Phillies 4, Red Sox 1: Cristopher Sanchez’s complete game exposes the weaknesses in Boston’s lineup

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Of the 13 place gamers presently on the Purple Sox energetic roster, solely Masataka Yoshida has a “okay” seem wherever of their title. Nonetheless, in the event you peruse the Purple Sox field rating each day, you’ll discover no such scarcity on the subject of that letter.

Tonight, the Purple Sox struck out 12 instances in a listless loss to a dominant Cristopher Sanchez, who threw an entire sport and is turning into a power within the horrifying prime half of the Phillies rotation. So on one hand, the Purple Sox bumped into a wonderful beginning pitcher and caught him on an evening the place they in all probability weren’t going to beat him anyway. However then again, a number of the ugliest points of this staff had been on full show for publicity — And boy did Sanchez expose them!

Particularly, the problematic patterns embrace:

The Purple Sox strike out means an excessive amount of
The Purple Sox battle to attain by way of something however the dwelling run in low scoring video games
The Purple Sox offense stinks on the highway, largely due to the primary two gadgets

So after they run into a superb pitcher on the highway like they did tonight, their homer completely satisfied hacks fail in depressing and predictable style. Consequently, they haven’t any actual approach to claw again right into a sport, even when the bullpen works exhausting to maintain the door ajar, which additionally occurred on this sport.

Selecting up the place they left off final evening, the Purple Sox offense has now struck out 28 instances within the final two video games, and it’s half of a bigger season pattern through which the Purple Sox have struck out over 26 p.c of the time on the highway. The one staff in baseball to strike out at a better clip than them on the highway is the Colorado Rockies, who’re each flirting with the worst report of all time (submit 1900), and have a built in crippling disadvantage offensively when it comes to road games. (For comparability, the division main Blue Jays solely strike out 18.4% of the time on the highway.)

With this method, the Purple Sox merely haven’t any reply if the ball doesn’t fly out of the ballpark prefer it did for them on Sunday. Up to now, within the 5 video games because the All-Star break, they’ve stranded 56 runners on base and scored solely two runs by way of something aside from a house run, which additionally occurs to be the identical variety of instances they’ve dedicated catcher’s interference. (Yeah, that occurred once more tonight.)

Zooming out on the highway strike out downside we’ve seen over the whole season, the Sox have now struck out over 100 instances extra on the highway than at dwelling regardless of truly enjoying one extra sport at Fenway Park.

So except they exit and get one other prime of the rotation starter to pair with Garrett Crochet the place they will win a few video games 1-0 or 2-1 in a brief collection, they’re going to get uncovered in the event that they make it to October as a result of that’s a month the place you are inclined to see some actually good beginning pitching on the highway.

Right here’s the graphic video of Sanchez carving up the Purple Sox bats time and again and once more:

Studs

The bullpen work by Brennan Bernardino, Chris Murphy and Greg Weissert:

They saved the Phillies off the board of their 4.2 innings of labor to shut out their half of the sport. If the Sox had a extra resourceful offense, perhaps they make a sport of it.

Duds

Roman Anthony : 0-4 with 4 strike outs. A golden sombrero for our golden boy.

Romy Gonzalez: 0-3 with three strike outs. He’s additionally 0-18 since that Rockies collection, and has had some enormous points on the plate because the high quality of the opposing pitching improved.

Carlos Narvaez: 0-3 on the plate, and one other catcher’s interference infraction.

Alex Bregman’s quad: Bregman merely can’t run proper now in worry of reinjuring his leg. He’s proper to take it straightforward, but when the state of affairs is that this precarious, he’s additionally enjoying with fireplace. It doesn’t appear to impression his swing, however watching Bregman attempt to transfer out of the field is an uncomfortable expertise.

Dick Fitts: Allowed 4 runs in simply 3.1 innings of labor. Not gonna lower it if you’re going through the highest half of a superb staff’s rotation on the highway, and particularly not with the best way this offense operates.