Sunday, October 14, 2018

Red Sox Pitching Weakness On Display In Painful 7-2 Loss To World Champs

(Getty Images)
All year we have pointed to the Achilles Heel of this Red Sox team—relief pitching. Yesterday, in Game One of the ALCS, that heel became inflamed as Boston's pitching overall (including starter Chris Sale) showed no command against the defending champ Astros. Combined Red Sox pitching walked ten and hit three batters to place a merry-go-round of Astros on the base-paths. Remarkably, the game was tied a 2-2 in the seventh—as there were only had eight combined hits between the two teams. This was a weird one. From the Start, Sale had nothing—a mediocre fastball and an inability to throw strikes. He left after just four innings—having yielded just one hit—but behind 2-0. Then, after Boston scraped together two runs (on a bases-loaded walk and a wild pitch), the dreaded bullpen reared its very ugly head. Joe Kelly hit a batter who eventually scored the winning run, and Brandon Workman put away any doubt that this was going to be a loss. Workman pitched one-third of an inning—giving up two home runs and four runs overall. A hideous performance. So, Boston is down 1-0 in the best-of-seven-series and may never come back to Fenway in this series. Game Two—with David Price on the mound—becomes a must-win.