gusguyman

Crochet did have to warm up much more quickly than he has in his MLB career. I am really really really hoping he just wasn't quite warm enough and maybe there was some discomfort or cramp but no injury.

Win win. Either Nick can score from second, or you get to lead off the next inning with TA

Then you are committed to covering 9 innings with 6 pitchers. If any of them are off their game today, you are in big trouble. And if Dunning was ever going to be successful, it was as a SP not a RP. I have no problem with RR trying to let DD take a couple innings since he was aggressive and made the perfect call on when to pull the plug. We still have a bullpen day now, but RR made an upside play with only moderate risk and played it well even though it didn't work out.

I actually like it. We need a third pitcher, give Dunning a chance to steal an inning or 3, but if he doesn't have it go straight to the bullpen day, and change right away from a righty to a lefty.

We are 26th in the league in Sac Hits and 19th in Sac Flies, so yeah not great

SMH, just another example of Robert chasing gold outside the zone.

Honestly this is probably more frustrating for them than getting blown out. If your offense scores 0 but needed 8 you can shrug and say they were not getting that many anyway. But when all you need is 1-2 runs over 22 innings, that is just brutal.

This is already in the rules. Per the definitions section of the MLB rulebook: "The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball." So if you can swing in an exaggerated crouch, that is your strike zone. But if you crouch and then pop out of it to swing, the strike zone would not be affected by the crouch.

I think having a script is fine, so long as they are willing to adjust and go off-script as the game evolves (or at least have a LOT of contingency plans). ofc one of the most common criticisms of RR is he seems unwilling to deviate from his scripts so we'll see.

Finally some decent trolling. Nice to see you finally putting some effort back into your craft. I know Abreu becoming a legit MVP candidate took the air out of your shtick but the racism and steroid accusations were such lazy, unoriginal efforts.

Oh man. I'm so nervous and so excited. If we had control I'm sure we'd choose to win every playoff game with 10 run first innings, but deep down, these elimination playoff games are what we live for. Any player on the Sox, from MVP candidates to backups and disappointments, could make themselves a Sox legend today with one swing of the bat or one flash of leather. The highs of these games are as high as they get and, while it won't feel like it at the time if we lose, the lows are truthfully not that bad. I'd rather be taking an L in our last playoff game than be taking 100 Ls in a season with no end in sight just dreaming of this moment. But the moment is here now so LFG SOX, I'm not done with playoff baseball yet, go win and make sure you aren't either!!!

"Robots are not the solution" he said while perfectly encapsulating why robots are, in fact, the solution.

Tough ending but awesome that they clawed back into it, and its great that the A's lost Hendricks for tomorrow. Plus this gives me way more confidence that we can score on their bullpen tomorrow.

I tuned in for hawk, he is such an old man its hilarious. First he answers the phone call (that he was presumably expecting) with a gruff "Hello!?! Who is this??" Then he can't hear them because his TV is too loud, but he can't figure out how to turn it down, which finally leads him to his first anecdote - how "they" (his kids I am guessing) bought him some new fangled TV and he hates it.

Yeah, Gio taking a perfecto into the 7th was tense AF in a fun way. Playing an elimination game with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as our starting pitcher would be tense AF in a less fun way. That said, I think DK gives us 5.1 IP of one run ball and our bullpen slightly outperforms theirs to avoid game 3. LFG WHITE SOX.

Its the playoffs. I could be rooting for the roided up ghosts of the 27 yankees managed by some unholy mash-up of Tony LaRussa and Sparky Anderson and I'd still be on the ledge the entire time.

Nah, he has the nerve. Ignorance is bliss after all.

If gio finishes it out from here, he's going to be thinking about his chance to put a glove on that one for a long long time.

Either my hands are sweaty AF or my TV remote has sprung a leak. The tension is insane.

Wendelken has done a great job of eating innings and saving the bullpen for OAK. Tip of the cap, this is a huge performance by him so far.

I'm shocked how many people here are talking about jinxing Gio. Didn't Jason put all that to rest in PIT?

There is only one stadium for each series, and ESPN knew 6 of the 8 stadiums for well over 48 hours, how are they having such technical difficulties?

By TA you mean "The Adam" right?

National football broadcasts still manage to get excited for big plays for both sides. I'd like to see them call homeruns and strike outs as if the team doing it was the home team they are broadcasting for, personally.

I don't think the big bats will see Luzardo a third time, gotta do some damage here!