Life In The Cell

A Horrible 8th, Here’s Why You Should Still be Happy

The Sox just fell apart in the 8th. Mark Buehrle pitched an absolute gem. He had 6 strike out after just 3 innings, and had a season high 8 K’s. He did get a little help with the ump’s giant zone today, but he took advantage of it, and probably should have gotten the win today. Prior to the snafu in the 8th, the entire offense was provided by a monstrous Jermaine Dye homer. That thing carried beyond all belief; it carried past the water beyond the fences. Greinke was just about as good as Buehrle. He matched Buehrle for K’s and number of hits let up (6). He just threw in 1 walk and technically gave up one fewer run. Buehrle was charged with two runs though had the Sox defense taken care of business, it most likely would have been 0.

Anyway, the 8th began with a lead-off single by John Buck. Joey Gathright came in to pinch-hit which on any right-handed Sox pitcher would have been a SB. David DeJesus tried to bunt Gathright over but failed twice and eventually grounded into what should have been a GB DP. The Sox got the out at second but Alexei’s throw tailed towards home ever so slightly which caused the ball to nip off the end of Paulie’s glove. This play caused a lot of distress over at SSS during the gamethread, which is understandable. Paulie should have caught the ball; he wasn’t at a full stretch, and he also had his foot at the midpoint of the bag. If he just moved his foot a couple inches (or more) toward home it would have been safely in his glove. This gave the Royals new life, and the tying run came in on a Mike Aviles double. The Royals scored again with another double, this one by Jose Guillen off of Octavio Dotel. Boone Logan came in and gave up an inside-the-park homer to Mark Teahan. I’m still confused how it all happened, but the final base was given to him when Alexei held onto the ball far, far too long and then threw a poor ball home. Even a decent throw would have nailed Teahan, but AJ caught the ball to the right of the plate (when facing the outfield) and had to dive back across to try and tag Teahan who just beat him.

I have a feeling a lot of flak will be thrown Paulie’s way. He has been struggling at the plate (both before and after the injury) and showing he is no Nick Swisher at first base. While it is fair to demand better of Paulie, before you get too worked up, keep in mind the Sox are on a really good run right now (won 11 of their last 14) and were extremely lucky during this series. Let’s face it, the Sox easily could have been swept out of Kansas City. Imagine how badly people would be reacting to that? In Game 1 of the series, even though the Sox kept pulling ahead of the Royals, they were ultimately favored to lose in the bottom of the 13th.

That graph is from fangraphs, and if you look at the 13th, you can see the Royals had a higher probability of winning. Like I said in the recap, that was the tensest moment of the season for me, and with good reason, the Sox should have lost.

Then if you look at yesterday, the Sox faced deficits of 2-0, 3-0, 5-0, 6-2. The Sox did a good job of fighting back to win, but they really had no business winning that game.

So fine, the White Sox blew today’s game, and i’m not happy about that, but I can easily take solace in the first two wins of the series, especially when wins on the road are so hard to come by.

Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. During this series (plus the one off day) the Twins lost a total of 3 times. They got swept by the Red Sox, so there’s yet another reason to be happy and not sweat this loss too badly.