Well all good things must come to an end. Last night the Red Sox lost after winning seven games in a row.
There are a couple things that stand out from last night's game. One that was pointed out to us many times is that the Red Sox are 7-13 in one run games this season. Hopefully the Red Sox can turn that around. Last season they were .500 in one run games. You have to go all the way back to the 2009 season to find the last time the Red Sox had a winning record and one run games.
Two of the most obvious things that stick out in last nights game preventing the Red Sox winning would be the team letting Masterson off the hook and Jonny Gomes keeping the bat on his shoulder.
I'm not sure where to find the statistic for number of times the Red Sox have let a starting pitcher off the hook, but I imagine it's more than a handful. Last night the only part of the lineup that made Masterson work was the top four guys. They combined for five hits, two walks and both runs while the rest of the lineup combined for a total of two walks and seven strikeouts.
To say Gomes had a rough night at the plate would be an understatement. Three strikeouts in four at-bats is never a good night. It's especially worse when you're team loses by one run and you had the bases loaded with a 3-0 count and ended up watching three strikes. Gomes is really struggling with full counts this season. He is currently 1 for 19 with 13 strikeouts. Now, although I can't say for sure, looking at Gomes' number of strikeouts and walks after the count is 3-1, it appears he's pretty predictable with taking pitches. Now, if I can see that looking at his splits on a website, I'd imagine the true baseball gurus are banking on it.
Although he took the loss and had a little trouble finding the strike zone, Lackey did have a pretty solid game. 96 pitches through eight innings and giving up only three earned runs will typically be good enough for the win, but not last night.
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