Some gutty performance by Chris Sale yesterday. Gives up three runs in the first inning, not all of his own doing, throws a whole bunch of pitches and still gets through the 6th. He is special!

Is Laz Diaz the worst umpire in baseball? Yesterday a line drive to right that was clearly caught by Mookie Betts yet Diaz who was like two feet away blows the call. Thank goodness there is replay.

On the other hand replay was the reason for the early runs against Sale as Sandoval didn’t get the tag down on the runner going into 3rd in the first inning. Geez Pablo, the throw beat the guy by like 10 minutes. Get the tag down! By the way the replay again got the call right after the umpire blew it!

Jim Piersall, one of my boyhood idols, died on Saturday at the age of 87. I met him at a CYO banquet when I was in the 3rd grade. I got an autograph picture of him somewhere.

He wrote a book called “Fear Strikes Out” about his struggles with mental illness. I didn’t read the book, but the movie I did see and it might’ve been the worst baseball movie ever made. Nothing against the subject of course and it was based on a true story, but the movie was just terrible. I think it was the baseball scenes. Really unrealistic. Piersall was played by Anthony Perkins and Perkins looked like he never picked up a baseball in his whole life.

Piersall’s father was played by Karl Malden who also starred in the longtime TV series “Streets of San Francisco”, played General Omar Bradley in “Patton” and played US Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks in the first movie about the 1980 US hockey team called “Miracle On Ice.” Go figure!