Prof: The battle between the Finest Amish Pitcher of All Time and Chris “Have a Sandwich” Sale was supposed to be the main event in game one of the 2018 World Series, but these two venerable aces were more like jokers. Beautiful, storied Fenway Park was the venue.
Boston came out swinging, literally; two runs against Kershaw and MLB social media lost their minds. The very next inning, Matt Kemp sprinkled some fairy dust on the ol’ bat and hit a home run to bring Los Angeles within one. After that, Kershaw decided to be Kershaw again, with a pretty good third inning. Sale countered by coughing up a single to Manny Machado and the tying run made it’s way home. 2 all.
Kershaw gave up another unfortunate run after some questionable strike calls, while Sale left the game in the fourth inning after about 86-ish pitches. On came the Red Sox bullpen, and fortunes changed. Sandy Leon had messed up a ball and allowed Brian Dozier and Justin “JT The Red Panda” Turner to move over a base, then Manny Machado tied it up with an RBI groundout. 3 all.
Finally in the fifth inning, Kershaw wound down, not unlike one of those pull string dolls. Just tuckered out, as my Grammy would say. Two on, and Dave Roberts brought forth Ryan Madson to clean up the mess.
Messes were not cleaned, messes were further made. Madson gave up bloop singles and RBI groundouts to bring Boston up 5-3.
It was quiet until the seventh inning, when a Boston relief pitcher (not Wild Joe Kelly, who had pitched the inning before, brilliantly I might add) loaded the bases and Manny Machado, once again, had an RBI hit to score Max Muncy. LA was within one, and it felt like the pressure was on.
But Boston thrives in nasty situations, they do love that dirty water, after all.
Dave Roberts decided to play chicken with the train. He lost. Three relief pitchers in, and Alex Wood gave up a home run that brought Boston to the biggest lead of the night, 8-4, and that’s where we ended up.
FINAL: Los Angeles 4, Boston 8
Kershaw gets the loss and with good reason. Like Michael Myers, the ghost of “Kersh sucks in the postseason” rose again. He pitched terribly, but so did Chris Sale. It was the Boston bullpen that did the heavy lifting and kept the Dodgers from catching up – especially guys like Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel, who were pure filth. (It’s a good thing.)
The main takeaway from Game One is that the fielding in this series is a major problem. The Dodgers, especially, had some awful, awful plays. Strangely enough, Manny Machado playing shortstop was not a liability; in fact, he made a few really great heads up plays that helped LA tremendously. Brian Dozier had a weak arm that cost a few runs, in my opinion. Enrique Hernandez had a few less than stellar moments, as well. Boston was not immune to bad plays in the outfield, either, but it was the Dodger defense that suffered most from the dropsies.
Game Two is today (Wednesday) back in Beantown. It will be Ryu vs Price on the bump. Much like Kershaw, Ryu’s postseason career is… not the greatest. In October, his ERA is hovering around 4.40. Yuck. For Boston, David Price is coming off his first win ever in his postseason history, but it’s still not looking good. The Vanderbilt alum’s ERA is over 5. So, obviously, we’re looking at either a shutout from one of these guys, or Fenway is going to be a launching pad.
What did I miss? (A lot, I’m sure.) What did you think of Game One? Comment down below and give us your thoughts.
Fan Interference 
They might need to bench Benintendi. Turner scored in the 3rd entirely because of him (missed a catch and didn’t try to throw anyone out). And then on the basepath, even Joe Buck noted he wasn’t running hard. He may need another day off.
Neither outfield looked outstanding, really — at least until my bedtime. 😉
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Cora ain’t gonna bench a guy who just had 4 hits. But yes, he should’ve been running out of the gate when that ball got by the LF.
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I’m sure not, but defensively, he was a liability letting men get to scoring position. If I was the Dodgers, I’d hit in his direction because he seems content to give up base hits.
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Didn’t watch a single pitch, but chiming in to give props to Prof for an excellent recap.
As for that Kershaw / Sale match up…. https://goo.gl/images/zXEipC
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The points about the defense are interesting. The thinking in baseball now seems to be that you don’t know if a superior defensive player is going to get a chance to make a game changing play but you do know that the superior offensive player is going to get four or five at bats. You therefore play the superior offensive player and cross your fingers for the defense.
Too bad, Remember when Brooks Robinson won the series MVP almost entirely because of his breath taking plays at the hot corner?
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I am kind of old school in that I think a good defense is important. You can generate runs, you can’t take back bad fielding.
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Agreed, yet it is a question of coaching and a product of mass media focus. A wise man said “Chicks dig the long ball” and so do today’s coaches from little league up. For players who can produce them, a place on the field will be found. Screw the defensive liabilities. Long ago you had (or hid) that slugger at 1B but nowadays the second baseman is expected to produce the HR on a semi regular basis. Regardless of defensive questions, imagen Derek Jeter coming up today – hitting .300 but few homers or walks. Such an athlete would never reach fame without more HR production.
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Pardon my silence. Just got back from Mexico to a world series about which I couldn’t really give a toot – which, after all the refried beans I’ve eaten, is really saying something. When the Brooze fell asleep at the switch in Game 7 of the NLCS I pretty much switched orf meself.
I arrived home to the stirring news about the Feesh’s Department of Redundancy Department signings of Victor Victor Mesa and whatever his brother’s name is. Yawn, and again, yawn. Until, that is, the right wing Cuban dinosaurs strayed from the sauropod trackways into cyberspace to excoriate the team for signing “dos communistas” because their father, coach of the Cuban national baseball team, was a party guy (which of course was the only way he could work down there).
They unload talent to bulk up their international signing pool, then grab two guys hated by a sizable part of the local population they were trying to attract back to the fan base. To me, this is even funnier than l’affaire Slobbering Ozzie.
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