<p>Last night sure made for a great Pennant fever start.
Don Mattingly pinch-runs for Gonzalez after a leadoff walk in eighth. Dee Gordon doesn’t run, if Gordon isn’t stealing, there is no advantage to having him run is there? He ends up getting forced at second. Next hitter GIDP.</p>
<p>So now his cleanup hitter is out of the game, with Michael Young in his place.</p>
<p>Beltran made quite a throw!</p>
<p>Tigers will start Sanchez in Game 1. I am surprised, Scherzer went only 47 pitches Tuesday and I figured three days’ rest would be plenty, but I guess this way Scherzer and Verlander are lined up for Games 6 and 7?</p>
<p>Enjoy the game Bromfield! Don’t forget to wave to us!</p>
<p>The Dodgers blew this game. I saw both managerial mistakes and bad play.</p>
<p>In the 11th or 12th, Crawford led off with a single. He was followed by A.J. Ellis, then Hanley Ramirez and then Michael Young. Of these, the dangerous person is obviously Ramirez. </p>
<p>The obvious goal is to get Crawford into scoring position. So he tries to steal 2nd … and Ellis swings, fouling the ball off. I don’t know if a hit and run was called, but then Ellis squared around to bunt for the next pitches. Why? He eventually lays down a bunt to 1st and Crawford is at 2nd with 1 out … and 1st base open … so they walk Ramirez to pitch to Michael Young, meaning they took the bat out of the hands of the guy with a .638 slugging percentage and a 1.040 OPS for the season and who had been hitting even better in the postseason. Young had a terrible at bat, taking 2 quick strikes and then defensively swinging to hit a dribbler right to 2nd for an easy DP. By not letting Crawford attempt the steal, they gave St. Louis a free pass for the most dangerous hitter LA had in the game.</p>
<p>Better managing would have seen this possibility: Crawford steals, Ellis sacrifices him to 3rd. That means they’re more likely to pitch to Ramirez - because Young isn’t an automatic out by any means - and you have 2 chances to get Crawford 90 feet. Bad managing.</p>
<p>When St. Louis won, what I saw is a blooped single to center which Ethier didn’t charge. Maybe he thought it was going to fall more quickly, but I saw him trotting in when an aggressive break and charge to the ball may have resulted in an out. Given the other outfielders were moving to back up the play, he risked nothing by charging … and this well into extra innings when a run means StL wins. Player error.</p>
<p>Then the pitcher choked. He threw 4 straight balls, all nibbles around the strike zone. You have to be mentally strong enough to throw strikes. They pull him, which was necessary, and their closer comes in. He gets 1 strike and then nibbles, nibbles, nibbles low - afraid to throw strikes - which means he has to throw a strike or load the bases … but he’s facing Beltran and he laces it to right for the win. You won’t win if you are afraid to challenge the hitter.</p>
<p>^the sacrifice is the obvious call there…95% of managers would do the same. I didn’t see the game, not sure who was pitching with Crawford on 1st, but maybe the straight steal was an iffy proposition. With 1 out, sure, with no outs, lay the bunt down.</p>
<p>So glad Verlander seems to have gotten out of his funk. I’m admittedly a bandwagon fan when it comes to the Tigers and Lions. I’ll watch a Tigers game or two during the season but baseball is just boring for me to watch (even as someone who played and coached for many years). Now that the playoffs are here though, it’s a whole different ball game. </p>
<p>My H is from the Detroit area, and REALLY wants to watch the game tonight, but we don’t have cable and our feeble digital aerial won’t get the local Fox station. I pointed out to him that we live in Red Sox Nation, but he can’t root against the Tigers as a kid who grew up playing baseball right outside Detroit, going to Tigers games, etc. :)</p>
<p>I forgot about Molina but the pitcher - Lance Lynn, as I remember - isn’t good at holding runners. But more importantly, the suggestion then is they tried hit and run, which means that if the batter missed it would still be a steal attempt. In other words, they tried running on Molina’s arm anyway. So do it and don’t sacrifice. The main thing to me was they gave up so much to get a man to 2nd by losing Ramirez’ at bat. It may be really safe managing to sacrifice and hope but it isn’t good managing, especially if you were willing to have the runner thrown out on a hit and run.</p>
<p>AS to the Sox / Tigers, I grew up in Bloomfield near guys like Al Kaline, Jim Northrup, etc. I would be happy with either team winning. I couldn’t root for the Sox until the Yawkey family was gone; that was like rooting for incompetence and, as writer Steve Buckley says, racism, alcoholism and cronyism. But it’s different now. It’s good for where I live, about a mile from Fenway if the Sox win. It’s exciting. My kids like it because they’re from here. And yet I tend to root for the team that hasn’t won lately and that would be the Tigers.</p>
<p>Rather unbelievably, the center field camera for Fox isn’t focused properly: the sharpest image is out near 2nd base - which you can see when there’s a runner - and the plate is blurry. Considering they have about 700 cameras, the lack of sharpness in this, the main camera is glaring. How does this happen?</p>
<p>romani, I am a New Englander born and bred. No way am I rooting for the Tigers, sorry! Years ago, our property line was also the CT/NY border. I wanted to hang a banner across our (small) road facing NY reading “Red Sox Nation.” :D</p>
lol (I kid… I’m just always happy to see Detroit having anything positive associated with it!)</p>