Jim Joyce gives an umpire's perspective on this new world of baseball
The glass-half-full, glass-half-empty situation debate is a tough one in the world of baseball. Why? Because ultimately it's a results business, and of the Red Sox business has simply not been good enough.
The latest bottom line: A 5-2 loss to the Guardians in Cleveland Wednesday night.
If you want to avert your eyes to the score, the standings - which have the Red Sox five games back of a Wild Card spot - and the continuous tidal wave of defensive miscues, then there were some storylines to hang your hat on.
With his family in the stands, Chris Murphy excelled in his big league debut, pitching 3 2/3 innings of scoreless relief. Masa Yoshida continued his march toward being an American League All-Star. And after Red Sox manager Alex Cora clarified that Rafael Devers was not hurt, the third baseman showed signs of life with a multi-hit game.
But then there was the loss. And, to top things off, the New York-like cloud that now hovers over Thursday's game because of the surfacing of controversial tweets by fill-in starter Matt Dermody. (It is a situation that - as detailed in Sean McAdam's report on the matter - had the Red Sox at one point contemplating releasing the lefty.)
Welcome to the 2023 Red Sox, where you don't quite know what to feel.
Perhaps it is a bump in the road on the way to taking the series in Cleveland before taking advantage of an Aaron Judge-less Yankees team. If so, then the night should have been highlighted to the presence of Murphy, not only because of his performance but also due to his backstory.
As he explained when appearing on the Bradfo Sho podcast:
“My sister Jessica – she was not a blood-related sister, she was my babysitter growing up for me and my sister. She lived just down the street. We thought of her as a sister and saw her every day. Picked us up from school every day. She went to every single one of my Little League games when she could. She was pretty much the team mom in the dugout and she was diagnosed with cancer when I was in sixth grade. And I just remember starting to write in my hat in sixth grade so she could see it saying, ‘I play for Jessica.’
“She was a Yankee fan – diehard Yankee fan – and I didn’t know how it worked at that time and it was like, ‘I’m going to save you a ticket to my first major league game.’ And this was in sixth, seventh grade at this time, and she said ‘I’m going to make you promise me that.’ So it was a promise that I held and when she passed away when I was going into high school I put it in her casket, wrote it down, ‘I play for Jessica. I promise to save you a ticket for my first major league game’ and I put that in her casket, and that’s something I’ve carried near and dear to me."
Murphy got his chance, and certainly didn't forget his promise.
“It was special having Jessica’s mom here,” Murphy told reporters. “She's never watched me play baseball, at least from as far as I can remember. She maybe watched me play in Little League, but she hasn’t watched me play in a long time, so it was special that was she was there. It meant the world.”
But as Wednesday turned into Thursday, the reality of these Red Sox once again have to be brought to the forefront.
Non-scoreboard-storylines aside, it would seem important to start digging in on exactly how optimistic Sox fans should be. Time is ticking.