Could we savor the Red Sox and their eliminating the Tampa Bay Rays from the American League playoffs Monday for just a little while longer?
No, of course not. As soon as the Astros sent the White Sox home for the long Chicago winter Tuesday, the sniping started. Cheaters versus cheaters. The Houston Cheaters against the Boston Cheaters in the AL Cheaters Series.
That’s how talk jock Adam Jones of 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston is branding the Astros-Red Sox showdown that starts Friday in Houston.
The sign-stealing scandal that tainted the Astros’ 2017 World Series title and involved the Red Sox to a lesser degree in 2018 is a sub-plot to what should be an entertaining best-of-seven series.
To review, in 2017 and 2018 the Astros used modern and ancient technology to steal signs and inform batters which pitch to expect. A techie caught the sign on video and relayed the info to the dugout area, where someone pounded a trash can, alerting the batter to an incoming fastball or breaking ball.
Major League Baseball uncovered a similar practice, minus the real-time tub thumping, against the Red Sox. In 2018 a low-level Sox employee in a video room decoded signs and offered the intel to players before a game. The practice was effective only when a runner reached second base and could see the catcher’s signs, which the runner signaled to the batter.
Alex Cora, bench coach for the Astros in 2017 and manager of the Red Sox in 2018, was the link.
The Athletic broke the story in November, 2019.
Two months later, after a “really, really thorough investigation,” MLB dealt with the matter by suspending Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and field manager A.J. Hinch for the 2020 season, fining the organization the maximum $5 million and ordering the forfeiture of first and second round picks in the 2020 and 2021 drafts.
Subsequently, MLB determined that Cora helped organize the scheme with Houston players while serving as bench coach and suspended him for the 2020 season. The Astros fired Luhnow and Hinch, and the Red Sox and Cora mutually parted ways. The Red Sox video replay operator, J.T. Watkins, was suspended for 2020 and banned from the replay room for 2021. The Red Sox also lost their second-round pick in the 2020 MLB Draft. After the 2020 World Series and the end of that COVID-shortened season, the Detroit Tigers hired Hinch, and the Red Sox eventually re-hired Cora.
No player on either team suffered the consequences of the cheating because all were granted immunity.
So, that’s the sign-stealing story. The guilty parties served their sentences and moved on. May we move on as well? I hope so.
Now, let’s re-visit two excellent and dramatic plays that helped put the Red Sox in this series with Houston.
In the sixth inning of the Red Sox-Yankees winner-take-all playoff game at Fenway Park on Oct. 5 Giancarlo Stanton drilled a shot off the Green Monster. Aaron Judge took off from first base. The carom eluded left fielder Alex Verdugo, but in textbook style center fielder Kike’ Hernandez backed up Verdugo, fielded the ball and immediately threw to the cutoff man, shortstop Xander Bogaerts. He adjusted his stance to catch the one-hopper and threw a strike to catcher Kevin Plawecki, who caught the ball on the fly and executed a perfect sweep tag on the diving Judge. Potential Yankees rally erased. As you know, Boston won, 6-2.
Now to Monday night and Game 4 of the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway. Bottom of the ninth. Score tied, 5-5. Christian Vazquez, hero of Game 3 with his two-run homer in the bottom of the 13th for a 6-4 victory, singled to left. Christian Arroyo followed and pushed a perfect bunt toward first base. Vazquez advanced to second and on the sacrifice. He reached third on Travis Shaw’s infield hit and then took a seat in favor of the faster pinch runner Danny Santana. Santana scored easily on Hernandez’s sacrifice fly to left-center for the 6-4 series clinching victory.
You don’t see many well-executed bunts these days. We usually get players stabbing at the ball and missing, or feebly popping up. Arroyo laid down a bunt that every professional, college, high-school and Little League player should study. He held his bat chest high, right hand about halfway down the barrel, and made contact with just enough touch to drop the ball on the infield grass between the pitcher’s mound and the first baseline.
Perfect.
Yes, the Red Sox got tremendous pitching from Nate Eovaldi, Tanner Houck, Nick Pivetta and Garrett Whitlock. And they got clutch hitting from Hernandez, Vazquez, J.D. Martinez, Rafael Devers and Bogaerts.
But who knows what would have followed had the Hernandez-Bogaerts-Plawecki defensive gem failed and Judge scored? Or if Arroyo’s bunt had settled into a Tampa Bay glove?
They succeeded, though, and here we are on the eve of Game 1 of the ALCS, the American League Championship Series between the Astros and Red Sox.
