8/5 vs the Twin Cities

[Thunder]

Let's try my mojo today and aim for a win. I wouldn't blame people who watched the Olympics over the Sox today, but let's see of they can find a way to win this one.

 

Blackburn (4-6, 7.43) vs Morales (2-2, 3.32)

 

Day game today at Fenway.

Sox are 5 games out of wild card, A's, Angels, and Tigers all tied for lead.

[SoxSport]

If you watched the mens 10000 m Olympic race yesterday, you were seeing how teamwork is essential to winning. The African runners know that. The great trainer Alberto Salazar had his two runners, Farah of GB and Rupp of the US, who train together, run the race as a team.The result is they came in 1-2, beating the Ethiopians and the Kenyans.

 

I've said before the Africans win the Boston Marathon every year by running as a team--while everybody else runs as individuals. Salazar's methods in the Olympics will change that--he showed how to beat the Africans.

 

The lesson should not be lost on the Red Sox--who have lost the team concept.

[SemperFi Sox]

Ellsbury CF

Crawford LF

Pedroia 2B

Gonzalez 1B

Ross DH

Saltalamacchia C

Middlebrooks 3B

Kalish RF

Aviles SS

[Station 13]

Ellsbury CF

Crawford LF

Pedroia 2B

Gonzalez 1B

Ross DH

Saltalamacchia C

Middlebrooks 3B

Kalish RF

Aviles SS

 

http://oi48.tinypic.com/adorok.jpg

[Thunder]

Put Ross in RF and have Lavarnway or Ciriaco DH, you idiot Bobby V.

[jung]

Vermont day at Fenway....Poor Vermont....The State should have declined embarrassed to be associated with this bunch of losers.

[Station 13]

25 pitches for Morales. Red Sox responds now going down 1-2-3 under 10 pitches.

[Thunder]

Terrible first. Somehow they got out of it.

[Brennan]

I don't know. Maybe I was just over pumped from the 2 wins against the yank offs. All I hope for now is for Henry to sell the team.

[Station 13]

s*** ABs from Pedroia and Gonzalez. Flip the two already. Gonzalez is the better hitter. and Pedroia has done modestly at clean up.

[sleepyhollow]

Brennan, you have mail

[jung]

They have come out and done the same thing game in and game out day in and day out...does not matter who they are playing where....so why should that change now.

 

When they win it is because they get a combination of pitching and their offense by accident that combines for more runs in 9 innings than their opponents...that is it....there is no better plan in games they win than in games they lose.

 

Small ball is a tactic within a larger plan. Everybody should be able to play small ball to some extent. The Sox don't have an overarching plan....never mind an ability to execute a tactic within one. I am sure V had an idea what he wanted to do....at this point IMO, he has just been ignored in that regard just like he has been ignored everywhere else. They have done this to themselves. These are ALL self inflicted wounds.

 

I would wish a pox on Sox house were it not for the fact that they are already plagued and as a group, may never recover. This bunch will have to be disassembled just for the team to be a team again and in some cases for some of these players to even continue a meaningful career.

 

Today I suspect we will see them run up to the plate, take three quick swings and run back to the dugout as fast as their little legs will carry them....with little exception.

[a700hitter]

We acquired Danny Valencia? Why?

[SoxSport]

The tweets are saying the Dodgers wanted AdGon for nothing, and were turned down. They are on a buying spree, hunting for salary dumps.

[Thunder]

We acquired Danny Valencia? Why?

 

I saw him play a few years back at Double A New Britian, my hometown club, and he was a great young player then. He's regressed now.

[jung]

Coming out this flat is really telling....they have nothing left....while some of us have claimed the season has been more or less over for a long time now....to be honest I think a few of us have just wanted to just not pile on....we already had pumps to do that for us. So at least in my case I had no need to go that far with pumps way out there carrying my forum water for me.

 

We can say that we saw the games when it truly did completely end....these four with the Twins. We won't need any count down to tell us when the season is over.

 

Hopefully I can get some cheap tickets to take my kid to see Fenway for the first time. Unfortunately there is no way to pick a game or series I think they might win at this point.

[SoxSport]

small ball is simply team play. getting the leadoff walk, sacrificing, sometimes stealing a base when needed, hitting to the opposite field. becoming a part of the whole. generating runs as a group, not as individuals.

[SoxSport]

25 pitches for Morales. Red Sox responds now going down 1-2-3 under 10 pitches.

 

stick a fork in those guys. they can't wait to get back into the dugout.

[Thunder]

Here we go, 2 on nobody out for Crawford who is hot.

[a700hitter]

The tweets are saying the Dodgers wanted AdGon for nothing' date=' and were turned down. They are on a buying spree, hunting for salary dumps.[/quote']Sox should have let him go.

[Thunder]

Sox should have let him go.

 

Yeah, trade for Matt Kemp.

[Thunder]

RBI groundout, of course.

[jung]

Small ball is really generating runs without the help of mashing....it is scoring without the benefit of power in the form of extra base hits or without benefit even of base hits designed with moving the runners that are on along.

 

Your main tactic CAN be if you choose, getting two guys on and hitting a HR. That is a tactic. The O's never had much speed in the glory years...were able to move runners along if they had to. But they generated an absolute boatload of walks and just never let you of the hook with runners on base. That's OK....that's a plan.

 

I would never recommend that the Sox adopt small ball as a plan. They have a ballpark that would not favor that sort of plan. As we have plainly seen, the idea that you can use two speed guys at the top of your Fenway lineup effectively is a joke. The Sox were never going to be able to implement successfully by utilizing those guys to steal though it would have been nice to see more opportunities to go from 1st to 3rd and from 1st home. They should however be able to play small ball a little and they can't at all.

 

However they never have eveb had a Fenway plan this year. They have simply had a procession of hitters coming from the dugout through the on deck circle to the batters box and for the most part to often back again without any semblance of a coordinated effort to score runs. That did not have to be small ball in all cases but it had to be something other than I am up here at the plate....I am taking my hacks as I see fit....come what may. That is for most of them, what they have done....they will often try to pull balls they can't pull and will try to pull when it is the wrong thing to do based on what the team needs.

 

Earlier this year Agons was insistent that he would go to left regardless of whether or not that is what the team needed. Never even protected the inner third in that stretch.

 

Just way to much independent thinking and activity and baseball whether it is in the pitching ala Ace last night and other pitchers on the staff on several occasions this year or any number of hitters in the lineup.

[Thunder]

Hey guys, want to ditch the game and watch Holley Mangold, Nick Mangold's sister, lift weights at the Olympics?

 

Sox are actually playing good today, nevermind.

[Thunder]

In the Rangers series, the Sox see Yu Darvish and Ryan Dempster the first two games.

[SoxSport]

Sox should have let him go.

 

yeah, after all, they got Youkilis to play 1B.

[SoxSport]

women's bikini beach volleyball is getting a big TV play in the Olympics. wonder why.

 

what you call a leisure sport.

[Station 13]

The worst starting staff in baseball has been holding the Red Sox to a couple of runs.

[Thunder]

The worst starting staff in baseball has been holding the Red Sox to a couple of runs.

 

2nd worst starting staff has held the Twins to 1 run.

[Thunder]

women's bikini beach volleyball is getting a big TV play in the Olympics. wonder why.

 

what you call a leisure sport.

 

The US team is one of the few who don't have any other covering except at night.