Eflin(RH) vs Crawford
Duran
Abreu
Wong
Devers
O'Neill(DH)
Smith
Grissom
Gonzalez
Rafaela
Maybe some SOX offense will show up tonight; maybe not. Eflin's not a bad pitcher.
SOX starting pitching has been consistently good. Andrew Bailey has had a lot to do with that. His success with the Giants was no fluke.
Go SOX!
That's a decent defensive team.Originally Posted by SPLENDIDSPLINTER
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
Isn't the cliche "pitching and defense win championships'' still valid? I guess having a respectable offense was implied. Anyway, the SOX have two of the three ingredients necessary.
I really thought our defense was going to significantly improve, this year, but then Story and Grissom went down. Grissom is back and Rafaela/Romy have done fine at SS on D.
The pitching has been shockingly good, when you look at all the injuries.
I felt the O would be about 10th in MLB, despite the loss of JT. I figured O'Neill & Abreu would improve on Dugo enough to make up for part of JT's loss. I hoped Story and Grissom's improvement over last year's joke on O with our keystone combination, that we'd e at least even with 2023. The drop in league offense might mean we are not as bad as we look, comparatively, but here are some numbers:
15th in Runs (I know some want to point to the 17 run game as skewing the numbers, but take away a few runs from that and we'd still be around 16-18th.)
17th wRC+ (3 from 14th)
12th in OPS at .714 (.10th place is just .715)
11th in OBP (.317)
10th in SLG (.398)
I'd say, overall, we are around average. Some more timely hitting and we can rise in the runs rankings.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
Agree. O'Neill at DH give me lots of confidence.
Fact is, the defense has improved.
Hats off to SPLENDIDSPLINTER for two very unexpected wins.
A hit, a hit--my kingdom for a hit!
I'd rather have O'Neill on D in LF than Duran.
Rafaela in CF is the boost. Romy at SS is fine.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
Duran's DWAR is highest on the Sox, +1.1. O'Neill's is 2d lowest, -0.3. Case closed.
Interesting reaction by Grissom on that single. First, he stood at home plate admiring the fact that he finally, finally, got a hit. Then he trotted to 1b as if it were a dinger, giving himself no chance to get to 2b if the single was in any way mishandled. The guy (Chris Sale) the Sox traded for Grissom has had huge injury issues, but is as professional as they come when he is on the mound, especially on defense.
The sometimes extreme defensive positioning seems to hurt the Sox more than help. Let the fielders play with 10 feet of their standard positioning and get some outs. Weissert will need to bail this out, but not by walking a .187 hitting rookie.
This game is probably over. I say this because in the last 9 games the Sox have scored 5 or more runs 1 time.
But, but, but O'Neill has a better UZR/150.
When you say it's gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
Another potential winnable game going down by the stern. Refsnyder doesn't hit the lefty , Wong does, but why, oh why, in key situations does Devers take strike 3 ?? I do not know.
Smith is a sack of crap. I'd rather watch Bobby D K
Grissom screwed on a bad call by a Chump with an early dinner reservation. It's ok though, Vaughn can't hit anyway, so far
Horseshit umpires deciding games. Reminds me of some NHL officials
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote