In other news, Brian Bannister pwned the Tigers. 7 innings, 2 hits. The Tigers had 3 hits in 9 innings. All were by Renteria. Polanco, Sheffield, Maggs, Pudge, etc. NOTHING
I saw the first game of this series, Matsuzaka picked up where he left off after the 2nd inning in the opener in Japan. It looks like his wildness at the start of game 1 was just nerves, as he's been lights out since. I missed yesterday's game due to class, but good to see Ortiz get a couple hits finally (and a homer) and Lester pitched very well. Apparently the crowd was like 75% Sox fans and he got a standing O as he left. One final note, Kevin Youkilis set the Major League record for consecutive errorless games at first base. Not bad for a converted third baseman. His goatee is still stupid though.
Bryan Corey got an H. I looked up his stats and the "H" is for HLD. What is HLD? Foulke leads the league with 2 of these. Is this a new stat for set up men?
Holds are just saves that happen before the 9th inning. I'm a big fan of them myself. More times than not the most important outs in a game are not the last three, but the three in the 7th or 8th inning and holds reward guys for getting those.
this is a huge problem with baseball today. I would guess that maybe 25% of that 75% are actually true fans. its alot different when the sox play on the east coast, but theres no way that those people from oakland watch their games and support the team in any other way then wearing a camo sox hat and big papi t shirt. fuckin bandwagon fans makes me sick.
The Sox always drew well on the west coast...at least since the late 80's. I don't know why..maybe there are a lot of transplanted East Coasters there. Who knows...but they were theere long before the Sox won the World Series.
Wait....so is a "Hold" a long save, or can you pitch in the 8th, have the closer come in in the ninth, and get a "hold"? I never heard it before.
Example. Red Sox up 5-2 in the 7th Beckett gets the 1st two outs & gets yanked Timlin comes in and gets out the 2nd batter after giving up a solo shot making it 5-3(he gets a hold) Okajima gets a perfect 8th and he gets a hold Papelbon gives up a run but keeps the lead and he gets the save.
You get a hold if you come in and pitch before the ninth inning and would have gotten a save if it was the ninth inning.
There seems to be more to it than that even. I considered Chamberlain's relief appearance the other night(Tuesday) a hold. He came in in the 8th of a 3-2 lead and got the side out. The official boxscore didn't show that he got one so I'm not sure exactly what else is involved. Apparently there are two definitions. In either case I don't know why Chamberlain didn't get one unless it was just a mistake by the scorer or in the box score when it was printed. http://www.quickstats.com/mlb/holdrule.htm
