Friday, July 12, 2013

Getting to Be A Habit?

Actually, there are two "habits" I'm referring to here. One is falling several runs behind early. That I could definitely do without! The other is coming from behind to win, either in the 9th inning or extra innings. That I can live with--the W ,after all, is the important thing--although it gets to be a bit of a nerve racking process.
Yesterday afternoon, the Hose had their final matchup with the M's and were quickly down 5-1 after three innings. After almost climbing back to even, 5-4 in the 4th, they just as quickly dropped to 7-4, M's in the M's half of the same frame. It was a combo of Dempster's pitching and the Sox defense. Demp only lasted 3 1/3 innings, and in that time allowed nine hits and a free pass, leading to all seven of the M's runs. Had he not registered seven K's while enduring this, it could have been worse. However, although he was putting M's runners on board, three of those seven runs were unearned, complements of a couple of Sox errors in the field. So, holding up their end of the 'bargain', the Hose then tacked on a trey to knot the score in their half of the 5th. Then, suddenly, neither team could score. The reason the Sox suddenly started denying home to the M's was that Wright, who entered the game with a double digit ERA, took over the mound duties and slammed the door on the M's offense through the rest of the regulation nine innings, allowing three hits and a pair of freebies against three K's. In the top of the 10th the Hose managed to get a hit, substituted Jackie Bradley, Jr as a runner and brought him home with the winning run on a two out single by Nava. The Sox' newest closer, Uehara, then gave one of his patented perfect, 2K innings to finish things off once and for all. Sox got another 10 hit game, including Jake's third HR of the year in the 1st. Jake's offense is interesting so far, in that he's back over .300, in the midst of a 19 game hitting streak, and leads MLB in steals. But, his HR's and ribbies are way down from 2011 when he had over 30 HR's and 100 RBI's. Of this year's three homers, the last two have both come on this road trip. Not sure what that does or doesn't mean in the greater scheme of things, but I just find it interesting.
Tonight the Sox are opening a three game series against the A's in Oakland and facing possibly as many as four recent Sox players. Should be a good game and hopefully, we'll win 'em all. Going myself tonight with my wife.

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