It's not like going to the Red Sox bullpen is such a great idea.  Good for Cora.  It's Chris Sale for chrissakes.

$237 million payroll and they don't have a starter for game 5???

Glad to see Baz's minor league stats showing up in the feed now.  Those are actually his combined AA and AAA stats.

In AA he had a 2.48 ERA and 0.85 WHIP in 32.67 IP with 49 Ks and 2 BB. His control wasn't quite as dominant as he rose through the levels.  In AAA he had 1.76  and 0.68 WHIP in 46 IP with 64 Ks and 11 BB.

If you're worried about workload (he looks like he didn't pitch a lot), he also pitched in the Olympics, so that affects his IP totals this year.  I think he's the #1 pitching prospect in baseball, but as an Orioles fan, I'm comfortable with Greyson Rodriguez getting that ranking from the experts.

We are now showing minor league stats for players who have BIS IDs in the stats that are available for download at Fangraphs. Unfortunately, most of the players in the Fangraphs minor league files don't have BIS IDs. I'll keep checking to see if that changes.

MacKenzie Gore, LHP, Padres — After a scintillating outing in his first AFL start, the wheels fell of in Gore's second outing. He threw just 42% of his pitches for strikes (compared to 64% his first outing) and walked five of the 11 hitters he faced in 1.1 innings without striking out a hitter. Command and control were problematic all season for Gore, to the point he had to go back to the Padres' spring training complex to re-tool. He made it back to Double-A in the regular season and showed flashes of dominance but still with work to do to get all the way back. His fastball still got to the mid 90s on Wednesday and he showed flashes of a plus changeup, but there's still work to be done.

Logan O'Hoppe, C, Phillies — Though he has flown below the spotlight in a system with higher profile players like Mick Abel and Bryson Stott, O'Hoppe put together an excellent season of his own. He produced a .789 OPS with 19 doubles and 17 homers while jumping from High-A Jersey Shore to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He's opened the AFL on a hot streak, too, including a 3-for-4 effort on Wednesday that included a pair of doubles.

Nelson Velazquez, OF, Cubs — Velazquez has always had potential bubbling below the surface. He started to show it in the regular season, when he produced a career-best 20 homers between High-A and Double-A, accompanied by an .829 OPS. He put together an excellent game on Wednesday as well, going 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, an RBI and four runs.

Michael Toglia, 1B, Rockies — The Colorado kid keeps on hitting. Toglia's started his AFL season on a tear, with hits in five of his first six games and two hits apiece in two of his last three games, including a pair on Wednesday afternoon. He's also gone deep twice already. Both of his singles on Wednesday went to the opposite field, one a nice piece of hitting against a 95 mph fastball and the other a Baltimore Chop into no man's land on the infield.

Sam Huff, C, Rangers — Texas' massive catching prospect played first base on Wednesday but still showed the same hard impact at the plate that helped him get to the big leagues. He missed most of the season with injury, so he's using the Fall League to make up for lost time. Against Surprise, the hulking Huff went 3-for-4 with a trio of singles. All three of the hits were scorched, each registering exit velocities between 107-108 mph.

Let's see multi-inning start on the 14th then for some dumb reason, the 8th inning on the 17th, and then multi-inning start on the 20th. I know I'm just looking at this from a man-of-the-people point of view, but if I suddenly inherit control of the Dodgers, I'm firing Dave Roberts. 

Ken Rosnethal taking a more detailed look:

... Sale began the sixth by issuing a five-pitch walk to Jose Altuve. Michael Brantley then reached when Sox first baseman Kyle Schwarber, perhaps preoccupied with Altuve in motion on a hit-and-run, dropped a throw from third baseman Rafael Devers. With runners on first and third, Alex Bregmanbounced out to Sale. But then came Alvarez, whose double made it a 3-for-3 night for him off Sale — this, after he had produced a sacrifice fly and single against him in Game 1.

Cora reasoned, “sometimes we get caught up too much on third time through the order” (true) and that Sale, “was throwing the ball great” (also true, at least until his velocity dipped slightly in the sixth). Still, the whole thing was reminiscent of former Mets manager Terry Collins sticking too long with Matt Harvey in Game 5 of the 2015 World Series, a decision that, ahem, I happened to agree with.

Maybe Cora, like Collins, got caught up in the moment with a pitcher he cherished, a pitcher who had struck out Kyle Tucker on a 98.5-mph fastball, his hardest pitch since 2018, to end the fourth inning. Or maybe Cora did not trust his bullpen, other than Garrett Whitlock, against the top of the Astros’ lineup. Altuve had hit a home run off right-hander Tanner Houck in Game 1.

“I understand how people think, but there were two lefties coming up too in that pocket, right? Brantley, who (Sale) did an amazing job early on (striking him out twice), and we had Alvarez. Still, he is Chris Sale. He is a lefty. He has made a living getting lefties out,” Cora said.

Entering Wednesday night, that was true even this season; Sale had held lefties to a .339 OPS, while righties had smoked him for an .887 mark. But Alvarez is a different kind of left-handed hitter, one whose .580 slugging percentage against lefties since entering the league in 2019 is the highest left-on-left mark in the majors. And he had proven in two separate games this series that he was not at all uncomfortable against Sale.

theathletic.com

Yesterday's Second Biggest Play

Batter: Yordan Alvarez (HOU)

Pitcher: Chris Sale (BOS)

Situation: Top 6th, 1 out, 0-0 count, Runners On 2nd and 3rd

Score:  HOU 1, BOS 0

Double to LF (Line Drive to Short LF Line)
2 runs scored on the play and HOU's win probability increased 12% points, to 86%
HOU went on to win the game, 9-1

View the full game Boxscore at Baseball-Reference.com

Yesterday's Biggest Play

Batter: Hunter Renfroe (BOS)

Pitcher: Framber Valdez (HOU)

Situation: Bottom 5th, 0 out, 2-0 count, Runners On 1st and 2nd

Score:  HOU 1, BOS 0

Ground Ball Double Play: SS-2B-1B (Deep SS)
BOS's win probability decreased -15% points, to 41%

Stathead Spotlight: Eddie Rosario

Most recent players with 12+ total bases in a postseason game

See the full list at Stathead.com's Batting Game Finder

Yesterday's Top Performers

Pitchers:

Framber Valdez* (HOU): 8.0 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 1 BB, 5 K, 76 GmSc

Chris Sale (BOS): 5.1 IP, 2 ER, 3 H, 2 BB, 7 K, 55 GmSc

A.J. Minter (ATL): 2.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 0 BB, 1 K, 55 GmSc

* - pictured above

Yesterday's Top Performers

Batters:

Eddie Rosario* (ATL): 4-5, 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 R

Yordan Álvarez* (HOU): 3-5, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 2 R

Freddie Freeman* (ATL): 2-4, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 2 R

Yuli Gurriel* (HOU): 3-5, 3 RBI, 1 R

Rafael Devers (BOS): 2-3, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 R

Adam Duvall (ATL): 1-3, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 R

* - pictured above

An Astros-Braves World Series?

Not the matchup Manfred was rooting for.

It's like they've forgotten how they got there.

I honestly think these managers believe he who uses the most relievers wins.