Hot Damn That Was Fun!
Beating the Blue Jays isn't not fun
Something about a walk-off, right? The Red Sox beat the Blue Jays 6-5 taking their first lead in the bottom of the ninth in a game that, let’s be honest (it’s my thing recently), they had no business winning let alone being close. Garrett Richards gave up rockets. It was Cape Canaveral out there. Every Jays hitter hit a screamer and somehow they all stayed in the park. Then Vlad crushed one that didn’t and it all seemed over. But the Red Sox started to claw their way back, slowly, bit by bit, until right before the finish line, they did the thing. The thing! They did it! Boom. 6-5, Sox.
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Anyway, the Jay’s were hitting all of the screamers. Seriously. Take a look at this list of insanity.
Those are the seven top exit velocities in last night’s game and they’re all off the bats of Jays hitters. And only one of them went for a homer. Heck, one of them was an out! The top two came in the same inning, an inning in which the Jays scored a grand total of one run! The more I think about it, the more this game was highway robbery, plain and simple, by the Red Sox. I’m okay with that, don’t misunderstand me, but still, highway robbery.
Since it’s Friday night and I’m writing my Red Sox newsletter because that’s the kind of cool guy I am, let’s do some a few notes.
Christian Arroyo
For the second night in a row, Christian Arroyo delivered a pivotal game-tying home run. Thursday night it was a three run job to tie the game at seven in the fifth inning, after the Red Sox had fallen behind the Astros. Again. Last night it was perhaps more clutch than that, which is saying something, because that was CLUTCH. But last night’s at-bat by Arroyo? That was
He came up in the bottom of the eighth with the Sox down 5-4, and did this:
Look, I’m not necessarily the biggest Christian Arroyo believer. He might be a starting second baseman or he might not be, it’s still not entirely clear to me. But as I search for an answer, one I suspect the team is searching for as well, I have to admit, and not at all grudgingly, that it’s hard as heck not to like the guy. He’s clearly taken to Boston and, well, how can you not love this?
Whether or not Arroyo is a long term answer at second base for the Red Sox doesn’t need to be answered right now (and fortunately so), so let’s move on to the fact that right now he is the starting second baseman and he’s doing pretty well at it. He’s got almost an .800 OPS, he’s starting to hit for some power (see above) and his defense at second base is no joke either.
We talked about how much this team depends on their top four hitters to score runs, but quietly Christian Arroyo and Hunter Renfroe have stepped forward a bit. At least for now, for a team that is competing, winning some games, and making a run, that’s a good sign. And if nothing else, Arroyo is making it easy to root for him.
Is it time to start worrying about the rotation?
Garrett Richards did everything but set the game on fire in the first two innings. He had no curveball, his best pitch, and the Jays hitters were teeing off on his fastball left and right. Oddly, I didn’t think he did too badly at first. Yes, he walked the leadoff hitter, Marcus Semien, on a full count pitch off the corner, and yes he gave up a shot to Vlad Guerrero, but that pitch to Guerrero wasn’t a bad pitch. Heck, neither was the last one to Semien. The one to Guerrero though illustrates how much Vlad Jr is on another planet now. It was a 96 mph fastball on the inside corner of the plate, maybe not quite in on the hands enough, but even so Guerrero pulled it off the darn wall! He’s silly good and anytime he comes up and doesn’t hit an extra base hit I feel like that’s a win for Boston.
But I digress. The rotation. So yeah, Richards got crushed, ended up giving up four runs in 5.1 innings and it could’ve easily been twice that. But twice that or not, four in five innings ain’t exactly Cy Young territory, regardless of how good the other team is. And this has become a trend for Red Sox starters over the past turn through the rotation. Over the last six starts, Red Sox starters have thrown 27.1 innings and given up 26 runs. Just gonna say it: that’s too many.
Now, it’s just one turn in the rotation, so no need to jump off buildings about it, but there’s always a level of concern when it comes to this rotation because so many of the pitchers are new to Boston and because there are fair questions that can be asked about just about every starter’s performance over the past few seasons. One or two bad starts in a row doesn’t mean the whole rotation is going to collapse in a smoldering heap of sadness and runs, but it bears watching.
It’s important to note that part of the above is the fact that the Red Sox have faced, over those six starts, the Astros and Blue Jays, two of the best offenses in baseball and both playing at a high level. So we need to factor that into our calculations before we start throwing guys overboard, as well. But for now, it’s something to note.
Dalbec? Maybe? Pleeeease?
Is Bobby Dalbec heating up? Maaaaybeeeee? Over the last two games, Dalbec is 3-for-8 with a double and a homer. No walks in there and yes he struck out twice, but I’m all for looking for silver linings wherever we can on this one.
Big Three
I often talk about the big four of the Red Sox offense, but I think we can probably narrow it down even more than that to the Big Three. That would be J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers, and Xander Bogaerts. All teams depend on their star players, so that’s nothing new, but this team has really been carried offensively by those three guys. So it’s that much better when they win a game and none of them did much at the plate to help. That was the case Friday night against Toronto as Devers and JD went a combined 1-for-4 and Bogaerts didn’t play because of a knee injury. Which brings me to…
YIKES! Xander is hurt!
The Red Sox have largely avoided the injury bug, or at least the serious injury bug, this season. JD has missed a few games (if memory serves) and obviously there have been a few maintenance days along the way, but for the most part the big players on the Red Sox have stayed healthy all season. And hopefully that trend continues, but with 30 minutes to go before game time last night Alex Cora pulled Xander Bogaerts from the starting lineup because of a knee injury. Cora says he hopes Bogaerts will play again on Sunday which means he’ll miss today’s game as well. That’s not good news, but a few days isn’t a huge problem. Hopefully a few days will be what he needs to come back healthy and keep up his Xander-ness for the rest of the season. Still though, speaking of things that bear watching, this one is top of that list.
Before the season started I wrote a piece about which player the Red Sox could least afford to lose and while I had Christian Vazquez at the top of the list, the prospect of losing Xander frightens me so much that I’m willing to go back and rewrite the whole piece.
Don’t worry I won’t send it to you.
Sox/Jays later today. Have a good weekend and thanks for reading.