Bill Koch: Red Sox Lack of Deadline Pitching Affecting Playoff Run

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00:00Garrett Whitlock had to throw 47 pitches in the eighth inning.

00:03That was the big problem.

00:05He kind of lost it at the end, and I'm sitting there thinking,

00:08while it happened, well, why don't they take him out?

00:11And then I thought, well, he just went through his entire bullpen

00:13to get to that point.

00:14There's really no one else to bring in.

00:17He was the last man standing and really the last person that I think

00:21Alex Cora really trusted out there, with the exception of Raul Deschapman,

00:26who was going to be next.

00:28Cora obviously can't admit this, but you could see it toward the end of the year.

00:32They had the three starters and the two guys at the back end of the bullpen,

00:35and because Dustin May didn't really work out

00:39and they didn't really add anybody else at the trade deadline, that's it.

00:43That's what you had to work with.

00:44You knew it coming into the series.

00:46I think it was a plan to play it out the way they did last night,

00:50pull Baio at the first sign in trouble, try to be aggressive

00:53and get it to the finish line, and ultimately it just didn't work.

00:56They came about one out short.

00:57The other big inning was the seventh inning.

01:00Red Sox had runners on first and second, and Sedan Raffaella can't get a bunt down.

01:04He didn't bunt a lot during the season,

01:06and then you had Cruz's reaction after he got out of the seventh inning.

01:10What did you think about both incidents?

01:14Yeah, it was tough.

01:15I mean, obviously you would think that a major leaguer could get a bunt down

01:19in that situation, and the fact that Raffaella could not

01:22was just brutal to watch.

01:24And the worst thing about it was neither one of those two pitches

01:26was anywhere near the strike zone.

01:28He could have been ahead in the count.

01:31I think Cruz knew exactly who he had at the plate and what he was going to do,

01:35and he goaded Raffaella into offering it at two terrible pitches away.

01:39And then from there, you load the bases.

01:44Story gets a good piece on a fly ball to deep center, but is ultimately out.

01:49And that was a point where the Red Sox had the leadoff man on in the sixth,

01:53the seventh, and the eighth, and didn't score in any of those three innings.

01:57And you go back to the offense for most of the year

01:59and how wasteful they were with runners in scoring position,

02:02and you saw a three-inning sample of it there that really ended up hurting them.