A win and a loss.

The Red Sox managed to hold off the Braves last night and win the game.

Tolle pitched a pretty good game, facing 28 batters over 8 inings, giving up 2 earned runs, walking 1 and striking out 3

In the 8^th inning, with 2 outs and the Braves up 2-1, Abreu smacked a line-drive double. Then, with 2 strikes against him, Contrares hit a 2-run home run. That made the score 3-2 in favor of the Red Sox.

In the 9^th inning, with the Red Sox up 3-2, Chapman, in very uncharacteristic fashion, managed to let the Braves load the bases with 2 outs. A Braves batter smacked a sharp grounder right back at Chapman and it hit him in the leg, knocking him down. Chapman scrambled to his feet, chased the ball down and flipped it to first for the final out of the game but man, it was close.

Very close...

"Close" as in it wasn't really clear that the ball beat the runner and the Braves might actually have a successful challenge of the out call.

But they didn't challenge and the Red Sox walked away with the win.

Why the Braves did not challenge the final out of the game is beyond me. A challenge of a close base-running call on the final out is a no-brainer because they had nothing to lose.

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As for today's game, first pitch was at 1:35 and Bello had the start.

He kinda sucked.

Like a lot.

The game ended with the Braves beating the Red Sox 8-1.

During the offseason, Breslow went out and got a bunch of pitchers even though the Red Sox needed hitters. I understand his thinking and the pitching (with the exception of Bello) has been great. The problem is great pitching doesn't score runs.

Pitchers do not step on home plate, hitters step on home plate and there is no one on the Red Sox that I look at and think to myself, "Oh good, so-and-so is up. He's gonna hit the ball".

I'm thinking they might have fired the wrong guy...

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And so it goes...

I checked the prices because I have two cars that are below half a tank and a 5 gallon gas can that is empty.

I'm gonna have to take out a loan...

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Here are some links:

• The Ukrainian's are still responding to Psycho Vlad's "special military operation".



• Just another case of car-violence followed by knife-violence.



• If you are stupid enough to contaminate the french fries by putting them in your mouth before serving them, you deserve to go to jail.



• Miami is 175 miles from Cuba, Fort Lauderdale is 200 miles from Cuba and Mar-a-Lago is 250 miles from Cuba...