The Boston Globe - 17.10.2019

C2 Sports The Boston Globe THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2019

Tuesday night game AtNationalsPark, Washington, D.C. ST. LOUIS AB R H BI BB SO Avg. Edman 3b-cf 4 0 0 1 1 1 .000 JMartínez rf 401201.500 Goldschmidt 1bOzunalf 400003.063401003.188 Molinac 311100.167 DeJongss 300013.250 Bader cf 2 1 0 0 1 1 .000 Carpentrph-3b 100000.000Wong2b 412000 .143 Arozarena ph 100001.000 Fowlerph 010010.000 Muñozph 100001.000 Wieters phTotals 32454414 1 0 0 0 0 0 .000 WASHINGTON AB R H BI BB SO Avg. Turnerss 412201.294 Eatonrf 311010.235 Rendon3bSotolf 301100.417 412100 .188 Kendrick2b 310011.333 Zimmerman 1b 4 1 0 0 0 1 .250 Robles cf 4 1 1 1 0 1 .375 GomescCorbinp 411202.429100001.000 f-Parra ph 1 0 1 0 0 0 1.000 Dozier 2b 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 Totals 3179727 St. Louis............................000 130 000 — 4 5 1 Washington......................700 000 00x — 7 9 0 2BE—JMartínez (2), Eaton (2), Soto (1).—Wong (1).LOB—St. Louis 6, Washington 4.HR—Molina (1), off Corbin.S—Corbin.SF—Rendon.Runners left in scoring position—St. Louis 4.RISP—St. Lou- is 1 for 6, Washington 4 for 5.DP—St. Louis 1 GIDP—Kendrick. St. Louis IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA DakHudsn L 0-1Wainwright 1„ 2 0 0 0 0 16 3.00‚5741015108.0 Helsley 2 0 0 0 1 1 27 0.00 Gallegos 2 1 0 0 0 3 20 3.86 Miller 21000329 0.00 WashingtonCorbin W 1-0 IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA5 4 4 4 3 12 94 6.75 Rainey 1 0 0 0 0 1 16 0.00 Doolittle 1„ 1 0 0 0 1 21 2.25 DanHudsonS21‚00010260.00 IBB—off DakHudson (Kendrick).HBP—by Dan- Hudson (Molina).Umpires—Home, Phil Cuzzi; First, Chad Fairchild; Second, Fieldin Culbreth;Third, Chris Guccione; Left, Chris Conroy; Right, Bill Miller.T—3:02.A—43,976 (41,376).

Nationals 7, Cardinals 4

ALCS NYYANKEESVS.HOUSTON ASTROS LEAD SERIES, 2-1 Saturday, Oct. 12 New York 7............at Houston 0 Sunday, Oct. 13 At Houston 3............New York 2 Tuesday, Oct. 15 Houston 4............at New York 1 Wednesday, Oct. 16 At NY Yankees.....Houston, ppd. Schedule Thursday at NY Yankees..........8 Friday at NY Yankees................8 *Saturday at Houston...............8 *Sunday at Houston...........7:30 NLCS WASHINGTONVS.ST.LOUIS NATIONALS WIN SERIES, 4-0 Friday, Oct. 11 Washington 2.......at St. Louis 0 Saturday, Oct. 12 Washington 3.......at St. Louis 1 Monday, Oct. 14 At Washington 8.......St. Louis 1 Tuesday, Oct. 15 At Washington 7.......St. Louis 4 WORLDSERIES WASHINGTONVS.ALWINNER Tue., Oct. 22 at AL.............(Fox) Wed., Oct. 23 at AL............(Fox) Fri., Oct. 25 at Wash..........(Fox) Sat., Oct. 26 at Wash.........(Fox) *Sun., Oct. 27 at AL.......... (Fox) *Tue., Oct. 29 at Wash......(Fox) *Wed., Oct. 30 at AL..........(Fox) * If necessary

Results,schedule

THURSDAY’S ALCS GAME 4 ..........2019.......... Team ...........2019vs. opp........... ...........Last 3 starts........... Odds W-L ERA rec. W-L IP ERA W-L IP ERA HOUSTON AT NY YANKEES, 8:08 p.m. Greinke (R) +115 18-5 2.93 21-14 1-0 12.2 2.13 1-2 18.0 4.50 Tanaka (R) -135 11-9 4.45 21-12 0-0 12.0 2.25 3-0 18.0 1.00 Team rec. — Record in games started by pitcher this season.

Zimmerman finally

reaches World Series

By Howard Fendrich ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Bottle of beer in hand, Ryan Zimmer- man stood alone in the Nation- als Park home clubhouse for a few moments, taking in the scene while his teammates cele- brated reaching Washington’s first World Series since 1933. Eventually, someone threw an arm around the 35-year-old Zimmerman’s shoulders and ushered him back into the fray, where he joined others in chug- ging alcohol out of the National League Championship Series trophy after completing a four- game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. Only fitting that the longtime ‘‘face of the franchise’’ would be right in the middle of things for the club’s biggest moment since it arrived in the nation’s capital from Montreal. ‘‘I’ve seen him tear up a cou- ple times already. Just getting past the first round, and now that we’re on to the World Se- ries,’’ shortstop Trea Turner said amid the frivolity Tuesday night, talking about the first guy ever drafted by the Nation- als in 2005 and the only player toweartheiruniformineachof their 15 seasons. ‘‘He’s put his heart and soul into this organization,’’ Turner said. ‘‘He sacrificed a lot. And he’s given this organization a lot. I can’t say enough nice things about him, because he’s a good person and a great ball- player. I love watching him bat in this order and drive in runs for us and be a part of this run.’’ When the Fall Classic begins next week in Houston or New York — the Astros lead the Yan- kees, 2-1, in the American League Championship Series — expect Zimmerman to be in Washington’s starting lineup, hitting sixth or so in the batting order and manning first base. On the long path to get there, he’s set Expos-Nationals franchise career records for hits, doubles, total bases, home runs, and RBIs. He’s also been around for every high and low. ‘‘Me, the fans, the communi- ty — we’ve kind of grown up together. I was 20 years old when I got here,’’ said Zimmerman,

who grew up not far away in Virginia. ‘‘We were not very good. And the fans... we went through those things together.’’ It’s true. He’s been through all of it. The ex-Expos’ earliest days

in dilapidated RFK Stadium. The game-ending homer he hit in the first game played at the Nationals’ gleaming new stadium in 2008, one of his 11 career walkoff shots, tied for the second-most in NL history, one be- hind Stan Musial. The consecutive 100-loss seasons in 2008 and 2009. The surprising surge to an NL East title in 2012. The collapse in Game 5 of that year’s Division Series against the Cardinals. Subsequent Division Series ex- its in 2014, 2016, and 2017. ‘‘Sometimes,’’ said Zimmer- man, who’s been texting with former Nationals teammates lately, ‘‘you’ve got to wait for good things.’’ And so here he is, in what might be the last hurrah: The Nationals hold an $18 million contract option for 2020, a lot of money for a player whose in- juries limited him to 52 games and a .257 average with six homers and 27 RBIs this year. The righthanded-hitting Zimmerman, who says he plans to continue playing beyond this year, has stepped to the fore in these playoffs, batting .290 with a homer and five RBIs, along with his usual stellar defense at first. ‘‘He’s the classiest big leaguer I’ve ever been around,” GM Mike Rizzo said. “He’s the cul- minationofalotofhardwork.”

PATRICK SMITH/GETTY IMAGES Ryan Zimmerman has played all 15 of his major league seasons in Washington and leads the franchise in hits, homers, and RBIs.

Yankees,Astrosforcedtowait

By Jake Seiner ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK — A rainy day in the Bronx has left a daunting October test for the New York Yankees’ vaunted bullpen: four games, four days, and already a deficit to overcome against the Houston Astros in their AL Championship Series. Game 4 of the ALCS sched- uled for Wednesday night was postponed a day because of poor weather, with Game 5 pushed to Friday night at Yan- kee Stadium and Games 6 and 7 in Houston on Saturday and

Sunday, if necessary. The Astros beat New York, 4-1, on Tuesday to take a 2-1 series lead. The winner will face Wash- ington and its well-rested, tal- ented rotation starting in the AL city on Tuesday night. With New York relying so heavily on its relievers this month, the starter-driven As- tros may be at an advantage. ‘‘If we’re going to win this series, our bullpen will still play a huge role, obviously,’’ Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. ‘‘But we’ve got to be able to get a little bit of distance out of our starters.’’ Houston will pitch Zack Greinke on Thursday against the Yankees’ Masahiro Tanaka in a rematch of Game 1, both on regular rest. Tanaka pitched six sterling innings as New York won, 7-0. The Astros also announced that Justin Verlander will start Game 5 on full rest. He threw two-run ball into the seventh inning in a 3-2, 11-inning victory in Game 2 on Sunday. ‘‘It was an easy decision,’’ As- tros manager AJ Hinch said. New York plans to counter Verlander with James Paxton. The lefthander was pulled after allowing a run over 2‚ rocky innings in Game 2, and con- cerns were raised that he was tipping his pitches. Both clubs had planned to use openers Wednesday, and New York will almost certainly still use a bullpen day in the series, probably in Game 6. Boone has ridden his relievers hard, asking them to cover 15‚ out of 28 innings in the series — a tough enough task with Octo- ber’s built-in days off. The rainout leaves Aroldis Chapman,

Zack Britton, and the rest of that group without some valu- able recovery time. Tanaka has been New York’s best bet for length this postseason. He needed just 68 pitches to cover six innings in the opener, improving to 5-2 with a 1.32 ERA in the postseason. ‘‘Any time the moment gets really big, he is good at slowing the game down himself and maybe taking even a little bit off of his pitches as opposed to powering through it,’’ Hinch said. ‘‘We’d like to see us have a more disciplined approach, but that’s easier said than done with the stuff he has.’’ Greinke, a 2009 Cy Young Award winner acquired from Arizona at the July 31 trade deadline, has struggled through two starts this postseason. He gave up six runs and couldn’t finish the fourth inning against Tampa Bay in Game 3 of the AL Division Series, and the Yan- kees hammered two homers and scored three runs against him in six innings in the ALCS opener. The Astros may also lean heavily on relievers in Game 6, if necessary, although their bullpen strategy will differ from New York’s. While the Yankees probably wouldn’t ask any one pitcher for more than two or three innings, Houston could stretch starter José Urquidy over four or five innings after an opener. That could keep the rest of the club’s arms fresher during this four-day run. ‘‘How beneficial it is, is probably easier to answer after I see how guys perform and how the pitching plays out,’’ Hinch said of the rainout. ‘‘But like I said, it’s kind of a wait and see.’’

Nationals’ chance paid off

ber and the Sox finished a pe-
destrian 84-78.
At the same time the Sox
were essentially giving up on
their season, the Washington
Nationals acquired three reliev-
ers on July 31: lefthander
Roenis Elias and righthander
Hunter Strickland from Seattle
and righthander Daniel Hud-
son from Toronto.
The Nationals were 57-50 a
day before the deadline, 5½
games out of first place in the
National League East but lead-
ing the wild-card race by half a
game.
Nobody thought at the time
that the Nationals had changed
their team dramatically, if
much at all.
Elias was a borderline major
leaguer and Strickland had
been injured all season. Hud-
son was pitching well for the
Blue Jays, but they were his
fourth team in four years.
Thecostintermsofpayroll
and prospects wasn’t signifi-
cant. But the Nationals added
three arms to a bullpen that
needed help.
Elias quickly got injured and
ended pitching in only four
games for Washington. He
didn’t work out.
But Strickland, despite a few
rocky outings, contributed to
15 victories. He was particular-
ly good in August as the Nation-

uONBASEBALL
Continued from Page C1

als went 19-7 and took hold of a playoff spot. Hudson was the real differ- ence maker. He had a 1.44 earned run average in 24 games and picked up six saves. His presence allowed the Nationals to give overworked Sean Doolit- tle a 14-day stretch on the dis- abled list to heal up and pre- pare for the postseason. Doolittle has had a 2.35 ERA since coming back, counting the playoffs. With Hudson as the closer and Doolittle setting him up, the Nationals beat Milwaukee in the wild-card game, upset the Dodgers in the Division Se- ries, and swept the Cardinals in the League Championship Se- ries to reach the World Series for the first time. Hudson has pitched 5„ scoreless innings in six postseason games and been a reliable closer. The scouts Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo sent out before the deadline got it right with him. The Sox were considering Hudson at the time but didn’t make a move. The Nationals got him for Kyle Johnson, a Sin- gle A righthander who was 9-9 with a 4.03 ERA. As similar as their records were at the trade deadline, the Sox and Nationals were in dif- ferent situations. The Sox won the World Se- ries in 2018 and the Nationals

missed the playoffs. The Na- tionals also are owned by 94- year-old Ted Lerner, who cared much more about a World Se- ries at this stage of his life than some prospect in the Carolina League. Rizzo also knew that a rotation headed by Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Patrick Corbin would be dangerous in the postseason. Still, it was hard not to watch the Nationals celebrate on Tuesday night and not won- der if the Red Sox would have benefited from a more proac- tive approach at the deadline. They treated an opportunity with indifference. David Price and Chris Sale ended up on the injured list, so maybe the Sox wouldn’t have done much regardless. But we’ll never really know how it would have played out. The Sox wasted an offense that scored the fourth-most runs in the majors. The Nationals had their flaws, too. But Rizzo found a way to improve his team just enough that it made a differ- ence. Now they’re in the World Series. There’s something to be said for taking a chance.

Peter Abraham can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @PeteAbe.

PATRICK SMITH/GETTY IMAGES

Veteran righthander Daniel Hudson had a 1.44 ERA with six saves in 24 games for
Washington after being acquired from the Blue Jays for a Single A pitching prospect.

Even having a bad offseason

Hotshot Dodgers GM An-
drew Friedman is not interest-
ed in the Sox position and just
re-upped with Los Angeles.
Friedman joins Theo Epstein,
Jed Hoyer, Mike Hazen, and
Chris Antonetti in the swelling
group of guys who have either
used the Sox as leverage to
make more money or decided
they would rather not get into
contract discussions with an or-
ganization that abruptly
broomed championship-win-
ning GMs Ben Cherington and
Dave Dombrowski.
Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy
insists that the Sox have yet to
formally reach out to any candi-
date, but I am of the opinion
that several veteran baseball
men have been approached
through back channels. And no
one has bitten.
Try to imagine a conversa-
tion in Cleveland when Tribe
GM Antonetti stopped by Tito
Francona’s office and asked,
“Hey,gotaminute?Doyou
think it’s a good idea for me to
talk to the Red Sox about their
GM job?’’
A classified ad for the cur-
rent Red Sox opening would
look something like this:Want-
ed: Established evaluator of
baseball talent willing to work
for iconic major league fran-
chise with deep pockets. Need to
slash payroll by $35 million,
replenish depleted farm system,
and still compete with the New
York Yankees, who finished 19
games ahead of our team in

May need to trade our
best player. Must be willing to
take blame for anything that
goes wrong.
As if this isn’t a large enough
bowl of bad, we also are being
told that ownership would like
to be more involved in baseball
ops, and that the analytics de-
partment will be calling all the

uSHAUGHNESSY
Continued from Page C1

shots. From this point forward, the Sox’ strategy will be all about precise spin rates, swing paths, and velocities supplied by Statcast. Game-planning will be directed by the analytics department (pardon me while my skull explodes). I am told that Dan Duquette might still be available. The longer this goes, the more I am convinced that the Sox are going to go with some combination of the Gang of Four (Eddie Romero, Brian O’Halloran, Raquel Ferreira, Zack Scott) that currently runs the team. I’m making O’Hal- loran and Romero co-favorites. “We’re in the early stages and continuing to do a lot of due diligence and our own homework,’’ said Kennedy. “But in the meantime, the existing group is doing an outstanding job leading the department forward. We are pleased with ev- erything they are doing.’’ Why not just stay in-house at this point? The clock is tick- ing as we lurch toward the time J.D. Martinez is allowed to opt out of his contract five days after the World Series. There is no GM in place and yet the Sox have decided to retain Tony La Russa as an adviser, name a new amateur scouting director, and dump assistant hitting coach Andy Barkett. They are also looking for a new pitching coach to replace the deposed Dana LeVangie. Does all this activity mean there is less chance of going outside for the GM job? “I wouldn’t speculate one way or the other,’’ said Kennedy. “We are doing our homework on external candidates. John [Henry] and Tom [Werner] made that clear. We haven’t ruled anything out.’’ Any urgency? “No.’’ Looking back, it’s impossi-

ble to overstate just how bad the Sox were in 2019. They went 26-43 against teams with winning records, which proj- ects to a 162-game record of 61-

In their own division, they
went 12-26 against the Yankees
and Rays.
Making matters worse, their
average game time was 3:25, a
full nine minutes longer than
any other big league team. That
means that if you are a devout
watcher, you wasted 24 more
hours of your life than any oth-
er fans in baseball in 2019. Any
surprise that ratings were
down by a whopping 23 per-
cent?
“You’re never pleased when
ratings are down, but we did
have a disappointing season, so
it was not unexpected,’’ says
Kennedy.
What about moving forward
with (gulp) more ownership in-
volvement with baseball ops?
“There’s a misconception go-
ing back a decade and a half
that ownership was not in-
volved in baseball operations,’’
said Kennedy. “I’ve been here
since 2002 and John Henry and
Tom Werner have been heavily
involved with baseball opera-
tions since the day we arrived
in 2002. That will continue as
we go forward.’’
And yet we only seem to find
the owners when the trophies
are being handed out. Which
reminds me of President John
F. Kennedy’s remark after the
Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 when
the president said, “Victory has
a hundred fathers, and defeat is
an orphan.’’
Orphans once named Dom-
browski, Cherington, Tito, and
Grady.
And now an orphan-to-be-
named-later.

Dan Shaughnessy can be reached at [email protected]

The Boston Globe - 17.10.2019

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