Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Sox: Uncoordinated

C'mon, guys. Really? I was half-joking about that whole 'being allergic to .500' thing, but you're giving me lots of evidence to back that claim. I guess I should have been more prepared for this loss. Jon Lester pitches terribly in Toronto, and the Sox play terribly when they're one game away from being mediocre.

Not to say there weren't fun parts of the game. Gregg Zaun discussing his obsession with watching Tek eat apple sauce? That was pretty interesting. I got a couple of laughs out of it. Apparently, Don never knew Tek liked apple sauce, and- what's that? You don't care about Tek's dietary habits? Well what the heck do you want from me? We lost. The apple sauce discussion was far better than the overall game.

In all seriousness, we did have some star players of the night. CRW, extending his hit streak and getting on base three times was nice. Ernie hitting two very clutch home runs was really nice. Papi having three hits, and almost hitting for the cycle was pretty awesome, too. For the first half of the game, the Sox only scored runs in innings that David Ortiz batted, and he generally found himself involved in the scoring. Second inning - Papi doubled and Crawford singled him in. Fourth inning - Papi homered. Top of the 5th - Gonzalez homers, Papi hits a single later in the inning. It sort of stopped being fun from there, as he grounded into a DP in his next at-bat, he didn't bat in the 8th, and in the ninth he grounded out. So, in half the innings we scored, Papi was on base.

His quest for the cycle (not that I think he cared about the cycle) was just a tiny glimpse into the season of the Sox. Consider that hitting for the cycle is like achieving first place in the division. The first three at-bats were like the Sox catching fire and beginning the crawl out of the basement. Even without the triple, any other hit still makes for a great night and likely brings us one step closer to the bigger goal. We'll settle for another single, or maybe even a double which would almost certainly bump us up over .500. Instead we get a double play. Chance after chance comes and goes, and not only do we not get that triple, we don't get any more hits. I'm know I am blatantly stretching this comparison. It sounded much better in my head, but I'm gonna go with it anyway.

Overall, we had 16 hits and could only manage 6 runs. In comparison, the Jays had 9 hits and 7 runs. Ugh. Do we see something wrong with this? I'm pretty sure this isn't right. What can I write that I haven't written a thousand times before, Dave Madagan? What do I have to say to make you better at your job? For that matter, third base coach who does not deserve an actual name, what's it going to take for you to stop sending runners to their doom? Everyone and their blind uncle could see that the ball was hit far too shallow to send Crawford from second. It was almost back to the infield by the time he hit third. He's fast, but not that fast. I sort of hate you, third base coach who doesn't deserve an actual name. When is the last time we had a third base coach that I didn't hate? I honestly can't remember that far back.

We begrudgingly turn toward Lackey to save us from a two-game sweep. I don't think he's capable of stopping the sweep, but I'll be more than happy to eat crow if he does. Be a man and prove me wrong, John.

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