GAME #29 - SUNDAY, APRIL 30, 2023 - CLEVELAND GUARDIANS @ BOSTON RED SOX

[Schloicka]

1:35PM Eastern

Red Sox

Chris Sale (L)

1. Alex Verdugo (L) RF
2. Justin Turner (R) 1B
3. Rob Refsnyder (R) LF
4. Rafael Devers (L) 3B
5. Masataka Yoshida (L) DH
6. Christian Arroyo (R) SS
7. Connor Wong (R) C
8. Jarren Duran (L) CF
9. Enmanuel Valdez (L) 2B

GUARDIANS

Logan Allen (L)

1. Steven Kwan (L) LF
2. Amed Rosario (R) SS
3. Jose Ramirez (S) DH
4. Josh Bell (S) 1B
5. Oscar Gonzalez (R) RF
6. Andres Gimenez (L) 2B
7. Myles Straw (R) CF
8. Gabriel Arias (R) 3B
9. Cam Gallagher (R) C

Gametime Temp: 51°F
Chance of Precip: 60%

[markj]

Rainy day in store for Boston.

[markj]

Another series win. Still, Sox and Yanks are sharing the cellar. How the mighty have fallen.

[SeaBeachFred]

Another series win. Still, Sox and Yanks are sharing the cellar. How the mighty have fallen.

Bad weather markj but we played a good game and won going away to take our second series in a row ( or was it two out of three)?  Toronto next---and we know how they pounded the @#$% out of us last season by a 15-3 count.  Would be nice if we can start to reverse that starting on Monday.

[MongoLikeSox]

It's hard to imagine Chris Sale's last 4 starts were from the same pitcher.

It's awfully nice to see Arroyo hit again. Two games in a roll. We've all seen that play out before. Leave him along and he'll hit well for weeks.

Wong, too. Average up to .242 after a strong weekend similar to Arroyo's. Funny thing. Wong's R/L splits are backwards. .265 off RHP, .208 against LHP. McGuire caught the first 3 Sale starts. Wong as started the last 3 Sale starts, facing 2 RHP starters. Is Wong getting more starts regardless of opposing pitcher, or does Sale have a favorite?

1 game over 500 at 15-14. On pace for an 84 win season. If they had lost one more game, the pace would have been for a 78 win season. Either way, I don't think it was as bad a month as it could have been given the pitching struggles. 

[Sea Dog 23]

Looks like Sale had a couple of innings he could have imploded.  Like two runners on and no outs.  Got two K's and Duran making a nice running catch got the job done.  Verdugo is money, and he needs to be extended pretty soon from Henry's money belt.

[longgame]

Solid win.  Cleveland isn't doing great, but the Sox have had a tough schedule so far that doesn't relent soon.  They've played 9 series so far.  Cleveland was a .500 team coming in, Detroit stinks.  All of the other teams they've played have winning records - BAL  (2), LAA, MIN, MIL, TB, PIT.  Now we've got TOR, PHI and ATL before finally getting STL and SEA.

Tampa Bay's schedule has been quite different.  DET, WAS, OAK, CIN and CHW (2) with the Sox, TOR and HOU rounding them out.  They lost the TOR and HOU series.  They now go to PIT, NYY (2), BAL, NYM, MIL, TOR, LAD for the next few weeks.  It will be interesting to see where the division stands at the end of May. 

I still can't figure out the Sox.  They can hit.  Sometimes they get a decent start, but rarely a great one.  The bullpen seems to be something of a crapshoot still.  I can see them being better than I originally thought they'd be, but it would take a lot to become a successful playoff team. 

[MongoLikeSox]

The Yankees are as injured as we are in their pitching staff as anyone. Judge was MRI'd in the hip and they still don't have a clear idea of what to do. (Yikes) I can't imagine the nerves in Gotham these days.

I thought it funny yesterday when O'Brien talked about the easy schedule Tampa has had so far. To liberally paraphrase, the only good team they faced was Toronto, who beat them(Rays) 2 out of 3. The rest were all bad teams Oakland, etc, etc, and throw Boston in there. Basically, he wasn't lumping Boston into the good teams list by any stretch of the imagination, and barely covered his tracks when he mentioned Boston at the end of listing the bad teams. 

[longgame]

It still bas been a pretty weak schedule for them, including the Sox.  At the same time, it's one thing to win 2 out of 3 but they have been on fire from the start and are about 3 out of 4 now.

Can't get too excited one way or another.  I can say I don't like the "balanced" schedule with all the NL games at the expense of divisional games.  Next month has 4 divisional games, the next four days vs Toronto and then it's Philly, Atlanta, St, Louis before an AL team in Seattle then a road trip to San Diego, LA Angels and Arizona before returning home for Cincinnati.   

[MongoLikeSox]

I didn't like the 19 games for each team within the division thing. I think it's 14 now. That's 20 less total against divisional opponents. Seems like a small number, but it feels big.

I could easily go with an alternating NL/AL home and away schedule. Visit each city every other year instead of the yearly or every 3rd year plan. 

[elktonnick]

Inter league play sucks.  I liked it better when there was a clear difference between the two leagues.  Inter league play has destroyed the meaning of the All Star game and diminished the mystique of the World Series.