Red Sox vs Reds Series Review
A Blog By Dean
Overall Takeaway
Red Sox had a chance at a series sweep, but decided to have the most overworked bullpen in baseball go out and try to complete an entire game. Couple that with the worst defense in baseball, and you have some of the worst few innings of baseball I have seen this year.
Off day tomorrow, followed by 11:05 am game on Friday. Good thing I don’t work over the summer.
Game 1: Red Sox 13–6
Game 2: Red Sox 5–3
Game 3: Reds 8-4
What I Loved
Wilyer Abreu
Inside-the-park homer and a grand slam in Game 1. Goes 2-3 in Game 2 and follows it up in Game 3 with his 17th homer of the season. Kind of forgot how hot he was at the beginning of the year. We are starting to see it again.
Garrett Crochet
Didn’t have his cleanest outing but still struck out nine and picked up the win in Game 1. Kept the damage limited and let the offense do its thing. I can not post another Crochet/Skubal comparison until further notice.
Trevor Story
Story has actually been very good over his last 30 games. He is batting .295, with 6 HR, and 26 RBI. However, he has struck out 33 times with only six walks. His season splits are still below league average, so needs to do this for a few more weeks.
Brayan Bello
*Knock on wood*, Bello has not had a bad start since May 28th. I don’t know baseball, but I probably would have kept Bello as the starter for Wednesday night and used the bullpen to finish the suspended game.
Ceddanne Rafaela
Watching him in CF just gets the juices flowing. What is even better, is that he only struck out once the entire series!
1975 ThrowBack Broadcast
The 1975 broadcast was so cool I am now annoyed that no one has done it before. You should be able to choose your broadcast style in the settings of MLB TV.
Credit: NESN
What I Was “Mid” About
Bullpen Game
Very difficult to the loss on the bullpen when the defense was responsible for half the runs. However, I didn’t fully understand Cora’s thinking with starting Bello in the suspended game. The bullpen has been stretched out the entire season, and he decided to then throw an entire game on them.
What I Didn’t Love
Defense
Two errors in the box score does not tell the full story of this. The defense on Wednesday evening was probably the worst we have seen all season, and this coming from the worst defense in baseball. Everyone, except Rafaela, looked like they were playing little league. Breslow to his credit pointed out in the last series that the defense is so bad, they are reworking how they teach prospects in the minors. Perhaps they should get those teachers to Fenway first.