Another yucky start
Sale’s fail sets similar stage to last year
HOUSTON — It was a scene eerily similar to last year, when the optimistic, forward-looking AL East champion Red Sox sent a Cy Young Award candidate to the mound to get things rocking and rolling in the Division Series.
But just as Rick Porcello sputtered out of the gate last October, giving up three home runs in 41⁄3 innings against the Cleveland Indians, yesterday it was Chris Sale who failed the Red Sox in their ALDS opener against the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park.
Sale was torched for seven runs in five-plus innings in the Astros’ easy 8-2 victory over the Sox, and he was very Porcello-like in giving up three home runs — including two of the three shots hit by Houston MVP candidate Jose Altuve.
It wasn’t just Sale who didn’t get the job done for the in-over-their heads Red Sox. The batting order managed just two runs, both of them off Astros starter Justin Verlander, who went six innings. The Sox were held scoreless the rest of the way by four Houston relievers.
Yes, Verlander is a stud. But guess what: You face very good teams in the postseason, and very good teams generally have pitching studs — such as Sale, who had a rough outing against the Astros. In other words, the whole tip-your-cap-to-the-opposing pitcher thing isn’t going to fly this year.
That might have been the reason that Dustin Pedroia made a curious baserunning decision in the second inning when he was thrown out at third by right fielder Josh Reddick on Sandy Leon’s single. And that one could have been worse, as it took an umpire challenge to change the original call that had Mitch Moreland not scoring before Pedroia was tagged out at third to end the inning.
You can call it “aggressive” base running, or you can call it “don’t make the third out of an inning at third base.”
Pedroia called it this: “The base hit was right to Reddick and I wanted to make sure he threw at me instead of home to get that run. That was basically it . . . he’s got a pretty good arm, so you wanna get that run.”
Or, if anything, maybe draw the throw and get caught in a rundown. Whatever you want to call it, it was a painful reminder that these no longer are the David Ortiz Red Sox. Instead of crooked-number innings, you have a second baseman with a bum knee chugging into third base with two out.
What the Red Sox needed yesterday was for their offense to rally, to find a way, to rise to the challenge of postseason hardball. That didn’t happen. The Red Sox needed Sale to be a monster, shutting down the Astros into the late innings, at which time, presumably, David Price would have come in from the bullpen and kept the Astros quiet.
That didn’t happen, either.
Dennis Eckersley wasn’t in the MLB Network booth yesterday with Bob Costas and Jim Kaat, so I’ll say it for him: Yuck.
“It sucks,” Sale said of his long-awaited first postseason start. “I never really gave my team a chance to win. I put them in a hole early. They fought back and they fought back hard and they gave it right back to ’em. It happens, obviously, but it’s a terrible time for it to happen, but you take it off the chin and come back tomorrow, ready to rock.
“This one’s on me,” he said. “I take full responsibility for this one.”
Well ... no. Maybe slide a piece of that blame pie to the batting order.
And it gets even worse: The Sox rolled the dice on infielder Eduardo Nunez’ ailing right knee to be sufficiently healthy to get a start at DH yesterday. He swung at just one pitch, hitting a grounder to third. He limped out of the box, collapsed before he got to first and had to be carried off the field.
Nunez is likely done for the series, which means he’d have to sit out the American League Championship Series if the Red Sox were to replace him on the roster, which means he wouldn’t be eligible to return until the World Series.
Anybody see the Red Sox advancing to the World Series given the way they looked yesterday?
With apologies to Game 2 starter Drew Pomeranz, anyone who had the Red Sox getting past the bicepy, long-ball hitting Astros in this series had Sale laying down the law in Game 1. And that didn’t turn out very well.
The Sox already have the very iffy Doug Fister slated to pitch Game 3, and he had a lot of Sox fans cringing the last month of the regular season when he gave up a whopping 17 runs in 162⁄3 innings.
Game 1 was the one the Red Sox needed. Now there’s even more pressure on Pomeranz in Game 2, a struggled-down-the-stretch Fister in Game 3 and, if the Sox are still in business, Sale coming back in Game 4 on three days’ rest and . . . sorry, I don’t think Farrell should have sent him back out to start the sixth yesterday.
Yuck.