By Yours Truly
What did we discover about the Astros, who managed to win Game One of the American League Championship Series the old-fashioned way in the end, and the Red Sox, whose reputedly not-so-great bullpen actually managed to hang with the Astros until that near-finish, on Saturday night? Quite a bit, actually.
We learned that both teams have ways of shaking it off on a night when neither team plays particularly great baseball, and their best starting pitchers come forth only human, after all.
We learned that, until the Astros unloaded with a pair of home runs in the top of the ninth, both teams are just as capable of grinding it out at the plate or on the bases as they are of bludgeoning each other or looking sloppy against each other.
We learned that, until Brandon Workman surrendered a solo shot to Josh Reddick leading off the ninth and, a strikeout and two walks later, a three-run homer to Yuli Gurriel, the Red Sox really do have a couple of relief pitchers who can keep the Astros honest enough that only one of them, Joe Kelly, surrendered a run when he broke Carlos Correa's bat and the ball still flared on a floating line into center for a base hit that broke a two-all tie in the sixth.
We learned that Red Sox bench coach Ron Roenicke isn't quite as good as skipper Alex Cora at keeping the Red Sox on an even strain if Roenicke has to take the bridge for part of a game, as he did when Cora got himself tossed at the end of the fifth for arguing a dubious called strike three on Andrew Benintendi---a slider that sailed right outside the lower outside corner---right after the Red Sox tied the game at two in the first place, when Jackie Bradley, Jr. scored on one of Astros starter Justin Verlander's two wild pitches on the night, and at a point where Verlander might otherwise have faced his final hitter of the night despite pitching two-hit ball.
We learned that plate umpire James Hoye could and did do an amateurish job most of the night, calling too many very dubious strikes against both teams---and it only began with the game's first pitch, to Mookie Betts, a pitch that arrived above the ceiling of the strike zone but was called a strike. It's a wonder Cora wasn't the only man in the house to get the heave-ho, blasting out of his dugout to take Hoye on to protect the fuming Benitendi, when more than a couple of times Astros manager A.J. Hinch looked like he was going to swear out a formal complaint for mal-competence, too, especially when Reddick and Correa at different times got called strikes that looked just enough out of the zone not to be.
"That wasn't cool, watching the game in the clubhouse," Cora said after the Astros banked the 7-2 outcome. "I got a job to do and manage the team in the dugout. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. And you've got to defend your players. And at least Andrew stayed in the game and he had a few more at-bats and he played left field while I was watching in my office."
We learned that Joe West, who umpired at second base Saturday night, and who so often thinks and behaves as though fans are paying their way into the ballpark to see him, is just so popular that the Fenway Park crowd cheered somewhat wildly when he got nailed on a wide throw from Red Sox catcher Christian Vasquez, who was trying to stop mid-game insertion Jake Marisnick from stealing second.
And we also learned that, when it's chilly enough to count, Verlander is a little better than Red Sox starter Chris Sale at keeping the elements from getting too far into his head and his hand. Neither Verlander nor Sale had their best command on the night, but Verlander still managed to prevail.
"That inning," Verlander would say of the fifth, "I had kind of lost my feel a bit. Couldn't point a finger to why. The tying run scoring was a little disappointing. But once that happens, then you've got to re-set and not relinquish the lead."
"Any time you get two quick outs then you load up the bases and give them two runs," said Sale of the second, "that's not what you're looking for this time of year. I just went out there and lost it for a little bit. I felt like I was battling myself for a little bit. I was trying to limit the damage and get out of there as quick as we can."
But even the Astros had to wonder---as did Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martinez, now an analyst for TBS---whether Sale's surprise relief appearance last Tuesday, which helped the Red Sox finish off the Yankees in the division series, didn't leave him with less than a full tank for Saturday. "He didn't have command of his breaking ball," Martinez said during the TBS broadcast. "Maybe his bullpen appearance threw something off a bit."
Verlander re-set well enough in the sixth to get the Red Sox in order, with one grounder to shortstop and back-to-back grounders to third, before Hinch handed the game to the bullpen. Ryan Pressly had to shake off a double-clutch mistake by Correa at shortstop that turned into a throw past the first base line, allowing Red Sox third baseman Eduardo Nunez aboard with one out, to strike out Bradley and get Vasquez on a ground out to Bregman at third in the seventh.
Lance McCullers, Jr. got the Red Sox in order in the eighth, but once again Hoye made a dubious call behind the plate, ringing up J.D. Martinez on a checked swing that looked on several television replays as though Martinez's bat didn't quite cross that threshold where a check swing becomes a swinging strike three. And Collin McHugh shook off Xander Bogaerts's leadoff single ripped off the Green Monster to finish off the Red Sox on a strikeout, a line out to right, and a ground out to third.
For Sale the good news was that, this time, the Astros didn't make mincemeat out of him they way they did in last year's division series opener. That was then: they opened with back-to-back bombs against him and tore seven runs out of him before his game was over. This was Saturday night: The Astros got only one hit off him, but it was the hit that mattered early in the game: last year's World Series MVP, George Springer, shot one under the diving Nunez's glove to send home both Correa and Martin Maldonado in the top of the second.
And Springer had to work his tail off for that hit. Sale started him in the hole 0-2 before wrestling his way to a full count including a couple of foul offs. "It's just kind of one of those things where you grind out an at-bat and hope for something good to happen."
Something better than that happened in the top of the ninth. Reddick sent a four-seam fastball into the bullpen in right center field leading off, and---after Springer was called out on yet another of Hoye's dubious outside pitch calls, but Jose Altuve and Bregman walked on the same just-low pitches---Gurriel caught hold of a rising fastball and sent it just barely around the Pesky Pole in right.
"The Pesky Pole giveth and the Pesky Pole taketh," said one Red Sox fan on social media. The Pesky Pole may have been the least of each team's concerns going into Game Two. The Astros dared to hope to take the series to Houston with a 2-0 advantage but figured to settle for a series tie; the Red Sox knew they had to win Game Two---even behind David Price, whose postseason record makes Clayton Kershaw's look like Sandy Koufax's in comparison---to go to Houston with an even chance.
And they both know it won't be as simple as an errant plate umpire or an errant throw drilling an unpopular one to loud applause.
-------------------------
@Polly Ticks @Machiavelli @AllThatJazzZ @AmericanaPrime @Applewood @Bigun @catfish1957 @corbe @Cyber Liberty @DCPatriot @dfwgator @Freya @GrouchoTex @Mom MD @musiclady @mystery-ak @Right_in_Virginia @Sanguine @Slip18 @Suppressed @TomSea @truth_seeker @WarmPotato 
