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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 2:43:23 GMT -5
Red Sox Nation Stats @rsnstats · 4h #RedSox were 4-for-15 with runners in scoring position in this one, left 12 runners on. #Twins were 5-for-12 with RISP, left 7 runners on base. #MLB
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 2:44:45 GMT -5
Red Sox Nation Stats @rsnstats · 4h #RedSox Manager Alex Cora: "One of the things we've been preaching from the get-go, right? Put the ball in play with men at third and less than 2 outs. And we didn't do that. Dugie's been swinging the bat well…[but] he chased 3 pitches and didn't make contact."
#RedSox Manager Cora on the multiple lapses in tonight's game: "We forgot the outs. We did run out of the box…It feel like, sometimes, we're not doing enough, coaching-wise…Yeah, it's on them. It's on us. As a group, we're not doing a good job with that…It's tough to watch."
#RedSox Manager Cora on Nick Pivetta: "Struggled with command…One thing we haven't done a good job, lately, with two outs and two strikes, limit the damage. Preventing runs. Polanco gets a fastball and he hits it out of the ballpark with two outs and two strikes."
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 2:45:14 GMT -5
Red Sox Nation Stats @rsnstats · 3h As noted earlier, fans, in late innings this season, with runners on, 2 outs, and 2 strikes, #RedSox pitchers have allowed an AL-worst .175 opponent AVG. Compare that to #Astros, who've been best in #MLB in such situations, allowing just an .038 opponent average.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 2:46:05 GMT -5
Red Sox Nation Stats @rsnstats · 3h After an incredibly bright first half, the #RedSox second half seems pitted with one rough loss after another. The Sox have gone 3-2 vs #Rangers and #Twins on this homestand. One more vs MIN tomorrow, then next 13 games vs #Indians and #Rays, first on the road and then back here.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 2:47:29 GMT -5
Sean Curtis @seanrcurtis1 · 3h Replying to @rsnstats It’s great to hear Cora own this, but it doesn’t mean anything if they continue to run the bases like jerks. This is a sloppy, stupid team and there’s no excuse for it to continue.
Red Sox Nation Stats @rsnstats · 2h Have felt, for some time, that some of this has been a coaching failure. As I’ve written of here many times, every part of any organization has a core role to play. These issues are squarely in that camp.
Alas, difficult to correct more than 70% off the way through the schedule.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 2:52:57 GMT -5
Twins @ Red Sox 26th August 2021 7pm @ Fenway
Gant 0-1/6.00
4-7 with a 3.77 ERA in 8 games (1 start) of 2021. Will be his 2nd career appearance vs BOS, first since 2016, in his 4th career appearance.
Sale 2-0/1.80
2-0 with a 1.80 ERA in 2 starts of 2021. 10-6 with a 3.93 ERA in 28 career games (20 starts) vs MIN.
Chris Sale aims for 3rd straight win as Red Sox host Twins
Chris Sale will look to make it three straight wins since making his return from Tommy John surgery as the Boston Red Sox host the Minnesota Twins in the finale of a three-game series on Thursday night.
Sale (2-0, 1.80 ERA) looked sharp in his first two outings back, allowing a total of two runs while walking one and striking out 13 over 10 innings.
The seven-time All-Star left-hander will play a key role for the Red Sox as they try to stay in contention for a playoff spot.
Boston's lead over Oakland for the second American League wild card shrunk to 1 1/2 games following a messy 9-6 loss in 10 innings to Minnesota on Wednesday. The Red Sox outlasted the Twins 11-9 in the series opener Tuesday.
"We've just got to keep going," Boston manager Alex Cora said. "(The players) know it, the coaching staff know it. Obviously for me it's very frustrating to see a team that I manage be sloppy fundamentally."
The result snapped a four-game losing streak for Minnesota, which would capture its fifth series victory in six tries with a win over Boston in the finale.
"You can't let it get to you to the point where you cannot keep playing," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said about his team's prior struggles. "You have to just play on, re-focus, do what you need to do to win a ballgame."
Sale has yet to log more than five innings and has thrown no more than 89 pitches in his outings as the Red Sox continue to ease him back.
In his start on Friday, Sale threw five scoreless innings while allowing five hits, walking one and striking out five in a 6-0 win against the Texas Rangers.
Sale last faced the Twins on July 27, 2018, when he tossed six scoreless innings and gave up three hits and two walks while fanning 10 in a game Boston won 4-3 in extra innings. Overall, Sale is 10-6 with a 3.93 ERA in 28 games (20 starts) against Minnesota.
Twins third baseman Josh Donaldson has had success against Sale in his career, batting .303 (10-for-33) with five home runs and 10 RBIs against him. However, Donaldson has also struck out nine times vs. Sale.
Minnesota will send right-hander John Gant (4-7, 3.77 ERA) to the mound for the finale.
The right-hander has struggled since joining the Twins after being traded by the St. Louis Cardinals on July 30. Gant is 0-1 with a 6.00 ERA over eight appearances (one start) with Minnesota after going 4-6 with a 3.42 ERA in 25 outings (14 start) with the Cardinals.
The 29-year-old gave up four runs on three hits with a walk and four strikeouts over 3 1/3 innings in a 7-5 road loss to the New York Yankees on Aug. 19.
Gant faced Boston once before, as a rookie with the Atlanta Braves on April 27, 2016. He tossed 4 2/3 innings of two-run ball, allowing three hits and three walks while striking out four in a relief appearance.
--Field Level Media
Red Sox Nation Stats @rsnstats · 4h #RedSox game time Thursday is 7:10 ET/4:10 PT. Expected conditions at Boston: Sunny, 89°F / 32°C. Winds from WSW 8 MPH. #Twins #MLB
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 8:59:09 GMT -5
Tomase: Inexplicable mental errors are killing the Red Sox season 1H ago / by John Tomase John Tomase RED SOX INSIDER
Watching the Red Sox lose because they can't hit or their bullpen stinks may not exactly be acceptable, but it's understandable. Maybe this is who they really are.W
But watching the Red Sox lose because they forget the number of outs or fail to leave the batter's box or take three horrible swings when virtually any contact will win the game? That's inexcusable. And unless they want this season of promise to be remembered as a whimpering whoopie cushion of sadness, they'll wake the bleep up.
Wednesday's 9-6 loss to the Twins was an affront to the game not because Hansel Robles surrendered a pair of mammoth homers in the 10th inning to one of the worst teams in the American League. The Red Sox embarrassed themselves with the kind of glaring mental errors that make you wonder if they even care.
First, veteran catcher Christian Vazquez didn't run on contact from second on Kyle Schwarber's two-out flare in the third. By the time the realized the ball had found the right field grass, he had to stop at third. He signaled across the diamond to Schwarber to acknowledge his mental error, and then trudged slowly back to the dugout with his head bowed when Xander Bogaerts left him stranded.
One inning later, outfielder Alex Verdugo launched a ball high and far the other way. Rather than sprint out of the box, Verdugo admired what he assumed to be an opposite-field homer. When the ball instead scraped the Monster, he belatedly sprinted before slamming on the breaks rounding first, where Platinum Glover Andrelton Simmons erased him with a laser of a relay from short.
Then in the ninth, after Schwarber's two-run homer had dramatically tied the game, Verdugo chased three straight non-competitive pitches with the winning run on third and one out, whiffing to help force extra innings.
Manager Alex Cora could barely contain his disgust in the aftermath, but the longer these fundamental errors occur, the more we must consider if he's part of the problem. It's not the first time his club has run into an out this month -- Vazquez inexplicably trying to steal third in a 1-1 game against the Blue Jays springs to mind -- and at some point the manager's words must be backed by consequences.
"It's an area we've been bad," Cora said. "We forgot the outs, we didn't run out of the box. It's probably a different game early on. Obviously they don't want to do that, but like I've been saying, sometimes we're not doing enough, pushing-wise, because it keeps happening. Yeah, it's on them. It's on us. As a group, we're not doing a good job with that. Those things you can control -- know the outs, run out of the box. It's one of those that we need to, at this stage, it's tough to watch. We talk about it, but it keeps happening. As a staff, we've got to keep pushing, keep pushing. We can't give up."
If the message isn't connecting, then maybe it needs to arrive more forcefully. Cora the player had no tolerance for mental errors, which helped make him a leader despite playing a utility role. I distinctly remember a 2008 game in Yankee Stadium when a young Jacoby Ellsbury fielded what looked like a clean walk-off single to center. Cora, however, recognized that the runners were celebrating and had stopped sprinting, which created the possibility of a double play. He jumped up and down on second base, but Ellsbury never looked up and when I asked Cora about it after the game, he simply said, "I'll talk to him."
He has similarly made his displeasure known with this group, suggesting that a lack of hustle and/or awareness has led to benchings that went unnoticed outside the clubhouse, but perhaps more drastic steps are in order. After a five-error debacle on Saturday vs. the Rangers and two more errors that nearly cost them Monday's series finale, watching them once again blunder their way around the bases could make even a casual fan taste bile.
"It's very frustrating to see a team that I manage just be sloppy fundamentally," Cora said. "It's hard. It's hard. That's my biggest battle, because I do believe the talent is here. But from my end, it's all we've been talking about the whole time in spring training. We've been talking about it the whole season. But it keeps happening."
It's one thing to lose because the talent legitimately isn't there. It's another to play like you don't care. Those of us resisting the narrative that the Red Sox are simply seeking their level are starting to feel like chumps.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 9:04:55 GMT -5
Alex Speier @alexspeier · 12m Verdugo thought he got one off of Ober, stayed in the box to admire it, watched it clang high off the Wall, tried to kick into gear to consider a double but slammed on the brakes and was nonetheless thrown out retreating to first. Not good. ============================================= This is something that has annoyed me for 50+ years. I'm not a big fan of styling and bat flips, etc., but if you hit one like Sano just launched, I won't get upset if you want to watch it sail off into the night. But it is absolutely inexcusable to run a double into an out. Everyone in BB hits the odd 340 foot HR. There is no reason to celebrate. That reminds me of the Raiders defense. Don't celebrate unless you've done something exceptional. I used to get very pissed at the bat flips but now, not anymore heck it is part of the game
but I can not stand players from the Red Sox who start pimping while watching the ball in flight and either getting thrown out, or held to a long single. And this has been going in Boston before Cora's first stint here.
And Vaz not knowing how many outs there were......inexcusable at this level. Heck in little league the 1B and 3B coaches would drive us nuts reminding us how many outs there were, etc etc
This shit does a few things: 1) makes the fan base livid, lack of hustle is a huge no no, espicially in Boston 2) pisses of the baseball Gods, and they are a hard to please.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 9:08:59 GMT -5
Why do the Red Sox almost always feel a little off? Current Time 0:00 / Duration 0:15 By Rob Bradford an hour ago
The ninth inning was unfolding just as one might expect for a team storming toward the postseason.
A two-run homer from newcomer Kyle Schwarber to tie things up, and then placing Xander Bogaerts at third base with one out and the team's hottest hitter, Alex Verdugo, at the plate. All of the discomfort from the previous eight innings was about to be washed away thanks to another walk-off celebration.
But then came the kind of about-face that has this Red Sox team running in quicksand.
A three-pitch strikeout to Verdugo was followed by Hunter Renfroe's first-pitch, inning-ending pop-up.
Then, the guy who 24 hours before had given off the impression he might be a trade deadline steal, Hansel Robles, goes on to officially suck the life out of Fenway Park by giving up five runs.
Welcome to the take-one-step-foward, 1 1/2-steps-back Boston Red Sox.
With the 9-6 loss to the Twins Wednesday night the Sox now trail the Yankees by three games for the top Wild Card spot, still sitting 1 1/2 games over the A's for No. 2. As for the division, it is now a season-high 7 1/2-game deficit in back of Tampa Bay.
There is still hope and even some optimism. The presence of Schwarber has been as advertised. And lost in the loss was 2 2/3 key innings of hitless relief work by another trade deadline pick, lefty reliever Austin Davis.
Still, the expectation that this team can morph back into the early-season Red Sox is dwindling.
Christian Vazquez cost the team a run by forgetting how many outs there were. Alex Verdugo lolly-gagged his way out of the batter's box on a deep fly ball, resulting in getting thrown out instead of sitting on second. And the lineup's meat-and-potatoes - Xander Bogaerts (1-for-14), J.D. Martinez (hitless in his last 15 at-bats) and Rafael Devers (4 for his last 30) - aren't exactly punctuating games in a positive manner.
“It’s an area we’ve been bad,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora of the team's unforced errors. “We forgot the outs, we didn’t run out of the box. It’s probably a different game early on [if not for that]. Obviously, they don’t want to do that, but like I’ve been saying, sometimes we’re not doing enough, pushing-wise, because it keeps happening.
“Yeah, it’s on them. It’s on us. As a group, we’re not doing a good job with that. Those things you can control -- know the outs, run out of the box. It’s one of those that we need to do, and at this stage, it’s tough to watch. We talk about it, but it keeps happening. As a staff, we’ve got to keep pushing, keep pushing. We can’t give up.”
The list of almost-but-not-quites seem to be growing.
Nick Pivetta has gone from a middle-of-the-rotation no-doubter to just another example of the uneasiness, giving up four runs over four innings one start after going 1 2/3 innings.
Renfroe and Verdugo had been banging the ball over the ballpark up until those ninth-inning sad trombones.
And, of course, there was the all-to-brief round of hope that came and went with Robles.
Too many times over the last month it has seemed like the Red Sox are turning a corner only to run right into yet another wall. That was certainly the case Wednesday night.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 9:53:52 GMT -5
Lou Merloni @loumerloni · 1h Here’s what I do if I’m @ac13alex , institute a “No Pimp Zone” for a couple weeks. Hit the ball and run as hard as you can 4X a game. If it gets out, stop and enjoy it then and only the. #KnowYourPop
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 12:59:11 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats @redsoxstats · 1h Verdugo's hit .337/.407/.510 over his last 30 games, which coincides with him getting his ground ball rate back to an acceptable level.
Early in the year he was .288/.347/.468 when keeping the ball off the ground.
In-between it was .257/.330/.366 with 58% ground balls.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 13:01:27 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats @redsoxstats · 44m In August, Red Sox bats have been at their season best in Low and Medium Leverage situations and at their season worst in High Leverage situations. As annoying as it has felt.
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 13:03:49 GMT -5
Cora choosing his closer tonight
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 13:17:36 GMT -5
Game 129: Twins at Red Sox lineups and pregame notesBy Andrew Mahoney Globe Staff,Updated August 26, 2021, 1 hour ago For the Red Sox, Wednesday night’s 9-6 loss at to the Twins in 10 innings was just another setback against a team well below .500, with the Sox failing to take advantage of the schedule to either keep pace or make up ground in the American League East. The two teams will be back at it Thursday night at Fenway, as the Sox look to win the rubber match and come away with a series win. The Sox will then head out on a seven-game road trip, beginning with a three-game series at Cleveland. Lineups TWINS (55-71): 1. Rob Refsnyder (R) RF 2. Brent Rooker (R) LF 3. Josh Donaldson (R) DH 4. Miguel Sano (R) 1B 5. Luis Arraez (L) 2B 6. Ryan Jeffers (R) C 7. Willians Astudillo (R) 3B 8. Nick Gordon (L) CF 9. Andrelton Simmons (R) SS Pitching: RHP John Gant (4-7, 3.77 ERA) RED SOX (72-56): 1. Enrique Hernandez (R) SS 2. Kyle Schwarber (L) DH 3. J.D. Martinez (R) LF 4. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 5. Alex Verdugo (L) RF 6. Christian Vazquez (R) C 7. Christian Arroyo (R) 2B 8. Jarren Duran (L) CF 9. Bobby Dalbec (R) 1B Pitching: LHP Chris Sale (2-0, 1.80 ERA) Time: 7:10 p.m. TV, radio: NESN, WEEI-FM 93.7 Twins vs. Sale: Jake Cave 0-2, Josh Donaldson 10-33, Mitch Garver 0-6, Max Kepler 1-3, Jorge Polanco 4-13, Rob Refsnyder 2-5, Miguel Sanó 6-15, Andrelton Simmons 1-6. Red Sox vs. Gant: Xander Bogaerts 0-1, Kiké Hernández 1-2, J.D. Martinez 0-1, Kevin Plawecki 0-1, Hunter Renfroe 0-1, Kyle Schwarber 2-9, Travis Shaw 5-14. Stat of the day: In nine games with the Red Sox, Kyle Schwarber is batting .379 with a 1.100 OPS (11-for-29, five runs scored, three doubles, one home run, two RBI, and eight walks). Notes: In 50 games beginning in June, Kiké Hernández has a .298/.410/.569/.979 slash line. … Sale is 10-6 with a 3.93 ERA in 28 games (20 starts) against Minnesota. He last faced the Twins on July 27, 2018, when he tossed six scoreless innings and gave up three hits and two walks while striking out 10 in a 4-3 win. … Gant has struggled since joining the Twins after being traded by the St. Louis Cardinals on July 30. Gant is 0-1 with a 6.00 ERA over eight appearances (one start) with Minnesota after going 4-6 with a 3.42 ERA in 25 outings (14 starts) with the Cardinals. Song of the Day: James - Laidwww.youtube.com/watch?v=g_qZ5B-yioU
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Post by CP_Jon_GoSox on Aug 26, 2021 13:58:21 GMT -5
Bill Koch @billkoch25 · 11m Per #RedSox game notes, the @weei /@nesn Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon raised more than $3.7M for cancer treatment and research.
More than $61M has been raised since the event's 2002 founding. Salute to the donors and organizers. Strength to those who continue their fight.
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