For Their Next Trick…

How do you match giving up twenty-one runs in a game? Why striking out seventeen times in the next, of course. Cleveland 5, Toast 2. The team that Jerry Reinsdorf owns and Rick Hahn put together and Tony La Russa “manages” went into Cleveland last night already in the hole, given the lineup La Russa put together—Luis Robert out again with a wrist injury and Gavin Sheets out because…the manager apparently wasn’t impressed enough that Sheets treated the 21-5 game as if it counted by getting himself four hits on the afternoon. No sir, better to put Yasmani Grandal in the lineup as DH. Yes sirree. That move came back to bite the Sox on their collective butts in the first inning, two runs in, runners on the corners, Sheets not up. Grandal was, and he promptly grounded into an inning-ending double play. The Sox had four hits that inning. They’d have three more on the night, along with those seventeen strikeouts. Three came in the fifth inning after Josh Harrison led off the inning with a double and moved to third on a wild pitch by Guardians’ starter Triston McKenzie. I could be wrong, but I think it took McKenzie nine pitches to then dispose of Seby Zavala, A.J. Pollock and Andrew Vaughn. But like the man said in the movie, We don‘t need no stinkin’ runs. You know, that movie starring La Russa as the gold prospector in the Sierra Madres. That character stood out for his sense of accountability. Three Sox hitters failing to make contact goes with four two-out runs scored by Cleveland—it all reflects back on the coaching staff. And here the manager said one of the good things about that 21-5 debacle was his bullpen would be rested for the big upcoming series in Cleveland. Holy Reynaldo Lopez and Jake “Boston Got Rid of Me For a Reason” Diekman, you could’a fooled me by how the pen pitched. Bad Doug is back. If the Sox lose today, I want them to keep losing until the owner and the general manager are forced to own up to the mistake they’ve made with this team. The manager, of course, won’t admit anything outside of how good the other team’s pitching is and how hard his guys try.