Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
Yep. Three runs might have been enough against the Yankees. But the Rays and Astros are both better hitting ball clubs and against the Sox pitching have scored 5, 6, 4, 5, 4, 5, 3, and 9 runs. And, as good as the Sox lineup has been, they were shut out once by the Rays and last night held to 2 runs.
At some point in the 1975 World Series , a reporter asked Sox' lefty , Bill Lee ; " What do you think of the Series so far? " Lee gave a one word answer , " Tied." Same as now. It goes without saying that it's a big game tonight.
Old school is good school.
Max you said the game was over when Whitlock gave up the HR, so why did Cora waste his best pitcher EO if the game had already been lost according to you. You already said that Perez was not the best option to stem the tide, so you you already answered your question that bringing in Perez was the wrong call, and Cora made it. Once again I agree with you.
Heck, I agree with dgalehouse too. In fact, my entire goal in this discussion was to defend Cora because I do think he made some great decisions to give the Sox a chance to win when the lineup was just moribund.
When he pulled Pivetta, I had expected to leave him in, but then realized Pivetta was facing the Astros lineup for the 3d time. Plus Taylor and Ottavino did a good job in the 6th and Whitlock in the 7th. Sending him out for the 8th made complete sense to me, and expecting Eovaldi to close the game out in the 9th did too. But Whitlock gave up the dinger to Altuve and Eovaldi the double to Correa.
But, most of all and completely out of Cora's control, the lineup just got shut down after the 1st inning. Credit the Astros bullpen.
The game was over when Altuve tied the game in the 8th? Really? Did you just stop watching the game at that point?
Woke up to see some interesting takes this morning.
The Bills, The Bruins, The Sabres & The Red Sox.
Well, I thought at the time the momentum had already shifted to the Astros because their bullpen was so effective.
Nevertheless, it was still a tie game, plus he had planned all along to use Eovaldi because last night was midway between Eovaldi's last start, last Saturday, and presumed next start, this Friday. That move, which made sense, turned sour when Eovaldi foolishly threw four straight fastballs to Correa, who led off the 9th with a double. Right guy, right inning, dumb pitching. When he mixed in breaking balls, he got two K's, but then came that single--after those presumed strikes were called balls--off a splitter a little up in the zone.
You want to make this game outcome all about what you think are Cora's mistakes, but I'm certain the real problem was that the Astros bullpen dominated the Sox lineup. If the Sox ain't hitting this postseason, they ain't winning. Cora in fact used his best arms last night--Pivetta, Taylor, Ottavino, Whitlock, and Eovaldi--until the Sox were down 3-2 in the 9th.
Last edited by Maxbialystock; 10-20-2021 at 11:48 AM.
https://umpscorecards.com/site-data/umpires.html
They should just retire the bottom 5 umps every year.
It was just how I felt at the time because the Astros bullpen dominated the Sox lineup so thoroughly and because Cora had already used Pivetta, Taylor, Ottavino, and Whitlock. Eovaldi was supposed to close with a 2-1 lead. With the game tied, I just thought the Astros had the upper hand, which was exacerbated when Eovaldi threw four straight fastballs to Correa, who led off the 9th with a double off the RF wall.
As I keep reminding folks, the Sox have not won a single postseason game when scoring fewer than 6 runs, and last night they scored 2.