I guess this is going to be our blueprint for the rest of the season or at least until we can add a quality bat. Two runs. Their guy, Chris Bassitt, handcuffs us for four hits, two runs, no walks, eleven strikeouts. The starting pitchers just have a ball against our lineup. The only problem was that Bassitt did give up a two-run dinger to Manny, which made all the difference. Taylor Rogers gave them hope in the bottom of the ninth, and I can now safely say that Rogers might just be the worst closer we have ever had.
Blake Snell won his second game, and he did it Tampa Bay Rays fashion-style, where he allegedly won 21 games and the Cy Young Award one year. Five innings, then have four relievers clean up after you. Snell pitched five shutout innings, to give him credit, but it's the same dumb, tired spiel again. Throw too many pitches, waste 20 or 30 pitches on two batters alone, and hope your teammates don't fall asleep out there. Strike one. Strike two. Ball in the dirt, ball one. Ball in the dirt, ball two. Foul ball. Foul ball. High and outside, ball three, foul ball, rinse and repeat until zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........it appears Snell's ERA has dropped to under five, so there's some hope, I guess.
Profar and Crone with three K's each, two each for Manny, Voit, Mazara, and Kim. Hack. Hack. Hack. Hackety. Hackety. And wait for it...HACK. No hitting whatsoever. So our GM is banking on the old playbook that states you only need to win playoff series with closely contested games, not necessarily the division over 162 games. We'll see. We've played the NL East very well. Road series wins in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and now New York.
The talk is mainly about the pitch preceding Manny's homer. At oh and two, Bassitt appeared to have Manny struck out on a pitch up in the zone. The ump didn't call it, the catcher didn't frame it well enough...who knows? I've said this before, and I'll say it again. The umpire posted behind the catcher has been a horrible idea since baseball started. Getting even one pitch wrong during an at bat changes everything. Every umpire must have the same strike zone, or it's all for the birds. Uncle Joe pitches tonight, let's give 'em a good finale.
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