bullpen never showed up at all."The Orioles lost their fourth in a row and their eighth in their last nine attempts. A slow start for the offense and a poor showing by the bullpen spelled disaster as the O’s fell 6-4 to the Red Sox at Fenway Park on Friday night.David Hess started for the O’s in this one
Nolan Ryan Jersey , and his final line looks pretty solid. He came one out from recording a “quality start.†Over 5.2 innings, the right-hander allowed three runs on six hits, three strikeouts and no walks. With the way the rest of the pitching staff has performed, manager Brandon Hyde would love to get that type of production from the rest of his hurlers. So, we really can’t complain.But Hess also left more than a few pitches in the middle of the plate. As you would expect from a lineup as talented as the Red Sox, they got hit pretty hard. When Hess was removedin the sixth inning, he had allowed the 11 hardest hit balls of the game, according to Statcast.Many of those barreled swings did some damage, but the O’s starter got a little luck as well. J.D. Martinez was victimized twice, flying out in the first inning on a swing with an expected batting average of .960 and a runner on second base, and then again in the fourth inning with a runner on first. If hits like that did find the hole they deserved, Hess would be looking back at a much different performance.As it is, Hess was steady. He avoided any free passes and stayed competitive. The first run he allowed came off of an Andrew Benintendi solo shot in the bottom of the third inning. He served up two more runs in the next frame. First, Xander Bogaerts doubled in Mitch Moreland from first, and then Bogaerts himself came home on an Eduardo Nunez single a few batters later.Meanwhile, the Orioles offense was doing nothing to support their pitcher. Literally
http://www.astrosfanproshop.com/authentic-justin-verlander-jersey , the O’s did not have a single baserunner through the first 4.2 innings of the game. Eduardo Rodriguez had a perfect game going until Hanser Alberto broke things up with a single to left field.The Birds would remain without a run until the seventh inning. That is when they took advantage of a rare error by Mookie Betts in right field. Technically, it will go down as a Trey Mancini double, but Betts misread the ball and should have made a fairly routine catch. Instead, he set the stage for Dwight Smith Jr. to hit his second home run of the season and make it a 3-2 game.The Baltimore bats weren’t done just yet, but the bullpen was unable to keep the Red Sox at bay.Paul Fry came on in relief of Hess. The lefty finished up the sixth inning but then got into his own trouble in the seventh, allowing back-to-back singles to Christian Vazquez and Benintendi, with a wild pitch in between. Evan Phillips was the next to jog in from the bullpen. Let’s just say that the Maryland-born reliever had some issues. With Betts batting, Phillips uncorked a wild pitch to allow Vazquez to score Boston’s fourth run of the night.Phillips returned for the eighth inning, and his struggles continued. He allowed a double to Martinez followed by two infield hits and then a sacrifice fly. When it was all said and done, the Red Sox found themselves up 6-2. After that, it was Mike Wright Jr. time to shine, and he actually pitched fine, inducing a fly out against the one batter that he faced.A long fly ball by Joey Rickard in the Orioles half of the eighth inning had nearly closed the gap a bit, but it was hit in the general vicinity of Jackie Bradley Jr., which is rarely a recipe for offensive success.The O’s did draw nearer in the ninth inning. Following a Trey Mancini walk, Renato Nunez launched a bomb over the green monster in left center field to cut the deficit to 6-4. The ball traveled an estimated 450 feet and came off the bat at 112.7 mph
Carlos Lee Jersey , the second-hardest hit ball of the game.But that is as close as the O’s would get. Ryan Basier entered and earned the save (3) by cleaning fielding an attempted bunt for a hit by Alberto and then inducing a weak line out by the pinch-hitting Chris Davis.It was one of those games that never truly felt competitive. The Boston pitching staff cruised for most of the night, the Baltimore bullpen was a mess and Davis extended his MLB-record hitless streak by one at-bat.These two teams will get back together on Saturday afternoon. Lefty John Means (1-1, 2.08) is on the mound to face fellow southpaw David Price (0-1, 6.00 ERA). First pitch is set for 1:05 at Fenway. You can watch the game on MLB Network out of market or on MASN if you live in Birdland. Remember when it was a death-trap on the verge of collapse? Or something."The Republic writes this morning: “Reports show the team spent about $150,000 from May 10 to Dec. 31 last year to fix freight elevators and purchase back-up lighting supplies.†This is quite the contrast to the position expressed by the team previously, when it was claiming millions of dollars were needed in urgent or imminent fixes. In June 2016, the team said they “have identified several projects that are necessary over the next five years.†According to the D-backs, this winter was supposed to require “structural repairs, suite renovations, new paint, and upgrades to elevators and the HVAC system,†at a total estimated cost of nearly $8 million, fifty times what was actually spent by them through the end of 2018.This is not a great look for the Diamondbacks. Even though the stadium is hardly ancient, barely two decades old, there did appear to be increasing signs of problems. In just one month last season (June), for example
http://www.astrosfanproshop.com/authentic-justin-verlander-jersey , there were multiple failures in the infrastructure reported. A section of piping burst over right field, during a game against the Marlins causing fans below to be moved out. Later that month, another pipe gave way on the press level, “leading to ankle-level flooding in an air conditioning control room .†The following day, “engineers discovered several leaks in the stadium’s cooling and air conditioning system. At least one of the broken pipes was near Friday’s Front Row restaurant in left field.†All this apparently gave credence to the team’s argument that the park was in need of urgent repairs. So, I find it rather disconcerting to discover that in the first three months of the off-season, not much significant work was carried out - and what little was done, was on freight elevators and emergency lighting. According to a statement from the team, “It is now our responsibility to better prioritize how and when we take on each while trying to preserve the venue as best we can. Naturally, the safety and security of our fans moves items to the top of our priority list.†Quite how freight elevators are integral to our “safety and security†is not immediately clear to me. Hall told Arizona Sports, “Let’s prioritize and make sure the money is there, we continue to increase that fund. So that in the case of an emergency - hopefully not catastrophic - we do have the money to address those issues. We’re prioritizing, we’re being smart. That’s the smart, responsible way to go about this.†To some extent, that makes sense: in the event of something big happening, the team needs to be able to fix it. But not so long ago
Jose Altuve Jersey , the team said Chase Field “needs $185 million in upkeep to prevent it from being unsafe and unfit and bring it up to Major League Baseball standards,†and used that as a key argument in their successful argument to take over management of the facility. The figures released today appear to indicate the team has spent less than 0.1% of that amount on the park this winter. Now, it isn’t all that has been paid out. Over the 2017-18 off-season, the Maricopa County Stadium District agreed to a contract worth $3.75 million, to cover steel and concrete repairs. Still, the optics are not great: it’s hard not to conclude, on the data so far, that the team was misleading about the urgency of the repairs they listed as needed. Now they’ve achieved their goal, and taken greater control of the income streams, the cynic in me feels that “essential†maintenance has now become, to quote Hall, “Let’s prioritize and make sure the money is there.â€There is still time: the figures only go up to the end of December, meaning any work scheduled to be carried out in the first quarter of 2019, or between now and Opening Day will not be reflected in those numbers. It will be interesting to see what more is done.
11th June 2019
The O’s offense showed up late and the
