Not What You Want
Pivetta pitches well, but defense and bullpen falter in loss to M's
It’s amazing how quickly baseball can shift. The Red Sox were in total control yesterday. The Mariners literally couldn’t get a single hit off of Nick Pivetta. Sure the score was technically close, but it didn’t feel like it. Then things switched. A few walks and one ill-timed, ill-played double, a touch more shoddy defense, and there you have it. A blown lead. That pattern would repeat itself in extra innings, though this time it would be capped off by two out, a three run homer hit on a 0-2 count. [chef’s kiss]
As I said at the time:
The Red Sox had a ton of chances to score, far more than the Mariners, but the Mariners scored on all of their chances and the Red Sox scored on one of theirs. And that’s how you get this utterly bizarre linescore.
I mean…
My gosh.
So, okay, lest I injure my neck shaking my head in disbelief, it occurs to me that this loss, painful and completely unnecessary as it was, is a good team loss. What the heck are you talking about, Matthew? This was the kind of loss that happens to good teams. The Red Sox had a number of hits, far more than the Mariners, but those hits just came, for the most part, at inopportune times. Players don’t pick and choose when to have success in a particular at-bat. No player goes into a plate appearances thinking, “I’m going to ground out to short now with two runners on, but later, when we’re down 4-1, I’ll double with two outs and nobody on base.” That's of course not remotely the way it works. Players do the best they can in any given plate appearance and the chips fall where the chips fall. And that’s how you get that linescore. [injures neck shaking head]
Regardless of the score, the Red Sox got hits. They just didn’t put them together properly. That’s luck. That’s chance. That’s the way of baseball.
There’s No Walking In Baseball… Apparently
The one complaint you could have here, at least offensively, is the Red Sox inability to take walks. They came into a game facing a starting pitcher who walked, in essence, one out of every five batters he faced. Last night Justin Dunn faced 23 hitters, but he walked only one guy. This Red Sox team isn’t a patient team, and that’s not likely the kind of thing that can be fixed in-season without some severe roster turnover. Bringing up Jeter Downs could help solve that problem, but Christian Arroyo has played well and so there’s no need to make that particular change right now or any time in the near future. It’s possible the team could opt to bring up Jarren Duran at some point in the next few months, but as good a prospect as Duran is, he hasn’t exhibited this particular trait yet, so that’s not a fix, at least of this problem. And that’s it. That’s the list of in-house replacements.
This isn’t a fatal flaw, exactly, but it is a weakness, and one that will come back to bite the Red Sox again before this season ends.
Nick Pivetta!
I’m 500+ words into this and I haven’t mentioned the fact that Nick Pivetta carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning! So *ahem* Nick Pivetta carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning!
Pivetta was pitching really well, admittedly against a relatively punchless Mariners lineup, but he was being economical, his pitch-count was fine, and he’d only walked one with two outs and nobody on in the sixth inning. That’s when things fell apart a bit. I don’t want to rehash the whole inning, except to say Pivetta walked two guys and then a combination of Franchy Cordero-styled “defense” and Xander Bogaerts’ suddenly questionable throwing arm did him in.
Here’s the play in question. Bogaerts goes out to cut the ball off. He’s three steps onto the outfield grass and somehow still bounces the throw before the mound.
Bogaerts should be able to get that throw home on the fly from there, but it doesn’t make it to the mound before bouncing. Cordero doesn’t take a great route to the ball either, but a good throw by Bogaerts gets the out at home, preserves the lead, and, if the rest of the game plays out the same way, the Red Sox win 2-1.
Pivetta Concern?
Pivetta pitched really well. That said, his numbers on the whole are not impressive. He’s still walking way too many guys (16.5 percent walk rate) and not striking enough out (21.2 percent strikeout rate). The saving grace for him is something that has been a bugaboo for him in the past, namely his home run rate. Throughout his career he’s given up a lot of home runs, typically between 1.5 and two per nine innings pitched. That’s way too many, but this season the number of homers allowed per nine innings is down to 0.44. If he can keep it there, well, first, I’ll be surprised, but if he can keep it there… I was going to say he can continue being some kind of useful pitcher with K and BB numbers in this area, but the truth is, no, that walk number is just way too high if he’s not going to strike guys out. Either the strikeouts have to return or the walks have to get under control. The first 5.2 innings yesterday were fun, but Pivetta still has some work to do if he wants to be a mainstay in this rotation.