox 3
Also, let the record show that the Yankees have lost two straight games since Hubbs struck out swinging in slow pitch softball, and he went to bed after the game. Hate to see that. Motherfucker will regret the day he called me out for not blogging two weekend games for the rest of his life. I’ve got nothing but time to blog on weekends, baby. Friends? Family? Social life? Girlfriend? No. Blogs. Fuck you.