Red Sox 4, Twins 3: The Matt Belisle Experience

From the outset, this game looked like it would be a disaster. The Red Sox had former Cy Young Chris Sale on the mound, facing the Twins’ not-former-Cy-Young Lance Lynn. I thought this game would be over before the first inning ended.

Miraculously, it was not. In fact, Lynn pitched a pretty good game, going toe-to-toe with Chris Sale over at least 4.0 innings. There was no score in the game until the 5th inning when Lynn gave up an two-run home run to Jackie Bradley Jr. Lynn even went to pitch another scoreless inning after that, pitching six really not that bad innings overall against the best team in baseball. What the hell Lynn?

The only problem is that Chris Sale was better. He lasted just as long as Lynn — six innings — but gave up no runs, and struck out ten Twins batters. After Sale was lifted from the game, though, the Twins started to chip away. Max Kepler hit a double off reliever Ryan Brasier in the 7th inning, then scored on a throwing error by our old friend Eduardo Nunez, who obviously made the error in honor of our fallen Eduardo Escobar. Eddie Rosario was called out on a really bogus double play to later end that inning and I don’t even want to talk about it. Ask the Red Sox first baseman if you’re interested, because he’s probably still sprawled out across the ground.

The 8th inning was really actually extremely normal. With two outs, Logan Morrison walked, and then Joe Mauer pinch hit for Ehire Adrianza. Mauer swung at the first pitch and popped out. At that point, Molitor realized, “Oh shit, I no longer have the ultra flexible Edurado Escobar.” So then, as normally happens, Logan Morrison was put in left field, Eddie Rosario took over third base, and Mauer stayed at first.

As would have it, Rosario actually made an EXCELLENT throw (picked out by the tall Joe Mauer) while at third, and stepped it up even higher in the ninth inning by hitting a two-run double off the Green Monster. I am assuming Eddie hit that double in honor of Ed, who we all miss dearly.

So the Twins were up 3-2 going into the bottom of the 9th inning. You know what that means, right? The Fernando Rodney Experience.

Rodney gave up a game-tying home run to Rafael Devers on his fourth pitch.

But Rodney got out of it. The game went to the top of the 10th inning. The Twins didn’t score. Okay, fine. I was actually at a friend’s house watching the game when the top of the 10th inning started, not facing the TV, when she asked me, “Who is pitching for the Twins?”

I turned around. “Oh my god, it’s Matt Belisle.”

Belisle was facing Mookie Betts. No less then five seconds later, the game was over.

Sad part is — this was a close game, and I bet we could have won this game with Eduardo Escobar in the lineup. Alas...

STUDS

• Lance Lynn - Actually kept the Twins in the game against the best team in baseball
• Eddie Rosario - We must love our Eds, and hold them close.

duds

• Fernando Rodney - Not the best experience. Might need more time off.
• Matt Belisle - I’m really starting to wonder why here.

ROLL CALL!

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