Tuesday 4/9/24
So I'm not even watching this Red Sox game today, but I've put it on a couple times for a total of what is probably ninety seconds and here's what I saw.
The first time I checked the game, Rafael "Portly" Devers got eaten up--the irony--by a ground ball at third base. E5! Bend, Portly.
Moments later--liner to left that should end the inning. Wrong! Jarren Duran has it clang off of his glove of iron. E7! What a butcher this guy is in the outfield. Butcher at third, butcher in left. Butchers all around the diamond! Boston Butchers.
Kevin Millar--who has little to add to a broadcast, but still manages to be better than Lou Merloni who is seriously trying to sell me how on how great Trevor Story is--then begins palavering about how now is the time for the pitcher to pick up his teammate, and all of this cliched testosterone locker room crap that is Millar's misty-eyed--but still manly--go-to. Why does this guy always sound like he's an unbilled actor in Stagecoach?
Yeah, I wouldn't be counting on Brayan Bello for that, Hoss Millar. Bello then gave up a clean single through the middle, two runs came in.
That was enough for me. Came back, oh, I don't know, an hour later. Routine double play ball...but wait, it's the Butchers out there! E6, everyone safe, and the Oriole attack gets to pad the lead.
Look, this is very simple. If you want to be cheap and not sign people who have a lot of talent to play for your team and hope that the marginal type of players on your roster all have career years at once so you can maybe win 90 games and qualify for a postseason tournament that any serious baseball team should be able to make every year, you have to field the goddamn baseball like you have Major Leaguers out there. You're not the Murderers' Row Yankees. There's not a huge margin for error. You can't be handing out runs and giving away outs like you're a charity operation.
The thing was, these were all routine plays. As routine as it gets.
You will finish in last playing defense this way. Even playing it better. These Red Sox are so bad at defense that they're not even close to average. This boggles my mind. No one is asking these Red Sox to have some approximation of Aparicio and Fox up the middle, but college players make these plays. Why is this team so bad at defense and basic baseball stuff every year going on six years now?
