Āchi [アーチ]
| Game 107: July 28, 2008 | |||
 Angels |
7 | W: Jered Weaver (9-8) H: Jose Arredondo (11) S: Francisco Rodriguez (44) |
65-40, 1 game winning streak |
| Red Sox | 5 | L: Daisuke Matsuzaka (11-2) | 61-46, 1 game losing streak |
| Highlights: Folks with Boston accents would feel comfortable with the Japanization of certain English words as they elide the alveolar approximant (a.k.a the English “R” sound). Āchi is the transliteration of “arch” and means home run in Japanese baseball slang. Matsuzaka surrendered two of them in the sixth inning and the Red Sox never recovered. | |||
At least Jerry Remy stopped caviling about Daisuke Matsuzaka’s bases on balls for one night. Instead Matsuzaka ceded seven hits, the most harmful of them being the extra base knocks in the sixth inning. The now former Angel Casey Kotchman knocked in Chone Figgins and Torii Hunter blasted a three-run shot a couple of batters later.
Nothing in Matsuzaka’s five prior innings of work hinted at this disastrous inning. Although he only struck out three batters, he didn’t surrender anything past second base until the sixth, right after he walked Figgins. I wonder if John Farrell’s attitude towards Matsuzaka’s walks has impacted the pitcher negatively; rather than take in stride as he used to, now Matsuzaka may feel that he must avoid them at all costs. Once he handed out the free pass he became unhinged and the spate of runs began.
In that same inning, Mike Scioscia ran the squeeze play with Jeff Mathis in the box and Howie Kendrick at third. Scioscia is a manager who believes himself to be smarter than his peers but also feels that he must display how much more intelligent he is at every turn. Thanks for showing Terry Francona all of the ploys in your bag of tricks in July; I’m sure that the same chicanery won’t work in October.
Exhibits A and B in the case against trading Manny Ramirez: in the fourth, when the Red Sox finally got more than one man on base with Kevin Youkilis’s leadoff walk and David Ortiz’s opposite field double, Ramirez plated them both by taking the outside pitch to the right-center gap.
In the ninth, only Ramirez got to Francisco Rodriguez, the closer who is on a historic ride through the 2008 season. Manny took K-Rod for a ride, right into the Monster seats.
