1. Morgan was great; 5 scoreless innings on 3 hits. Earlier in the thread I pointed out that home runs have been his biggest problem; he has as many home runs as walks. I suggested he pitch around the most dangerous hitters when possible and be willing to walk an occasional hitter to reduce the home runs. He followed that advice to perfection tonight with four walks but NO home runs.
He also got 14 swing-and-misses on his fastball. It may be only 91-92 but the Red Sox could not hit it. Only one of their hits came off a fastball. Morgan got one swing-and-miss on a changeup and three on sliders. The fastball was very effective. If he had a good breaking ball to complement it he probably could have gone seven. As it was he struck out Devers and J.D. Martinez twice each, plus Verdugo and Dalbec. Just an outstanding outing similar to his 6-inning, 3 hit, 0 run performance against the Twins.
In his last four starts Eli has a 2.84 ERA.
2. Awesome to see Franmil go deep! I was watching the Red Sox telecast and with a 2-2 count and the Indians down to their last pitch they showed a graphic which said Ottavino has not allowed a home run this year and he's faced 237 batters. No Red Sox pitcher has done this since 1945. The next pitch Franmil showed him what "light tower power" means. The Red Sox announcers were about to celebrate a win and Franmil shut them up for about 60 seconds.
3. There was a huge difference in plate discipline between the teams, IMO. The Indians spent the entire game chasing pitches out of the zone while Red Sox hitters continually spit on pitches 2 inches off the plate. Schwarber, Devers, Verdugo - they all have great batting eyes. They almost never chase even on the close ones. Right before Devers' three-run blast he took two close pitches without even having to check his swing.
4. What was Parker thinking? With a 3-2 count on Devers and runners on first and third with two out in a scoreless game in the 7th, you can't give up a home run. Devers already had 32. You have to throw him something on the edge or off and hope he gets himself out hacking at a marginal pitch. If you walk him, fine, now you have a right-handed hitter in J.D. Martinez, which is a better matchup.
So Parker grooves a 3-2 fastball and of course Devers hits it out. And then Parker gets J.D. Martinez out on one pitch, after the damage has been done. Parker can't make a mistake like that to Devers and by this point in his career he knows that.
5. The bullpen gave up 3 runs in 4 innings and it would have been more but the game ended with runners on base. Verdugo was hitting .208 against lefties. Young got him down 0-2 and then couldn't put him away. The strategy was good, we just need a better lefty in the pen. Maybe Hale tries Hentges next time instead of Young, who was a disaster with Arizona and was DFA'd.
I think there's a good chance that none of the relief pitchers who pitched tonight will be back next year. That's Parker, Wittgren, Shaw, and Young. Maybe Shaw, who was pitching his third game in four days.
6. This was another game we could have won with a decent bullpen. Karinchak served up a three-run homer to a minor leaguer last Friday in a 4-3 loss. Tonight it was Parker giving up a three-run blast late in a tie game. And we didn't have a decent lefty to pitch to Schwarber, Devers, and Verdugo in the 9th.