I Watch the Red Sox So You Don't Have To | April 19th - April 21st vs. Blue Jays

Jake Roy
Apr 21, 2022
6 min read

Updated: Apr 22, 2022

April 19th: Red Sox - 2, Blue Jays - 1

What a win. It wasn't the most complete game but I think it proved the Red Sox can go toe to toe with the best teams in the league. Alex Cora said it himself after the game, he managed it like a playoff game and went for the win. Credit to him for having the stones to go to his top bullpen arms in the middle of a long stretch of games and grabbing the win while he could.

Nathan Eovaldi was just okay tonight. He had to work hard to get outs and didn't get a ton whiffs but managed to rack up six strikeouts. He's also allowed more home runs than normal which is interesting because home runs across the league are down. I'm willing to chalk that up to bad luck and bet that his home run numbers will come back to earth the deeper into the season we go.

The lineup is still striking out more than I'd like which is somewhat of a concern. Kevin Youkilis was on the broadcast for the first time this season; I liked what he had to say early in the game about the approach at the plate. Youkilis is obviously known for his great discipline and taking walks, but he still talked about the idea of "selective aggressiveness". I won't pretend to be an MLB caliber hitting coach or even remotely know what goes into a hitters' day to day approach. I will say that I think the Red Sox aren't being selective enough at the plate, and I think it starts with Rafael Devers. It's hard to criticize Devers because he has been one of the best hitters on the team thus far, but it's difficult to watch him go up and take monster hacks in early counts, and then slam his bat on the ground when he pops up or rolls over a ball. He's a very talented hitter, and I think he, and the rest of the team, could benefit by making more of an effort to take what the pitcher gives you and move the line. There's been so much untimely hitting this season so far; it reminds me of the struggles the Yankees had last season.

Enough about the lineup. Is the bullpen...good? Okay, that's an exaggeration because the bullpen depth is incredibly lacking, but the top half of the bullpen is kinda nails. Hansel Robles has been incredible, Jake Diekman has a swagger to him, Matt Strahm has been leaned on heavily early and done the job well, and Garrett Whitlock is Garrett Whitlock. Outside of those four guys, there are obviously questions. Josh Taylor's return could be huge for the team as another option to get right handed hitters out. James Paxton and Chris Sale give Alex Cora more flexibility in the pen, how he deploys those guys remains to be seen. It will be a war to get to the postseason out of the AL East, but I truly think the pieces are there to piece together postseason wins if they can get there.

Positives: Showed they can hang with division rivals. Bullpen was lights out.

Negatives: Somebody not named Alex Verdugo needs to hit the ball.

April 20th: Red Sox - 1 , Blue Jays - 6

My second Fenway trip this year also ended in disappointment (0-2 in games I attend). That won't deter me from going to as many games as possible though.

I don't have a ton to say about this game to be honest. Nick Pivetta was the real story tonight. A quick look at his pitch plot on will show you all you need to know about his start.

Look at the amount of fastballs over the heart of the plate. Pivetta doesn't have the velocity or the movement to make mistakes like that. He needs to live on the edge of the zone and keep hitters off balance. He's also down a few ticks on his fastball from last season, and I'm seriously hoping that's due to the short spring training. The difference between 95 and 93 is significant, especially when you're throwing the that pitch 50% of the time.

Once again, the bats didn't have it. There was traffic on the bases, but for whatever reason they can't get those runs across the board. In theory, hitting with runners on base shouldn't be much different than hitting with the bases empty. The season is a process, so to speak, so hopefully it all evens out in the end. The sample size is still small, but that doesn't make it not frustrating.

How about Tyler Danish though? I mean what a treat he was. Get it? Because Danish? Seriously though, I didn't even realize he was on the roster, I hadn't even heard of him before tonight. He did come into the game and strike out five of the seven batters he faced. I'll have to watch his innings back to decide if he's actually a useful piece, but my gut reaction is that this was probably a fluke. Regardless, everyone that stayed in Fenway until the end of the game got to get their best pastry related puns off, which is never a bad thing.

Positives: Tyler Danish was delicious.

Negatives: I'm incredibly worried about Pivetta. This is a cry for help.

April 21st: Red Sox - 2 , Blue Jays - 3

I'm glad I listened to this game on the radio rather than watching on TV, because there's a good chance I would have spontaneously combusted had I watched what went down today. It sucks to drop two out of three to a division rival, especially at home. It sucks even more when one of the losses was an incredibly winnable game. It sucks even more when you have to go on the road without your manager and take on another division rival tomorrow.

The pitching once again wasn't the issue today. Tanner Houck hasn't been his best self but he was still decent today. He has to dial in the control and limit his walks, because he isn't getting the swings and misses he's used to right now. I don't want to harp on the pitch plots too much, but this isn't good. The concentration of fastballs in the middle part of the plate isn't the right approach. Houck needs to do a better job of keeping the fastball up in the zone so he can compliment it with low sliders for strikes.

Hopefully his time off (unvaccinated, can't play in Canada), will help him reset and find his command. Somebody has to step up to carry the rotation eventually. Austin Davis once again pitched well, although they only seem to go to him in low-leverage spots, so who knows if he truly has it. I'm also intrigued by Phillips Valdez who could turn into a useful bullpen arm. He just pitched one inning tonight, but made very quick work of the Blue Jays he faced.

Kevin Gausman absolutely dealt today. He hadn't looked like he was worth the price the Jays paid for him until today. It's hard to say based on audio only, but his splitter was apparently devastating and the Sox couldn't figure him out. I promise this is the last time I'll say it: stop swinging at everything. The amount of weak ground balls and soft contact today was painful. Sure, you might not be striking out, but the outs all count the same and you're making it easy on the pitcher to keep his pitch count down. Gausman had thrown about 50 pitches through five innings today.

The offense was invisible for most of the day. You didn't need me to tell you that, you could have just looked at the lineup before the game and figured it out yourself. In fact, I saw the lineup come out and sent a text that said "Bobby Dalbec is hitting 5th? We won't score a single run". I was wrong, we scored two runs in the 9th inning. The Sox didn't deserve to win that game and had they completed the comeback, it would have felt like stealing.

Positives: Only allowed three runs.

Negatives: Only scored two runs.