30 Sep, BOS @ NYY, ALWCS GM 1, 3-1, win
I didn't know what was going to happen last night. Well, I knew Crochet would pitch well. But I also knew that New York wouldn't make it easy. And it was scary to start. Dudes got on base in the bottom of the first. With no outs and everything! So I was right, the Yankees weren't making it easy. But then Crochet got out of it and, aside from the single dinger to Volpe, absolutely dominated. Our bats were a little quiet, yes, but they were loud enough and Max Fried is very, very good. I'm not going to give our lineup shit for flailing a bit in the face of his pitching. So let's look at those bright sides.
Crochet was amazing. He got out of trouble and then just fucking ruled. He threw 117 pitches over seven and two-thirds innings, striking out 11 and not issuing a single walk. He did allow a dinger, but then retired the next 17 batters he faced. His last pitch sealed his 11th strike out and clocked in at 100mph. The looks of frustration on the faces of every pinstriped batter were golden. They were disgusted. With themselves, with the laws of physics. It was beautiful.
Masa Yoshida came off the bench and with a single swing drove in both the tying and the go-ahead run. Some pretty awesome stuff had to happen before that though...
Ceddanne Rafaela had to take a walk. Which he did during an 11 pitch at-bat. Ceddanne is not famous for his patience at the plate. Feel the Sox are embracing the importance of the situation. So, Ceddanne took the walk, and then...
Nick Sogard turned a single into a double because he noticed that Aaron Judge had the sum total of fuck all hustle playing the ball (Judge is injured and can't throw, but it still looks like fuck all hustle). Which meant that Sogard was on second and Ceddanne was on third for Masa's hit. It's fun how that works.
Alex Bregman was 2-for-4 with a RBI double in the ninth that provided both comfort and insurance. He's also battling a dreadful cold. He is meant to be very good in postseason situations. Let's hope that continues to be the case.
Aroldis Chapman got into trouble and then got out of it. With the bases loaded and no outs in the bottom of the ninth he struck out two and got a pop out. I'll come back to the pop out and Wilyer Abreu's play of that but those strike outs were absolutely amazing. I don't know what the statistical chances are of loading the bases with Yankees and no outs and getting out of it without a run scoring but I'm sure it's very, very low. Gosh.
That pop up in the ninth wasn't a sac fly in part because Abreu was lining up his throw to Narvàez before he caught the ball and Narvi had positioned himself perfectly slightly up the third base line. Little things, but worth watching the replay.
We won!
We just have to win the next one to keep going!
Let's do that!
Fuck yeah playoff baseball!












