Post by Admin on Oct 9, 2018 0:16:09 GMT -5
Well, despite 96% of those polled by Steve Burton on Sports Final Sunday night expecting the Sox to lose tonight to the Yanks, The Sox prevailed. Not only did they prevail, they embarrassed the Yanks in front of their home crowd on a nationally (if not globally) televised game!
With the Sox ahead 3-0 after three innings, Mgr Boone opted to bring Severino back to start the fourth despite having four, count them, four closers in his bullpen. Once Severino got two on with nobody out he could have brought in one of those four aces to strike out a few Sox and possibly keep the score at 3-0 or even 4-0 but no, instead he brings in one of his middle relief guys looking for a ground ball double play that he never got and who eventually allowed the game to get away from the Yanks so early in the game that they had no chance to rally back with the way Eovaldi had control of his fastball, splitter & breaking ball.
Boone preferred to let the game drag on, like ice melting in the sun on a winter's day, using the worse arms he could find in his bullpen rather than waste a few of his finest arms in a losing proposition. Then when he ran out of bad arms (Tarpley) he went to a catcher to pitch the ninth. Romine got the first two Sox out and the Stadium was having the most fun they'd had all night until another guy having fun with a serious motive came to bat ... Brock Holt.
Holt came to bat looking for a pitch to hit out of the park ... he had already gotten a single, double & triple this evening and all he needed was a HR to hit for the cycle and be the first player ever to do so in a playoff game. Imagine that. It had never been done and now Brock Holt goes into the history books!
Romine hung a pitch and Holt jumped all over it sending it into the right field boxes ... History book for Holt and the lowest of lows for the Yankees!
You reap what you sow Boonie. Don't try to say the Sox laid it on you when you were down & out. If you want the courtesy of not having a loss "rubbed in your noses" then you need to treat your opponent with the respect of finishing the game with real ballplayers. You deserved every bit of the embarrassment you received. If the Sox really want to rub it in you'll be hearing "Sweet Caroline" blasting through the partitions of Yankee Stadium while you consider what the whole world just saw.