Astros 9, Red Sox 2

 

Umm, anyone else starting to get worried? 

It's bad enough that our offense has seemingly all but disappeared, but on top of that some feckless officiating is also screwing us over. Trailing 5-1 in the bottom of the fifth, two outs, starter Brayan Bello got three swinging strikes off Cam Smith, which should have ended the inning. But the ump apparently lost count of the balls and strikes and allowed the plate appearance to continue, which ended with a walk. Bello was pulled after the "walk" (to be fair, he had also given up five runs in the game), and rookie reliever Ryan Watson made the last out of the inning on a fielder's choice, but c'mon, lost count of the balls and strikes? Has counting to three gotten too ""mathy" for MLB officials?

We've got robo-umps now to help tell balls from strikes, but do we need then to help count to three now, too? 

But don't get distracted - despite the referee fubar, the Sox still sucked. Bello gave up six runs on eight hits, including one homer, in 4⅔ innings, Watson gave up two more runs on two hits, and Jovani Morán gave up another homer, this one to the lucky Cam Smith, who got a walk instead of a K in the ump's fifth-inning fuck up. Connor Wong doubled to right center in the fifth, scoring Marcelo Mayer, and Ceddanne Rafaela hit a solo homer to deep right in the eighth, but that was it offensively. 

The Red Sox are 1-4, dead last in the AL East, and are already three games back from the Yankees and Blue Jays. They have one game left in Houston on this woe-begotten, season-opening road trip, but the good news is it's Crochet Day, Boston's only pitcher so far with a win. Garrett's up against former Pirate Mike Burrows, who lost to the Angels, 6-2, in his first start of the year, so we've got a chance. 

Let's return to Fenway with a 2-4 record and ride the momentum of a Crochet win to get this season back on track. Not to look ahead, but our first series back home will be against the Padres, who, at 1-4, are off to the same dismal start as the Red Sox.

Bruins 6, Stars 3

 

What a game! Victor Arvidsson racked up a hat trick, and the Bruins scored four goals in the third period, including two Arvidsson empty netters. 

Arvidsson also scored a goal in the first, the second of the game following Khusnutdinov's opening score. Pastrnak, naturally, assisted with both goals. The Bruins' offense was quiet in the second, allowing the Stars to tie the game up at two each, but then the third opened with Elias Lindholm scoring on a power play 13 seconds into the final period. Henri Jokiharju scored his first goal of the season, assisted by Lindholm and Geekie, to make it 4-2, and then came Arvidsson's two empty netters. In between the two open nets, the Stars took advantage of a power play and a pulled goalie for a 6-4 edge to score a goal 

Joonas Korpisalo was in the net for the Bruins last night and made 13 saves on 16 attempts (.813).

The Bruins (43-24-8) are two points behind Montreal for third place and an automatic playoff bid. However, it's getting pretty comfy in the Wild Card race, as Boston now sits six points ahead of Columbus for the first berth and eight points up on contender Ottawa. With only seven more games to the regular season, it sure looks like the Bruins will get at least a Wild Card berth, if not a regular seed for finishing ahead on the Canadiens.

But it won't be easy. Thursday night, the Bruins play Florida (36-35-3), who are having an off year (for them) but have been the Bruins kryptonite team the past few seasons. There are also two games coming up against Tampa Bay (46-22-6), not to mention Philly (37-25-12), Carolina (47-21-6), Columbus (38-25-12) and New Jersey (38-34-2). No late-season cakewalk for our Bruins.