Bedeviled
| ALDS Game 2: October 9, 2009 | |||
| Red Sox | 1 |
L: Josh Beckett (0-1) |
0-2 |
 Angels |
4 |
W: Jared Weaver (1-0) H: Darren Oliver (1) H: Kevin Jepsen (1) S: Brian Fuentes (1) |
2-0 |
| Highlights: In Japanese the word for “four” (shi) is a homonym of the word “death.” The Angels scored four runs; the Red Sox had four hits. | |||
I watched the game through a haze of cigarette smoke and alcohol, persuaded by my friend to go to a bar to watch the game rather than remain ensconced and alone at home. I was in a bar nowhere near New England, but there was one guy with a Red Sox cap on and another that was openly rooting for them.
There wasn’t much cheering going on, however.
The Red Sox didn’t hit very well on the road this season. At home the team batted .284, had .365 OBP, and slugged .498; on the road they combined for .257 batting average, .340 OBP, and .414 slugging.
Boston pitchers didn’t fare very well hurling in the bottom halves of innings, either. Opposing batters had .272 batting average, .346 OBP, and .433 slugging against visiting Red Sox pitchers; when at Fenway they only attained .362 batting average, .324 OBP, and .411 slugging. While the ERA was highly discrepant (4.07 at home versus 4.64 away) and WHIP slightly different (1.351 home compared to 1.467 away), Red Sox arms had slightly better strikeout per nine innings on the road (8.0) than in Boston (7.4).
The combination of poor batting and less effective pitching outside of Fenway made the possibility of victory in Anaheim unlikely. My friend and I sang karaoke while our team’s championship chances faded away. He was on stage singing Cheap Trick’s Surrender when nine-hole hitter Erik Aybar tripled to center field to plate two runs.
Whatever happened to all this season’s
Losers of the year
Every time I got to thinking
Where’d they disappear
