Déjà Vu All Over Again

Déjà Vu All Over Again “I wanted to call, but I didn’t know if you were up,” said my daughter in a call this morning, as if I’ve entered into sleepy old age. Yes, I was up and watching. “As soon as he hit it, I thought of high school,” which I did, too. Yet another connection between Clare and MLB. For whatever reason, Clare’s varsity softball coach wanted her to fake bunt all through sophomore year. Whether or not Adam Engel was doing the same in the bottom of the eighth inning in last night’s Sox-Twins’ game, I can’t say. But with two runners on and nobody out in a 1-1 tie, pinch-hitter Engel definitely needed to move the runners up. With Clare, Coach wanted to draw infielders in for the bunt, which would allow little Miss Quick Hands to power the ball past them. This tactic played itself out in junior year, when Clare hit .425; the opposition figured players built like Clare don’t make a habit out of bunting and slapping. Again, with Engel, I can’t say. But I do know that after fouling off his initial bunt attempt, he showed bunt on the next pitch, only to hit away and ground the ball to short. Only the shortstop had moved to cover third base with the third baseman charging the bunt. And so a simple groundball turns into a run-scoring single. In other words, a game between two of the best offenses in baseball was decided by a bit of “small ball.” I’m sure the analytics crowd is speechless. What I can’t figure is how the Sox held Minnesota to one run, this despite Sox pitching giving up ten walks to go with eight hits. Starter Dylan Cease had so much fun putting runners on he started off five straight innings doing allowing the first batter to reach base; reliever Cody Heuer made it six straight innings. You don’t expect to win a game like that. As if that wasn’t lucky enough, Sox leftfielder—and I use that term in the most technical sense, to note someone was out there at that position —Eloy Jimenez misplayed a ball with two out in the top of the ninth into a ground-rule double, make that an inside-the-park homerun, make that a ground-rule double. Jimenez broke in on a ball he should’ve stood in his tracks to catch; had the ball hit off his glove and then wedge itself beneath the base of the fence. Eloy held up his hands to say he couldn’t get the ball, only the Twins’ Bryon Buxton kept running, and I think that panicked Eloy into dislodging the ball and trying to throw Buxton out at the plate. Buxton scored. Only the call was overturned on replay. Again, talk about luck. And talk about winning a game with Angel Hernandez umping behind the plate. Here’s hoping all the Sox luck wasn’t used up in game one of four with the Twins. Because we’ll definitely need some more to keep winning this way.