Jake

Doyle is having fun out there

Colson's ABs have gotten a lot better in the past few weeks. Just needs to get more out of his swings.

Savvy move by Sam to try to bait Valencia into running with the ball going to the strong arm of Doyle

lol maybe Colson should have hung with that one

That was really impressive by Doyle to hit that pitch that way

Braden may finally get a little justice for all that hard contact he's been having

So how bad is the forecast that they decided it was a good idea to play the game with the rain still coming down and the field looking like crap?

Teel .709 OPS since returning from injury. Boosted by .350 OBP

FWIW, it sure looked like Antonacci wasn't trying to challenge and the ump may have misunderstood something that Sam said. He goes to his head after every pitch (like a lot of batters do). Challenge requires a verbal request from the batter.

Sox hitters may have wanted to take into account that their judgment of the strike zone might be adversely affected by the rain

I think Sam has a 1.000 batting average when blowing a challenge in the 1st inning

I think the Sox basically stole both the wins in this series but I won't complain. They've had some stolen from them lately.

I'm not that down on Sandlin TBH. Not sure if he'll make it in the long run but that's true of just about everybody on every team. He has improved a lot in a short period. In this game, it felt like he got stuck on pitch selection that was just not working at all after batters got a look at his cutter enough times. I think when he's not walking people and keeps the ball in the ballpark, he'll usually do fine. I just haven't totally trusted him to do those two things. He's had some monumental L/R splits in MLB so that's going to be the key thing to watch. In AAA, he ended up basically eliminating the handedness split.

I think the 16 hits from Detroit were the main problem in this one. Tough to have the comeback but you just flat out got beaten. For me, bad loss = mental mistakes give up a game that should have been won easily

Sommers looks fantastic

A .500 team is gonna do some .500 team things. It's been a great season.

When I see every pitcher getting hit, I'm inclined to say it's not the manager's decisionmaking at play

Ovah

And then they bloop you for the dagger

This game is far from over, but in general dropping some of these recent games because your best relievers give up runs is...I don't know. Doesn't frustrate me as much as some other ways you can lose. It concerns me about the near future but I'm not sure what you can do when the opponent beats your best guys. Hope it gets figured out ASAP.

Hasn't been ideal timing for Newcomb to stop pitching well

I wonder whether Venable is planning/hoping to use Newcomb to close it all the way out

Yeah I remember looking into this last time we played them. They've got a ton of talent in their bullpen and generally pitch well. But all of their bad bullpen pitching is concentrated into the absolute highest leverage moments

That big boy just shoves every time I see him

Game of inches. Looked a lot like a few of those plays that have gotten Braden in trouble but he came up with it. Then he just let the arm do its thing. I'm very happy with the outcome although I hope it doesn't bait him into risky plays in the future.