good dolphin wrote:
would have been the perfect spot for Ohman
Don't get me started on Will Ohman.
My own opinion of what happened last night. This loss is front & center on Robin Ventura. The ONLY things I could figure are that Jose Quintana had 103 pitches after 8 innings and I thought Quintana started to show signs of fatigue after Red Sox hitters started to make contact in the 7th & 8th innings after all Boston had for the first 6 innings was a Pedro Ciriaco triple. That's it.
Consider this for a moment, too. With Jesse Crain out, the ONLY veteran reliever in that White Sox bullpen right now is Matt Thornton. The SCORE/White Sox Radio Network PBP voice Ed Farmer said during that 14-inning marathon win in Kansas City that the Sox missed Crain in spots like this past Friday night when the Southsiders used a whopping 8 pitchers in the "W". Pitching Coach Don Cooper said on The SCORE's "Mully & Hanley Show" yesterday that Crain's expected to come off the DL this weekend in Detroit, but needless to say, it doesn't change what happened in the 9th in Boston.
I was as surprised as anyone that Thornton, not Addison Reed, started the bottom 9th with the White Sox nursing a very slim 1-0 lead and the Red Sox had Carl Crawford, Dustin Pedroia & Adrian Gonzalez scheduled to hit. If RV didn't think Quintana had enough to at least start the bottom 9th, he should've gone right to Reed for a save opportunity and that's it. This loss is as much on Thornton & Reed on the field as RV in the dugout.
Here's something else, too. Our Sox had a chance in the top half of the inning to add an insurance run and they failed to do so. I know that 3B Kevin Youkilis was out with a tight hamstring and he was available to pinch hit, but the execution from the White Sox offense in that series on the whole sucked in Boston.