{"id":2715,"date":"2013-02-26T23:23:31","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T04:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/?p=2715"},"modified":"2013-03-01T12:07:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T17:07:19","slug":"the-blind-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/26\/the-blind-side\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blind Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 – JetBlue Park, Ft. Myers<\/h3>\n

Cardinals 15, Red Sox 4<\/h4>\n

On Tuesday the Red Sox finally had a home game, which meant my first game of the year at JetBlue Park.\u00a0 We went in when the gates opened, two hours before game time, and I went down to left field beyond the Red Sox dugout in the hopes that we could get some players to come over and sign.\u00a0 The Cardinals were already taking batting practice, and there were no Red Sox players to be found.\u00a0 I waited there until just before the game started, when the players finally came out to stretch.\u00a0 We were able to call Jonathan Diaz – the non-roster invitee to big league camp who was playing second today – over for autographs, but he’s the only one who obliged.<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan

Jonathan Diaz signs autographs before the game.<\/p><\/div>\n

I know that not many of the veteran players are asked to take long road trips, so I expected that with a home game we’d get a chance to see more of the regulars, but that wasn’t the case.\u00a0 The lineup looked like a page out of the PawSox (or maybe the Greenville Drive) scorecard: Jackie Bradley Jr. in center, Daniel Nava in left, Ryan Lavarnway catching, Mike Carp as DH, Mauro Gomez at first, Ryan Sweeney in right, Drew Sutton at third, Jose Iglesias at short, and my new favorite Jonathan Diaz at second.\u00a0 At least we had Ryan Dempster on the mound, and he did not disappoint.<\/p>\n

\"Ryan

Ryan Dempster had a good outing.<\/p><\/div>\n

Dempster pitched the first two innings, and the only baserunner he allowed reached on an error (by Diaz, of all people).\u00a0 In the third, Clayton Mortensen let the Cardinals load the bases and then gave up a three-run double.\u00a0 He settled down in his second inning of work, an 11-pitch inning that included two strikeouts.\u00a0 The only other bright spot on the pitching side was Alex Wilson’s 1-2-3 inning in the fifth.\u00a0 After that, it was all downhill.\u00a0 Jose De La Torre gave up 5 runs in the sixth, on 4 hits, a walk, and another Diaz error.\u00a0 Pedro Beato couldn’t even make it through the seventh – he got the hook after one out and was charged with 4 runs.\u00a0 Anthony Carter gave up 3 more in the eighth (although technically those were unearned thanks to the Sox’ third error of the day).\u00a0 And in the ninth, Oscar Villarreal put two runners in scoring position before getting out of it.<\/p>\n

\"Don't

Don't let the pictures fool you - there was nothing pretty about today's game.<\/p><\/div>\n

But the worst play took place in the seventh.\u00a0 There were runners at first and second with one out and a run already in, when Ronny Cede\u00f1o hit a grounder toward second base.\u00a0 Diaz looked lined up to field it, and I hoped for a double play, but it hit the runner who had been on first and changed direction, rolling instead to the second base bag where Diaz finally chased it down.\u00a0 In the stands we all gasped as the batted ball hit the baserunner, pleasantly surprised at our good fortune: “Wait, it hit him!”\u00a0 “Ha, he’s out!”\u00a0 We all know that obscure rule, though I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually seen it happen before.\u00a0 Except… the umps apparently still haven’t seen it.\u00a0 They didn’t call the baserunner out, and somehow he had made it all the way over to third, while the runner on second had scored.\u00a0 I couldn’t believe it!\u00a0 The ball had quite obviously changed direction and everything.\u00a0 The umps conferred, and somehow, inconceivably, they didn’t change the ruling.\u00a0 John Farrell came out to argue.\u00a0 He must have felt silly, arguing a play in a spring training game, but it was so obvious I just couldn’t understand how all four umps had missed it.\u00a0 (The runner who should have been out ended up scoring later in the inning, so if they had gotten it right… we could have lost 14-4 instead of 15-4. So I guess it’s just the principle of the thing that bugs me.)<\/p>\n

\"Jose

Jose Iglesias's double was one of the lone bright spots in the game.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Red Sox did manage to mount a little rally in the bottom of the ninth.\u00a0 With a runner on third after a St. Louis error and a passed ball, Lyle Overbay tripled and Mark Hamilton doubled to score two runs.\u00a0 Earlier in the game, Jose Iglesias and Ryan Lavarnway each had a double, and Drew Sutton reached base all three times he batted, but that was about it for offense.\u00a0 Tomorrow they hit the road for Sarasota to take on the Orioles, hopefully with a few more major leaguers in the lineup and a lot more success on the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, February 26, 2013 – JetBlue Park, Ft. Myers Cardinals 15, Red Sox 4 On Tuesday the Red Sox finally had a home game, which meant my first game of the year at JetBlue Park.\u00a0 We went in when the gates opened, two hours before game time, and I went down to left field beyond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[27,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2715"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2749,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715\/revisions\/2749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/redsoxdiehard.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}