July 2nd @ Oakland

[NativeBostonian]

Apparently I dozed off and missed a couple innings. Doesn't look like I missed anything.

[jung]

Well, the consensus seems to be that Jeter is not a fine defensive SS and which team is leading the division again.

 

The Yanks have way better Starting Pitching than the Sox have. If we had better starting pitching we could more easily get away with a defensive liability at SS. We don't have better Starting Pitching...we have what we have....and don't make the mistake that the Yanks don't see this coming...they are stocking up on Starting Pitching like crazy even in that bandbox of a baseball park that they play in and everybody is jamming SS's into the farm systems like nuts and with very good reason. As usual, we might be a little late to the party although we are now doing the same.

 

By the way, don't expect anybody that works in baseball to acknowledge what is going on and its link to the end of the steroid era. There is to much uncertainty about whether people are actually going to like the baseball they are going to be seeing and nobody wants to really talk about how much those big power number years were fueled by Steroids.

[RedSoxNC84]

Apparently I dozed off and missed a couple innings. Doesn't look like I missed anything.

 

I'm just glad I didn't actually watch this game, I would be f***ing pissed.

[redsoxbeatz]

Josh "Crystal Meth" Reddick

 

Lol!

breaking bad + money ball

[NativeBostonian]

I'm just glad I didn't actually watch this game' date=' I would be f***ing pissed.[/quote']

 

I'm beyond infuriated.

[SCM33]

The Yanks have way better Starting Pitching than the Sox have. If we had better starting pitching we could more easily get away with a defensive liability at SS. We don't have better Starting Pitching...we have what we have....and don't make the mistake that the Yanks don't see this coming...they are stocking up on Starting Pitching like crazy even in that bandbox of a baseball park that they play in and everybody is jamming SS's into the farm systems like nuts and with very good reason. As usual, we might be a little late to the party although we are now doing the same.

 

By the way, don't expect anybody that works in baseball to acknowledge what is going on and its link to the end of the steroid era. There is to much uncertainty about whether people are actually going to like the baseball they are going to be seeing and nobody wants to really talk about how much those big power number years were fueled by Steroids.

 

Jeter is not a liability. He is not Jose Offerman kicking and bobbling every ball hit his way and committing 42 errors a season.....he makes the routine plays. The thing gives Jeter such a bad reputation is that he has the range of a gravestone.

[NativeBostonian]

Lol!

breaking bad + money ball

 

Breaking bad is a good show.

[jung]

Although if I had a baby boy that I wanted to have ML baseball aspirations I would not bring him up as a SS, you guys are going to have SS's coming out of your ears in the next few years as baseball retools for the game it has post Steroids....if I had a young son and I had aspirations for ML baseball for him, I would teach him to crouch before I taught him to walk....would probably give him a pacifier attached to a catchers mask too!:D

[RedSoxNC84]

Correcting for the fact that the A's cannot hit much' date=' they will score four runs against him. In five or fewer innings.[/quote']

 

That was one hell of a prediction

[jung]

Jeter is not Jose Offerman but he is no longer the SS he used to be because of his range and if you were to fast forward about 5 years from now the SS play you are seeing from Jeter today would be considered less than average when you consider what you could have out there patrolling SS. However you are correct in that at least Jeter makes all the plays that are right in front of him...Aviles does not.

[NativeBostonian]

I don't know Rem dog is putting me to sleep or the lack of offense.

[kapsis21]

Wow another pathetic no showing this time from offense and dicek. Has any pitcher in MLB this year gotten taken out after just 1 inning. This is ridiculous.

f***ing come back and win this game....

[jung]

Well this game totally sucked.....1-1 for July guess what! .500....what a shock

 

I will say this....at no time that I can remember will it be so obvious what your Sox Management thinks of its chances this year....no more arms for the rotation...save yourself the angst...they are....another arm for the rotation....keep the faith and keep the home fires burnin'

[NC Sox Fan]

The offense sucked as bad as Matsuzaka

 

Own it

[jung]

This offense is simply not designed to play in this kind of park....the whole team is a fail in this kind of park. They are simply not a very well rounded baseball team and are really only talented in particular areas. Those are not well suited to this kind of park. Also it is much harder to adapt your game to this kind of park....I have long ago given up on this team being adept enough to make those kinds of adjustments anyway....it really only knows one way to play.

[Station 13]

Typical west coast trip game.

[jung]

I am so sick of the NESN boys and their ********. Here we go again....Oh yea....this A's staff is a very very good pitching staff...Mariners...Oh yea....this M's staff is a very very good pitching staff. They really are not that great. They are good to very good...they look terrific next to our stiffs but then again most everybody does.

[SemperFi Sox]

This team is so f***ing frustrating. They should be killing these teams.

[Station 13]

I am so sick of the NESN boys and their ********. Here we go again....Oh yea....this A's staff is a very very good pitching staff...Mariners...Oh yea....this M's staff is a very very good pitching staff. They really are not that great. They are good to very good...they look terrific next to our stiffs but then again most everybody does.

 

Rice is so bad at NESN. I stopped watching the pre and post games a while now.

[BossSox]

I just got back from the game. Disappointed in Dice-K.

[jung]

You know I am not at all blaming tonight's disaster on V..not at all...but I don't wonder if V talked to dice and put it into his head that this was a big moment for dice, for the team etc...not going overboard but simply making the point much like we have seen V do already with other players and especially other pitchers this year in an effort to motivate...I wonder if what we really saw was dice's reaction to that...in the sense that this was a complete collapse....he was tossing the ball up there at the end and the end was what....about a half hour from the beginning????? That was as complete a collapse by a pitcher as I have seen since.....since....Bard in his last start with the Sox only really worse when you consider that one of us might have been able to throw as well as dice was throwing at the end.

 

At the same time think about how many collapses...total caves there has been out of this rotation this year. to be honest, a staggering number when considering total caves. Virtually every starter that has made the bulk of his scheduled starts has had at least one complete and utter white flag surrender game. While at this board we like to simply toss those aside as some sort of anomaly like our method of judging these guys is to toss out the high and the low (and always be wary of that Russian judge, the one that only gives high marks to the Russian ice dancers) when you see that many complete surrenders, you start to wonder what the hell is going on with these guys.

 

Maybe it is a heartless, gutless group overly influenced by a guy that maybe just does not want to be here anymore, does not want to lead, and rejects anything that smells like leadership of this group (Beckett) and another guy that just carries this black cloud around with him wherever he goes and insists on staying with the team even when he can't pitch, insisting on influencing these guys even though there is nothing about his attitude about pitching that we would like any of these guys to emulate (Lackey).

 

While on the one hand I could easily be accused of reading to much into this start, it is really the number of truly ugly starts that we have had that I am thinking about, this now being one of to many in my view.

 

For one thing do we really get the sense that there is a staff mentality at all, meaning a feeling of union, collective responsibility, a collective pride if you will, a desire to pitch well because it puts another good outing in the bank for the staff as a whole, as well as putting one in the bank for the pitcher as an individual? I don't get a sense that there is any of that at all going on with these guys which in fact would be one aspect of there being no true staff leadership of any kind.

 

Lester, a guy we rightfully thought of as tough as nails now looks like Lackey Jr without the pending TJ.

 

Do you ever get the feeling like a Sox pitcher struggling out there on the mound feels any support from his mates or does he look like a guy that is out there on his own, completely isolated with nobody in that dugout or in that bullpen that is in anything but in his own little world, completely disassociated from that guy out there drowning on the mound.

[User Name]

I am so sick of the NESN boys and their ********. Here we go again....Oh yea....this A's staff is a very very good pitching staff...Mariners...Oh yea....this M's staff is a very very good pitching staff. They really are not that great. They are good to very good...they look terrific next to our stiffs but then again most everybody does.

 

You do know Parker is the first pitcher since 1918 to allow 1 run or less in 10 of his first 14 starts? Sorry, but the NESN guys were right on that one....kid's pretty good.

[SemperFi Sox]

f*** Dice-K, biggest waste of 100 mil ever. He doesn't know how to paint anymore, everything is right down the middle with no movement. When he does try and paint the outside he walks everyone.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Tough loss last night. I actually hit the sack after the 3rd inning, hoping to wake up to better news. No such luck. Looks like this offense is as impotent as ever.

 

But, it's Lester vs Colon tonight, and likely Cook vs Griffin tomorrow. I like our chances in those two match ups.

 

The Yanks lost and the O's lost yesterday, so we didn't lose any ground. Still 0.5 back in the WC, 6.5 back in the East. Gather your pride, pick yourself up, and go out and win the next two.

 

You can't continue to sit back and watch the Yankees and Orioles lose, and not pick up ground when you're playing the Mariners and A's.

[jacksonianmarch]

Once Nava went cold, the offense went in the shitter. It was bound to happen, he wasnt going to dominate the bigs for the whole yr. You have had plenty of guys playing over their heads to offset the s*** that had been AdGon, Youk (prior), and to a large extent Pedroia this season while also compensating for the losses of Crawford and Ellsbury. They have almost gotten you to the finish line where the 2 big guys are back. But once they do come back, you really cannot expect a guy like Ross to be on pace for nearly 40 homers (if he was healthy) and hit to a .900+OPS. You cannot expect Nava to continue his .400+OBP. You cannot expect Aviles to continue on to 90RBI. It was bound to happen, it just happened on the west coast.

[SemperFi Sox]

Ellsford almost back, can't wait.

[jung]

Sure Parker is pretty good...but the Sox are not adapting well to this style of play, and would not be matching up will with any number of teams with better starting pitching than the Sox have. Parker is the best of the A's starters and Felix is without doubt the best of the M's starters....but we are 2-3 on this trip so far...not 3-2 and would have lost this game to any number of pitchers not named Parker cause the guy we put out there melted away in about 30 minutes.

 

Remy's comment implied that this is all a matter of running into "outstanding" pitching across staffs and the Sox are losing games on a number of game elements, not one. Our starting pitching for one has not in several days now done a good job of controlling some pretty lousy offenses and our defense has been what you would expect given the players we have in key defensive positions.....a disappointment. Our situational hitting has been what it has been for the bulk of the season as well....another disappointment.

[User Name]

Not "pretty" good. He's been historically good. They got dominated on a stadium where their offense usually struggle anyway.

[kapsis21]

Sure Parker is pretty good...but the Sox are not adapting well to this style of play, and would not be matching up will with any number of teams with better starting pitching than the Sox have. Parker is the best of the A's starters and Felix is without doubt the best of the M's starters....but we are 2-3 on this trip so far...not 3-2 and would have lost this game to any number of pitchers not named Parker cause the guy we put out there melted away in about 30 minutes.

 

Remy's comment implied that this is all a matter of running into "outstanding" pitching across staffs and the Sox are losing games on a number of game elements, not one. Our starting pitching for one has not in several days now done a good job of controlling some pretty lousy offenses and our defense has been what you would expect given the players we have in key defensive positions.....a disappointment. Our situational hitting has been what it has been for the bulk of the season as well....another disappointment.

 

i blame the Mariners game where we had Salty on and nobody out with runners on 1st and 2nd.. in extra innings. you move the runners over, not swing for the fences. that was in my mind the biggest mistake BV made.

all we needed was 1 run, more would have been nice, but he is not adapting..

as far as Parker, he has been good, and has a park that keeps the ball in more often that not. and i am afraid Cespedes is going to raunch all over Lester tonight.

[FredLynn]

Wow another pathetic no showing this time from offense and dicek. Has any pitcher in MLB this year gotten taken out after just 1 inning. This is ridiculous.

f***ing come back and win this game....

 

I would imagine that its pretty demoralizing to the batters to see their SP go out and surrender four runs after just 28 pitches, throwing meatballs up there for all 28, while they know that they will have a huge battle on their hands against a quality SP. Gotta get rid of DiceK. Lose any more ground to the Yankees and we should just clean house by the deadline.