Must Win?
Terry Francona was ejected in the 8th inning last night, and by my count, dropped the F-bomb approximately 9 times. It must have been one time for each player in the lineup. Maybe this will get the bats swinging.
I know we have trouble with lefties, but this is just rediculous - not to mention that their relief pitchers aren’t left handed and we couldn’t hit them either. We’ve now lost 4 in a row, and lost 6 out of the last 7. In this Oakland series, we’ve scored just 6 runs in 3 games. Folks, at that rate, you aren’t going to win many games. Just ask the Royals.
So it all comes down to the getaway game this afternoon. The Sox play at 12:35 in Oakland (3:35 here) and immediately head off to Arizona where they will be playing one of the hottest teams in the national league (though that is like being the tallest midget or the oldest pre-schooler in my opinion). Curt Schilling is going to have to leverage whatever “Ace” status he has left and be the stopper and win the game today. It won’t be easy though, with Joe Blanton on the mound. He is 2-1 with a 2.04 ERA at home this year and has pretty much been outstanding when in the state of California. He was a first round draft pick by Billy Beane and is entirely home grown by the As.
The Red Sox bats really need to heat up. They are forgetting what makes them such a great hitting team - patience at the plate! The A’s, as a team, only had to throw 125 pitches to win the game last night. We’ve seen games when the Sox have seen 125 pitches in 6 innings against teams before. The second-to-last at bat, by JD Drew, was one of the only quality at bats we saw all night. He worked the count full, saw I believe 7 pitches and drew a walk on the 8th. We need more at bats like this, and JD Drew has to start swinging better.
In the end, you know the Sox will turn this around. This little slump is just bringing them back down to earth and putting their record closer to what you were actually expecting at the beginning of the season. The National League games start tomorrow, and hopefully this can be a repeat of the past couple years where we pretty much destroyed that other league.
Time will tell, but for now, Schill needs to get it done tonight.
Stumble it!