5/4 vs Baltimore

[SoxFanForsyth]

If there is one team that the Red Sox want to destroy this season because of how last season ended....

 

....well it'd probably be the Rays. But if there were TWO teams that the Red Sox wanted to destroy this year....

 

....well damn, the Yankees come to mind as well.

 

I bet the Red Sox really want to beat the Orioles though.

 

Lester vs Chen

 

It's time that Pumpsie see's how unreliable and small sample size stats really are.

 

Destroy. Their. Pitching.

[BornToRun]

If there is one team that the Red Sox want to destroy this season because of how last season ended....

 

....well it'd probably be the Rays. But if there were TWO teams that the Red Sox wanted to destroy this year....

 

....well damn, the Yankees come to mind as well.

 

I bet the Red Sox really want to beat the Orioles though.

 

Lester vs Chen

 

It's time that Pumpsie see's how unreliable and small sample size stats really are.

 

Destroy. Their. Pitching.

 

And punch showalter in the face.

[jung]

Boy if the Red Sox have any heart it should be get in line for who they would hate most. f***in' Rays made a big deal out of coming from so far down to get to the post season. f***in' O's made a huge big deal about knocking the Sox out when they were going nowhere! If you remember it looked like they had just won the WS.

 

So I guess if I had to say...it would be the O's. If they don't punch the O's in mouth this weekend, I give up. If they don't rock the O's world this weekend, I will never hear the end of it for my Yankee fan "friends".

[Palodios]

SFF mojo! I'm kind of tempted to go to this game-- tickets have been wicked cheap this week.

[redsoxbeatz]

I'd love to see Lester shine. Hell, I'd love to be confident in Lester bringing his A game.

 

Honestly... 6.2 IP, 4+ era, 2 BB, 6 Ks

[BornToRun]

I'd love to see Lester shine. Hell, I'd love to be confident in Lester bringing his A game.

 

Honestly... 6.2 IP, 4+ era, 2 BB, 6 Ks

 

Against Baltimore coming off his last outing?

[SoxFanForsyth]

Looks like it's going to rain until around 10 tonight. Wonder if they'll try to play a delayed start, or do a day/night DH tomorrow. Supposed to be 63 and partly cloudy tomorrow.

[mvp 78]

If they wait out a decision to postpone, it's unlikely they'd have players do a double header the following day. Maybe Sunday (gives time to add the 26th man) but more likely later in the year. We'll see.

[Klare]

We Red Sox fans from around the world wanna see the O's suffer tonight and the following nights of this three game weekend series. Shine LESTER, go RED SOX!!

[redsoxbeatz]

Against Baltimore coming off his last outing?

 

let's hope he can repeat the magic but I do not have high expectations. As long as the Sox strike first.

[mvp 78]

Ortiz v Gregg round 2!

[RedSoxfanforlife305]

Lol if Ortiz connected with that right hook, Gregg wouldn't be in the MLB.

[SoxFanForsyth]

let's hope he can repeat the magic but I do not have high expectations. As long as the Sox strike first.

 

Lester Career vs BAL: 14-0, 2.36 ERA. He dominates this team.

 

Lets not forget. Lester was throwing on 3 days rest in the final game, and he threw 6 IP, 2 ER on that final game.

[FredLynn]

If there is one team that the Red Sox want to destroy this season because of how last season ended....

 

....well it'd probably be the Rays. But if there were TWO teams that the Red Sox wanted to destroy this year....

 

....well damn, the Yankees come to mind as well.

 

I bet the Red Sox really want to beat the Orioles though.

 

Lester vs Chen

 

It's time that Pumpsie see's how unreliable and small sample size stats really are.

 

Destroy. Their. Pitching.

 

I would be delighted to use this series as one example to prove that small sample sizes are meaningless. That would mean that we are scoring runs in bundles against the BEST pitching team in the American League by a fairly wide margin, nearly half a run per game. Unfortunately, I do not think that will happen. Good pitching beats good hitting every time. And while I expect that by the end of the year the Orioles pitching will fall down as it always does, right now they are pitching lights out. If we are going to win any games in this series we will need to scratch out the victories and our pitching must be excellent. This is an important series for us. Gotta take at least two games.

[kapsis21]

We Red Sox fans from around the world wanna see the O's suffer tonight and the following nights of this three game weekend series. Shine LESTER' date=' go RED SOX!![/quote']

 

i would bring on the wrath of Kratos and bury the Os so deep they would never come back up.. blades of athena out they come..

[FredLynn]

SFF mojo! I'm kind of tempted to go to this game-- tickets have been wicked cheap this week.

 

You won't be able to get any tickets. They sell out every game...right?

[SoxFanForsyth]

You won't be able to get any tickets. They sell out every game...right?

 

Haha. You can probably get monster seats for this game!

[SoxFanForsyth]

Wow.

 

Tickets starting at $8.75 on StubHub. And it's not SRO either.

[SoxFanForsyth]

And you can get a monster seat ticket for $99. They are $165 face value. And it's not SRO either.

[FredLynn]

Wow.

 

Tickets starting at $8.75 on StubHub. And it's not SRO either.

 

I am just delighted that the fans have started to vote with their feet. They are sending a clear message to John Henry: put a better product on the field or sell the team. They are hitting him in the only place it really can hurt him: in his wallet. If this message is consistently delivered he will have no choice but to listen.

[mvp 78]

You won't be able to get any tickets. They sell out every game...right?

 

They were still selling tickets during last game. There were 61 unsold seats. Sellout though...

[SoxFanForsyth]

I am just delighted that the fans have started to vote with their feet. They are sending a clear message to John Henry: put a better product on the field or sell the team. They are hitting him in the only place it really can hurt him: in his wallet. If this message is consistently delivered he will have no choice but to listen.

 

Hahahaha. God this reminds me of an episode of Always Sunny where they are trying to solve the gas crisis, and the gas attendant refuses to give them a refund on gas that they purchased, so they say:

 

Mac: Now we're going to hit you where it hurts.

Charlie: Your dick!

Mac: What?!? No! No! His wallet!

 

Hahahaha. Oh. I'd like to punch Henry in his dick, though.

[ibot2much]

Front page story in the GLOBE today about the accounting procedures used in the sell-out streak

[FredLynn]

Front page story in the GLOBE today about the accounting procedures used in the sell-out streak

 

Thats what I was referring to. Apparently its called a "sellout" even thought when the tickets are no longer being sold, sometimes hundreds of unsold tickets remain. The Sox executives explained it away with adminspeak. Here is the article:

 

 

At 9:35 p.m. Wednesday, in the seventh inning of a game against the Oakland A’s, the Red Sox cut off ticket sales at Fenway Park with an estimated 300 seats unsold, according to a Globe gate-by-gate review and interviews with team executives.

How the Red Sox

define sellout streak

At 10:19 p.m., the Sox announced the game was sold out. Seconds later, they said they had extended their sellout streak to 723 games, the longest in the history of Major League Baseball.

But had Fenway Park really sold out all 37,495 seats?

The answer, it seems, depends on how you define “sellout.’’

In a sequence of events that raised questions about the authenticity of the prized streak, the Sox stopped selling tickets for the game first at the ticket office on Yawkey Way when the game began, then at Gate E an hour later, and finally at Gate A deep into the game, with a sales clerk telling a Globe correspondent at each closing that tickets remained available.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a sellout as “something for which all tickets are sold.’’

The Sox embrace an alternate definition that permits them to declare a game sold out even if hundreds of tickets go unsold but others are distributed for free.

“I can understand the confusion,’’ said Sam Kennedy, the team’s executive vice president. “But we operate by a definition that is commonly practiced throughout Major League Baseball and professional sports.’’

The Sox count the total number of tickets they distribute, including an average of 800 complimentary tickets each game to charities and others, as the basis for a sellout. They also count standing room tickets toward the total.

Skeptics might call it a “distribution streak’’ rather than a sellout streak, given the team’s reliance on complimentary tickets.

By giving away hundreds of tickets to Wednesday’s game and selling hundreds of other standing room tickets, the Sox kept their streak alive despite reporting a paid attendance of 37,434 - 61 seats shy of capacity. They did so by including the tickets distributed, which pushed the total to 37,819, exceeding the seating capacity by 324.

In fact, the paid attendance fell short of Fenway’s seating capacity in all three games this week against the A’s, according to official box scores. Yet thanks to the distribution formula, the streak that began May 15, 2003 endures.

Kennedy said the Sox do not give away tickets to keep the streak alive. He said the team generally gives away far fewer tickets than other major league team because of Fenway’s small size and the high demand for tickets.

He said the average paid attendance last year was 37,714, which exceeds the seating capacity, and includes standing room.

Using their own definition of a sellout, the Sox are closing in on the longest sellout streak in the history of US major league sports - 814 by the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers from 1977 to 1995. The Red Sox are on track to break Portland’s record early next season, despite nights like Wednesday when the temperature was 47 degrees, the climate clammy, and the opposition the weak-hitting A’s.

Ron Bumgarner, senior vice president of ticketing for the Sox, said it is only nights like those in April and May when “my ulcers flare up’’ over the possibility of the streak ending. He defended the team’s definition of a sellout, saying the Sox need to hold back complimentary seats to accommodate families of teams, players, and umpires, among others.

“No team can ever sell every single seat to every game,’’ Bumgarner said.

Demand for tickets to Wednesday’s game was so weak that good seats were easy to purchase on the team’s official online sales site, http://www.redsox.com. Various blocks of 10 adjoining seats - the most a customer can purchase in a single transaction - were available on the site until the Sox ended online sales 2 1/2 hours before the game.

At Fenway, a Globe correspondent was assigned to buy the last tickets sold for the game and determine whether additional tickets remained available. He began at the general ticket office on Yawkey Way as the game started at 7:10 p.m. There, he was directed to Gate E on Lansdowne Street, where the Sox make several hundred tickets available on the day of each game.

The correspondent said he wanted to buy as many as six tickets but needed to wait until the last minute to see how many of his friends would arrive. He was the last person to consult the clerk at Gate E before it closed and was told there would still be tickets available at Gate A, which would remain open until the seventh or eighth inning.

At Gate A, he was told sales would end at 9 p.m. At that time, he asked for a pair of tickets and was given adjacent seats in the infield grandstand section 15, row 13. He tried repeatedly to pay, but was told to take the tickets for free.

“We try to take care of our loyal customers,’’ Bumgarner said.

The correspondent saw the window clerk give away four more tickets moments after he received his. He then checked with the clerk just before the booth closed at 9:35 p.m. and was told that tickets remained unsold.

Overall, Sox tickets remain among the hottest in baseball. Despite the team’s embarrassing collapse last September, the Sox entered the 2012 season having already sold more than 2.7 million tickets, putting them on track to exceed 3 million for the fifth straight season. They have sold 22,158 season tickets, with a waiting list of 8,500.

Yet interest in single game tickets has lagged, which has been evident in the resale market. Jim Holzman, president of Ace Ticket, said he lost about $10,000 on tickets he had bought and was unable to sell for Wednesday’s game, not including about 100 tickets he gave to charities.

"Right now, I’m losing money’’ on Sox tickets, Holzman said. "That’s the way it goes. It’s just part of the business. It turns out to be a wonderful time for someone to buy Red Sox tickets below face value.’’

Contrary to popular opinion, Holzman said, Ace Ticket plays no direct role in advancing the Sox sellout streak. He said the company, a Sox sponsor, would never buy tickets the team cannot sell on game days.

“That would be insane,’’ he said. “How long would I be in business if I was losing millions of dollars buying seats I couldn’t sell?’’

Mike Janes, general manager of Fansnap.com, which aggregates online tickets from multiple sources, said the average resale price for a Sox ticket this year is $127, down slightly from the last three years. He said the average price of resale tickets for the A’s series at Fenway dropped to $91, but noted that the most inexpensive seats in the bleachers and outfield grandstands have been selling this season for much less than face value in some cases.

But the Sox sellout streak - or distribution streak - appears safe for now.

[ibot2much]

Loved the quote "No team can ever sell every seat to every game." Isn't that what we were led to believe was happening for xxx games??

[SoxFanForsyth]

Why don't we start a thread called "Sellout Streak a Hoax?" or something like that rather than using the GT for this discussion. It's going to be more than a 1 day topic, so it needs its own thread.

 

About the game - I have a feeling Gonzo is going to bust out of his slump this series and do some major, major damage. After that epic fail against the A's, he's the kind of guy who is going to figure it out. Keep an eye out on him tonight and the whole series.

[FredLynn]

Why don't we start a thread called "Sellout Streak a Hoax?" or something like that rather than using the GT for this discussion. It's going to be more than a 1 day topic, so it needs its own thread.

 

About the game - I have a feeling Gonzo is going to bust out of his slump this series and do some major, major damage. After that epic fail against the A's, he's the kind of guy who is going to figure it out. Keep an eye out on him tonight and the whole series.

 

Good idea.

[Bloodsox0]

First post here, going to watch back and forth with the Celts but have no confidence.

 

We had a chance to get out of last and blew it to a soft hitting A's team, as usual these last few years, but 1.5 back of 4th? Here is to hoping we score 8+ runs or another big home skid is coming.

[boston22407]

GO Redsox! Win!

[kapsis21]

http://thesixteenthminute.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/lester.jpg

Bring it on!!