Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 05, 2008
Loaded Closers

Mariano Rivera and Kerry Wood both got themselves into trouble in the 9th inning this afternoon. With the Yankees leading 2-0, Rivera allowed the first four batters to reach base, his second hit by pitch of the inning loading the bases with one run in and none out. He comes back, however, to strike out Crisp, pop up Varitek, and then strike out Lugo to end the game. The Yankees offensive woes continue, but Mussina, Veras and Farnsworth allowed just four hits while walking one and striking out seven.

Wood wasn't as lucky as Rivera. The Cubs led 4-2 in the bottom of the fourth. Like Rivera, the first four batters reached, three on walks, then last intentional. That also pushed across one run. Wood gets a force at the plate and a pop up for two outs. Then Ankiel delivers a single to center, and the Cardinals split the first two games by a score of 5-4. Wood blows his fifth save in 27 opportunities. The three walks are 1/4 of all he's issued this season. Like in the Yankees game, Lilly and two relievers combined for seven strikeouts and one walk.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:06 PM | Games | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Crisp's 9th inning at bat was pathetic, I guess Tek still gets the benefit of the doubt but he didn't seem to have a chance and Lugo is an automatic out in that situation. Call me crazy, but Rivera had no doubt he could get those three out even with the bases loaded. All we needed was a sac fly to tie the game and as McCarver put it "we would have broken the Yankees"

The countdown clock to Big Papi's return is on...

Posted by: Big Papi at July 5, 2008 08:55 PM

And 7 HBP in the Yankees-Red Sox game. Manny nailed 3 times alone.

Posted by: rbj at July 5, 2008 09:22 PM

Yeah, Mo didn't seem very worried when Crisp came to bat; less so when Tek and then Lugo took their shots. (Well, how would you know if Rivera was worried?)
However, don't forget, Tim McCarver is an idiot. Buck is like a buzzing noise in the background, but McCarver is aggressively stupid.

Posted by: James at July 5, 2008 10:42 PM

'Wood wasn't as lucky as Rivera.' With the perspective of 13 regular seasons concurrent with 13 post seasons, there's enough sample size to ascertain Mariano had something more going for him than luck. He has done this before. He got in a worse jam in Game 4 of the 2006 Boston Massacre (a Sunday night game in August at Fenway) and he got out of it.

Posted by: susan mullen at July 8, 2008 12:39 AM
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