Astros-Red Sox ALDS Game 4 Notebook

This past Sunday’s Notes column led with Alex Bregman talking about how hitting the ball in the air became a priority once he’d signed with the Astros. That approach paid off in spades yesterday. With his team down a run, the 2015 draft pick took a Chris Sale pitch over Fenway Park’s Green Monster to tie the game in the eighth inning. Houston went on to win 5-4 and advance to the ALCS.

When I approached Bregman after the game, his first words were, “How was the launch angle on that?” (I hadn’t looked it up yet, but it was 32 degrees.) Asked if he liked whatever the launch angle was, he smiled and said that he loved it.

Needless to say, the youngster was in seventh heaven.

“It’s what you dream about,” said Bregman. “That’s what I dreamed about. I grew up watching playoff games at Fenway when David Ortiz was getting clutch hits. We’re playing here at an amazing ballpark, the fans are into it… that’s what you live for. It’s what I live for.”

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Josh Reddick’s single off of Craig Kimbrel plated what ended up being the deciding run. He described the moment this way:

“It’s special. I probably blacked out, I had so many emotions, so much adrenaline going on once I hit the bag and saw [Cameron Maybin] scoring. It was a fun night… Bregman had probably one of the biggest at-bats of the game, tying it up. We were just trying to buy the right time and find the right moment.”

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Alex Bregman: “I was telling Verlander in the dugout that I didn’t want anybody else up but Reddick right there. I thought he was going to come through. He’s done that for us all year long.”

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Chris Sale’s relief outing on Monday was his first since 2012. He came out of the bullpen in each of his first 79 big-league appearances.

Prior to Monday, Justin Verlander had never made a relief appearance as a professional, nor did he ever come out of the bullpen in college.

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George Springer on Sale and Verlander both pitching out of the bullpen: “Yeah, that was a little weird.”

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A.J. Hinch: “You can lose playing conservatively, too. It’s very easy to go to the bullpen and leave Justin Verlander out of it, but our job is to try to win, it’s not to try not to lose. And we had an opportunity to do that. When it doesn’t work out, as long as I’m prepared, as long as I feel like I did the right thing by what our plan was, then I can live with the result. Doesn’t make you feel any better when Benintendi is running around the bases. That’s a pretty low moment for a manager.”

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Going to the bullpen early and often in the postseason is becoming more common, and some feel it should be done even more often than it is. When I asked Hinch for his thoughts on the subject before the game, he delved into more than just October usage.

“There’s been a lot of talk about the bullpen usage over the last couple years, especially when you see teams have success — you see them get through the postseason — and I’ll continue to support that in these small, short series, in a timeline where we have some built-in off days,” said Hinch. “It will be interesting to see over next year when more off days are put into the schedule if there’s a little more appetite to use the bullpen more aggressively.

“You come into this game, Game 4, feeling it a little bit with your bullpen. You look up, Devenski has pitched in all the games, Musgrove has pitched in a lot of games. McCullers threw a lot of pitches. It’s hard to sustain over time. It’s easy to think about that in the five-game series, but if you watch baseball all around this playoff series, there are some beat-up bullpens right now in this small week that we have played. So it’s only been a week — not six months, not a full season — and people’s bullpens are feeling it.”

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Prior to Game 4, I asked Red Sox manager John Farrell how early he’d be willing to use Craig Kimbrel and how long he could see him going. He responded as follows:

“Before yesterday I would have said David Price had two innings, and he went four. I don’t know that Craig Kimbrel would go four innings, but we’ll see how the game unfolds. But we feel like we’re probably going to have to piece this one together as we have been doing. That’s been kind of the common theme throughout the entire postseason, not just in this series, but around baseball. So we’re more than ready to expand Craig’s role in terms of the number of outs recorded.”

I followed up by again asking how early he’d be willing to bring Kimbrel into the game. Farrell answered with a flat, “I don’t know that right now.”

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Farrell on being ejected by home-plate umpire Mark Wegner after Dustin Pedroia was called out on strikes in the second inning: “I never argued balls and strikes. It was a really quick hook. The reason he gave me is, ‘I’m not going to have you stand here and yell at me.’”

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Rafael Devers looked like the 20-year-old rookie that he is in Games 1 and 2. Appearing overanxious, he went went hitless in five at-bats with three strikeouts. In Game 3, Devers looked mature beyond his years. Along with a huge home run off of Francisco Liriano, he walked and singled, each time with runners on base. After the game, I asked A.J. Hinch for his impressions of the youngster.

“He’s got the young baby face,” said Hinch. “He’s young, and he does get excitable. He’s got every tool you can imagine and he loves to swing. He drew the walk to start his day on four pitches that Brad [Peacock] sprayed around.

“He got a good pitch to hit and he delivered. I’s tough to do. He’s a young kid in a big moment that gets a hanging breaking ball, and he hits the ball out of the ballpark. He didn’t have a ton of home runs — I think he only had a couple against left-handed pitching this year — but he won the big moment. I think that maturity you’re probably going to see over the next few years is a lot of what you’ve seen out of our young guys.”

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Rafael Devers’ inside-the-park home run in Game 4 was the 17th in postseason history and the first for the Red Sox since Larry Gardner in the 1916 World Series.

“I was looking at [third-base coach Brian Butterfield] and he was waving me around,” Devers said afterward. “That’s how I figured I’d be able to score. When I looked back and saw that no one was really near the ball, I knew I’d score standing up; I knew I was going to get there.”

Devers said he had never before hit an inside-the-park home run.

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Houston hitters went 49-for-147 (.333) during the series with a .402 OBP.

Jose Altuve (8-for-15) and Yuli Gurriel (9-for-17) hit a combined .531 with five walks.

With his ninth-inning double yesterday, Carlos Beltran is now 65-for-200 (.325) over his career in the postseason.

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Carlos Beltran: “It means a lot. This is what we play for all season long, to try to get to this position. The fact that we were able to come back in this ballgame… I have to give credit to Boston. They did a pretty good job of using their starting guys coming out of the pen. Yesterday, Price did a great job. Today, Sale did a fantastic job. But we were able to fight against them, and get the lead… I feel proud of the whole team. I’m looking forward to what is ahead of us.”

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John Farrell: “It’s always tough when you end the season so abruptly, but I’m extremely proud for the way they competed, the work they put in for seven full months, the way they care for one another. I wanted to thank them from that. But it’s just that you go a hundred miles an hour, and then all of a sudden it feels like you face plant a wall when the season is over.”