Why can't Red Sox aces get through an inning ?

[jung]

So do you mean go to a four man rotation of Beckett, Cook Felix and Frank or are you suggesting that the Sox will definitely grab another starter before the deadline to round out to five guys?

[Palodios]

Probably referring to Buchholz as #5.

[a700hitter]

Probably referring to Buchholz as #5.

How much longer do they stick with Lester before they pull him from the rotation. The Sox are 7-12 in his starts. That is just unacceptable. He is getting worse. He's becoming a reverse stopper. He is stopping winning streaks.

[Palodios]

How much longer do they stick with Lester before they pull him from the rotation. The Sox are 7-12 in his starts. That is just unacceptable. He is getting worse. He's becoming a reverse stopper. He is stopping winning streaks.

 

He had a rough game against Chicago, but I don't think he's done anything that is bad enough to pull him. It isn't like he's getting light up-- his starts are usually around 6 innings with 3-4 runs. Definitely mediocre, but they can't give up on him.

[jung]

I am sure you are right Palodios. I took "go with" to literally I think so I thought maybe the idea included dispatching Buch and just missed seeing it in some previous post. Buch has improved so much that I thought maybe some might be offering that we should try to sell him or something like that. There are so many ideas being tossed about lately that I am never sure if folks want to trade somebody.

[SCM33]

The Red Sox's record with Shoppach catching 18-10, 3.80 ERA.

The Red Sox's record with Salty catching 27-37, 4.33 ERA.

 

I think it is a nobrainer. Salty is killing this team.

 

Similar splits last year for Varitek as well I believe. Hes awful......hes come crashing back to earth pretty hard after an impressive flukey first half.

 

Numbers don't lie. He is what he is, and the team does better when he is not on the field.

[jung]

I for one am not excusing the two guys who were supposed to be the top starters for this team for pitching like s***. In my view, one of them does not give a s*** and the other simply cannot find his way out of the abyss. Granted Lester does not appear to be getting much help but he is clearly struggling. The guy is supposed to be a top line pitcher and his mechanics were so fouled up Tuesday night against the WS that he could not even find the outer half of the plate...he could not even manage to look like he was throwing for the outer half even though he was.

 

But Salty does not even do the most rudimentary things you would expect a catcher to do to help his pitcher succeed. He just does not. The result is just sitting there in the numbers.

 

I don't want to try to estimate the number of games Salty may have cost the Sox because he is such a terrible handler of pitchers and a terrible receiver to boot but I would bet the farm that the number is not zero and it is likely not insignificant either. The guy is intimately involved in every pitch thrown in games that he catches.

 

Sox need to do something else but it is galling as hell to think that Salty may just be the straw breaking the camel's back, a burden that stretches across every pitcher on the staff and that may just be more than they can stand.

[wyo-sox]

What are the things Salty should be doing for his pitchers that he is not doing? Is he doing them for Dubront, Cook, and Morales?

 

And is it any way fair to compare wins / losses against Shop when they haven't played nearly the same number of games. To me when the sample size is that different, the numbers can be pretty misleading.

[jung]

Salty is probably not doing any better by the other pitchers he catches. They just don't have past ML records as starters to compare with other catchers. As 700 suggested, you can look at Salty last year vs Tek with the same pitchers and Salty this year vs Shop with the same pitchers and the same trend exists. That is not a small sample size.

 

For one thing Salty gives his pitchers terrible targets as I have already said several times and that is something you just cannot mitigate as a pitcher. I cannot tell if Salty is indecisive and ends up giving poor targets because of it or if there is some mechanical issue that he cannot get past but his targets are terrible. I cannot comment on how he is calling the game because I am not peering in to see what he is calling and how often the pitcher is shaking him off. I have just not taken the time to pay attention to that. But the targets he gives are something easy to see.

[iortiz]

So do you mean go to a four man rotation of Beckett' date=' Cook Felix and Frank or are you suggesting that the Sox will definitely grab another starter before the deadline to round out to five guys?[/quote']

 

At this point Jung, those are our best pitchers, and I would add Buch as well.

 

Want the names or the performance?

 

Send Lester to AAA with Bard or simply give him time off until he puts his s*** together or until Douby reaches his max IP planned for this season.

 

Not going to happen, though.

[a700hitter]

I don't think Salty's performance behind the plate is a small sample size. He has been the primary catcher for 2 seasons. He continues to be one of the worst catchers in passed balls and erroneous throws and he doesn't have Wakefield as an excuse any longer.

 

As for Lester, I'd give him 3 more starts to straighten himself out with Shop catching him. If he continues to be terrible, he has to be pulled from the rotation and sent to the pen to work things out.

[SoxSport]

How much longer do they stick with Lester before they pull him from the rotation. The Sox are 7-12 in his starts. That is just unacceptable. He is getting worse. He's becoming a reverse stopper. He is stopping winning streaks.

 

Putting him in the bullpen for awhile to work out his problems would seem like the logical thing to do, but logic doesn't seem to be a strong suit for the front office. They are probably still trying to digest the Marlins' surprise offer for CC. That one may be too big for them to handle.

[SoxSport]

Those W-L stats with Salty vs Shop and Tek are eye-catching. A good reason to get Lav into the mix as soon as possible. The kid is tearing up AAA and would be a perfect substitute for Papi at DH for a few games. But once again, the FO is sitting on their heels, as they did with Iglesias.

[wyo-sox]

Similar splits last year for Varitek as well I believe. Hes awful......hes come crashing back to earth pretty hard after an impressive flukey first half.

 

Numbers don't lie. He is what he is, and the team does better when he is not on the field.

 

I'm sure the splits last year had nothing to do with the fact Salty was catching a washed up knuckle baller, John Lackey, and Dice K / while Tek almost exclusively only caught Beckett who had a great year.

 

Baseball wins almost never seem to be about one thing. You guys on here seem so much smarter then me about baseball, I'm really surprised you make the leap that over the last season and a half we were just a catcher away from not loosing any games. Because you are attributing every loss when Salty plays to Salty..... come on you guys know better then that.

 

I'm not saying Salty is great, but he should not be used as a scape goat for every loss he plays in or an excuse for bad pitching. If every pitcher pitched horrible to him maybe a point could be drawn, but we have seen some starters and a bunch of relievers pitch damn well to him.

[RedSoxNC84]

He could rake in the NL Central I bet. Give him to the Pirates get us Cole + some.

 

The Pirates probably wouldn't want to give us anything better than Bedard..