Name the Band Pictured Above
…. and explain their relationship to tonight’s game. (Answer below.)
Oh Yeah?
I awoke this morning to find an interesting tidbit from Val:
The Red Sox just dropped three to the Tigers.
“”MLB.com’s Ian Browne shared that Boston will become the first team in big league history to face the two reigning Cy Young Award winners in back-to-back games.
“‘By facing Tarik Skubal tonight and Chris Sale on Friday, the Red Sox, per Elias, will become the first team to face the reigning Cy Young Award winners in both leagues in back to back games,’ Browne shared. ‘Obviously this would have been hard to do before Interleague started in 1997.’”
Look. I have no life. So I figured that even if this little factoid was correct, I might get something amusing to write about with the near-misses. So I spent the entire day programming this up. (To be fair, I was day-drinking as well.)
But it’s wrong. And the reason it’s wrong is that Mark Davis, 1989 NL Cy Young winner with the Padres, signed in the offseason with Kansas City, home of 1989 AL Cy Young Bret Saberhagen. There were 8 games in which they pitched on the same day, and another two days in which Davis pitched and Saberhagen pitched the next day, or vice versa, and one other day in which Saberhagen pitched and Davis pitched two days later. OK. It’s kind of a trick question. That’s why you program things.
So what if we limit ourselves to starting pitchers? In that case, Elias is correct, but there are a number of very close cases. In August 2014, the Yankees faced David Price and faced R.A. Dickey two days later, In August 2015, the Angels faced Clayton Kershaw and then faced Corey Kluber two days later. There are seven more instances with only three day gaps. Finally, because I always include the Braves, the minimum gap for the Braves between facing both incumbent Cy Youngs is 9 days: on 6/29/2011 they faced King Felix in Seattle and 9 days later took on Roy Halladay in Philadelphia.
The Game
After a first inning in which Garrett Crochet struck out the first three in the order, he gave up back-to-back shots over the Green Monster from Olson and Murphy which would have been homers in 4 and 7 parks, respectively. Note that had they hit the same balls in, say, Atlanta, we would talk about how Crochet was dominating. Instead, he was down 2-0. (For some reason, Statcast says Olson’s homer would have been out of 11 parks, which makes no sense for a ball they estimate at 374 feet, but when you click on it, you get the proper number — 4.)
But after knitting his brow over those two pop fly homers, Crochet did dominate, throwing only 75 pitches through 6. The Braves loaded the bases with one out in the top of the 7th, though, but nuthin’ doin’. He exited after 7 with 103 pitches thrown, and really none of them were bad.
Sale was Chris Sale. He walked Jarren Duran to start the game, but stranded him at 2nd. Duran Duran (that’s his second at-bat) tripled with one out, but once again was stranded, this time on third. Duran Duran Duran led off the 6th with a single, but got picked off to end the inning, the second botched baserunning play of the game for the BoSox. But then Rob Refsnyder hit one over the Monster to lead off the 7th (but a homer everywhere but Camden Yards) and it was 2-1. He gave up another off-the-wall single but Eli White made a nice throw to gun the runner down at second and end the outing for Sale at 99 pitches, 2 walks and 8 strikeouts.
But we’ve been here before, right? A one run game going into the 8th, and both teams in their bullpens. The Braves surrendered meekly in the top of the 8th. In the bottom of the 8th, Daysbel Hernandez walked the first batter who promptly stole 2nd. A very nice Nick Allen play in the hole got the first out. Duran Duran Duran Duran struck out for the second out. No más for Duran. (That one made me laugh, though I suspect I’m alone.) Everyone’s favorite non-first baseman, Rafael Devers, bounced out to get us to the 9th.
Anyone for insurance? Marcell Ozuna walked to lead off the 9th. Luke Williams, running for him, advanced to second with two outs. After Ozzie walked, the Red Sox decided to make a pitching change. I’m sure these are difficult decisions for managers, but all they do to me is invite second-guessing, even where they work out. Brennan Bernardino loaded the bases with the third walk of the inning and walked Stuart Fairchild to give the Braves an insurance run. Gaudin said this had to drive Cora bananas, but it was his call to replace his best relief pitcher with two outs in the ninth. A fifth walk, this one to Nick Allen, drove in the fourth run.
I remember a game a million years ago against the Pirates where the Pirates walked seven Braves in a row and I distinctly remember Jim Leyland turning an odd color. This one’s on Cora, IMO.
We then got the next iteration of the 2025 Iggy Experience. That insurance was quite valuable, because Iggy gave up another run, and the tying run was at the plate at the end of the game, but it was the end of the game. Above 0.500.
So Who’s The Band?
I’m sure many of you got The Standells, troubadours of the song Dirty Water, and not much else, though I trust ububba to correct me if I’m wrong about that. I bring it up tonight because in French, sale means dirty. And tonight, I love that dirty water.
Tomorrow, Grant Holmes against Max Fried‘s high school buddy, Lucas Giolito. Go get ’em.
Fast recap, thank you, JonathanF, and hello from Boulder, CO. Will watch Duran Duran in concert this summer. They get better ‘live’ the older they get seemingly. Go Braves
If you’re a certain age you remember no mas. And Duran Duran. I would say Jarren was Hungry Like the Wolf tonight but it would probably get me kicked out of here. Enjoy the concert, Timo.
Wasn’t there a version of the seven walks game TBS set to Yakity Sax? I seem to remember seeing it more than once, maybe during rain delays.
Finally I’m sorry I made you waste your day researching Elias’s error, Jonathan.
No problem, Val. What’s fascinating to me is that Elias has much better data than I have and they have a whole staff who are paid to do this stuff instead of one crotchety old fool with a computer. If this were my JOB I’d have stuff programmed up to get an answer to this in minutes instead of working on it all day… between rum punches. I suspect they didn’t look at 1990 because it was before interleague play, but Alex talked this morning about why that was a bad idea. And to program the computer to look at more years is really simple… that’s what computers do. Grunt work. The amazing thing about Bill James is that he did most of the grunt work by hand.
When I was in sixth grade, several friends in my neighborhood got guitars and a drum kit and formed a band. They literally played the garage. The garage rock classic Dirty Water by the Standells was the first song they learned. And played over and over and over.
It’s still a much better song than the better known Fenway standard Sweet Caroline. Why did that song by a New Yorker that has nothing to do with Boston become the song for Red Sox fans?
Sweet Caroline for some reason was a late night bar favorite round here. My theory was that the chorus was one even drunk people could remember as they howled it loudly and off key at 1 AM. Anyhow, after being in their midst a few times, drunken caroling is all the song evokes for me.
Nick Allen is 4th in MLB in Fangraphs defensive WAR on the year despite not playing the entire season. And if you take out catchers who seem to rack it up too easily and guys that started from OD, then he’s #1. He’s on pace for around 3.5 fWAR total even with his weak offense. He has been the pickup of the year and has become such a stabilizing force at SS. I would probably not upgrade at SS this year and just focus on improving the offense elsewhere and on the pitching staff.
His defense is gonna stick. I am still concerned he will regress offensively but at his current levels he is significantly better at the plate than Rafael Belliard and more like prime Mark Lemke.
I also would not go get a shortstop. We need relief pitching more than a SS upgrade. I would focus more on a second baseman in the offseason unless you really like Nacho. Bichette is my guy even though actually signing a notable free agent is unheard of in Atlanta.
I was at the ballgame last night, and it really was just about perfect, but the Red Sox are a funhouse mirror image of us: a high-profile team that spent a ton in the offseason that’s underachieving and in bad clubhouse disarray, and a lot of it is self-inflicted. Some really poor baserunning and defense in particular, though it mostly didn’t hurt them. It’s a little embarrassing for both of our teams that the difference in the game was a five-walk ninth inning, because you’d really like to have outplayed them on the field. But a win’s a win, and I’m ecstatic that we’re above .500 for the first time in eight months.
Fenway sure is a weird ballpark, but it’s a heck of a fun place to watch a game.
Yup, it’s The Standells, who are probably best-known outside Boston for their appearance on Lenny Kaye’s legendary “Nuggets” compilation of ’60s garage-rock tunes. Don’t think they had any other real hits, but DC hardcore band Minor Threat did a great cover of one of their deep cuts (“Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White”).
These days “Dirty Water” has kinda been replaced by the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” as the omnipresent soundtrack of Beantown-leaning sports bars.
FWIW, was out at dinner last night when I tuned in just in time for Fairchild to take his bases-loaded walk. I thought: “OK, they’re handing the game to us… we’re gonna be alright.”
Drake is the real deal, folks. Matt Olson is heating up, which is such a welcome sight.
Hopefully this is enough Bummer Buffer.
Just unlucky, some gaslighters want you to believe.
We have to keep Bummer because he drives traffic to the site.
Heh heh
If giving up two runs in a third of an inning was an Olympic sport, our guy could win the gold.
There is one person that thinks Bummer and Montero are high leverage relievers…unfortunately, he is the guy pulling the strings.
https://x.com/LanceBroz/status/1923407704208355331
A quick follow up from the Athletic article Alex shared about Fried. The Yankees altered Max’s sinker and it breaks much better; it’s visible in the Statcast data, but it’s also interesting to see actual footage of it.
So I concur with Alex, I’m slightly worried our organization isn’t getting the most out of our pitchers.
Snitker is just so.. I don’t even want to answer because I can’t without profanity. The worst manager in baseball. If Pierce Johnson can pitch now, he should have started the inning
No logic to what he’s doing. Idiot. Fire him into the sun.
Feels like using Montero here is Snitker trying to prove a point to AA and ownership.
Montero obviously should be the last pitcher used here. I would use Blewett before him.
It’s one thing to have a mediocre bullpen, but it’s another to manage it in this way. I sincerely hope this is Snitker’s last season. He makes our weaknesses so much worse.
Snit should be out now. How many games has he cost us with this nonsense? Another loss pinned our awful bullpen usage. That dude should be done.
Worst loss of the year.
Said twice this week due to God awful bullpen management. It’s not an outlier, it’s a theme.
That was a Snitker master-class. But we don’t have any lefties in the pen so what can you do
Recapped