When I woke up this morning, I felt good about laying my money on the road-juiced Red Sox (at -151, it closed at -177) because Chris Sale has been mowing down hitters, and I believe Mookie Betts is the finest player in baseball not named Mike Trout.
I got to see this game, and although Marco Estrada had good stuff going; Sale was other-worldly. He struckout 13 hitters on 102 pitches. He was the first pitcher in baseball history to ever do that. You’ll get some cool sabermetrics based article on the feat soon as you should. He left with a 1-0 lead and the Red Sox turned the game over to Craig Kimbrel. This is a move that our friend Joy of Sox didn’t agree with; that we actually are fine with.
Kimbrel has been lights out and was rested for several days. He’s your closer. That was the spot for him. The problem was, he gave up a moonshot home run to Kendrys Morales on a bad first pitch and the game was tied and headed for extra innings. Kimbrel was however so great today that he struck out five of six hitters and would earn the win because of the Betts’ heroics an inning later.
Betts had walked earlier in the game and stole two bases, just being a savvy baseball player. But with two down in the top of the 10th, it was time to win his team the game. Jason Grilli was a little gassed after a stressful inning, and Betts cleared the bases with this double that iced the game for the Sox.
The thing is, Mookie hasn’t even gotten hot yet. He has all the looks of a guy who not only hits .300, but probably has a shot at .350 with his contact numbers. He’s unbelievable in every sense of the word. To watch him each day is to gain an appreciation for it.
On Mookie Betts’ recent 129 plate appearances without striking out (which was snapped recently); which is just baseball incredible:
During his streak of 129 plate appearances without a strikeout, Mookie Betts batted .353 (41-for-116) and faced 57 different pitchers: http://pic.twitter.com/zpaYfy83X6
— Red Sox Notes (@SoxNotes) April 20, 2017
And if you want to see what Chris Sale did today, here’s the lightning round:
from Diamond Hoggers http://ift.tt/2p0VJAK
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