5/9 @ Yanks

[moonslav59]

if I'm Swihart I'd demand a trade

 

Yes, 29 teams are just salivating in wait.

[SoxHop]

There is history of this for every relief pitcher ever. Let's use common sense.

 

Really? Ok, then. Common sense says Kimbrell is as good or better as other pitchers coming in in innings with men on base. Case solved. Remy and OB..... use common sense next time will ya

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Love jayson tatum. Thank you lakers for taking lonzo ball lmao

 

You mean thank you Sixers for giving us an extra lottery pick so they could take Markelle Fultz. Who didn't play once in this series, by the way.

[jacksonianmarch]

Yanks saw your 17-2 and raised you one at 17-1. They’re a dangerous and deep club. I’m shocked they made up 7.5 games in such a hurry.

[harmony]

You think So???? He's a hellllll of a lot better than the s*** we have playing now .

ZiPS, Steamer and FanGraphs Depth Charts project Blake Swihart with rest-of-season WAR of a negative 0.7, a negative 0.1 and a negative 0.2 in 60, 18 and 17 games, respectively.

 

ZiPS, Steamer and FanGraphs Depth Charts project Christian Vazquez with rest-of-season WAR of 0.5, 0.8 and 0.7 in 77, 78 and 84 games, respectively.

 

ZiPS, Steamer and FanGraphs Depth Charts project Sandy Leon with rest-of-season WAR of 0.6, 0.2 and 0.3 in 66, 33 and 33 games, respectively.

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=13176&position=C

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=9774&position=C

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=5273&position=C

Edited May 10, 2018 by harmony

[Station 13]

Swihart is never catching beside a blowout game, an emergency, Cora f***ed up the lineup card.

[MADSTORK]

GM 1 Vintage Hembree

 

GM2 Vintage Barnes

 

GM 3 Vintage Kelly

 

8 9 last 17 Thanks Dave

[Maxbialystock]

Why are you posting on TalkSox instead of making money hand over fist with your incredible ability to see inside people's brains? I mean, that's the only explanation for your otherwise ridiculous assertion that Kimbrel is "scared" to throw a curveball. I think the more likely explanation is that no pitcher is going to be lights-out every single time, and Kimbrel's bad day happened to come against the top lineup in baseball. Clearly, the only solution is to get a new closer from the hundreds of top-shelf options available right now. Hey, maybe Alex Cora can pull the next Mariano Rivera out of the same interdimensional pocket that he'll get a new catcher from!

 

Meh. I'm not clairvoyant, but I'm pretty sure I'm right that Kimbrel is not, repeat, not effective when he only throws the fastball. It's the combination of the knuckle curve and the fastball that makes him so good. When he finally did use it tonight, he got strikes and got two outs. How can you be so sure throwing seven straight fastballs wasn't what led to the triple, which was in fact the game winning hit?

 

The Yankees lineup is not superhuman. Last night Pom, who has struggled, gave up 2 runs in 6 innings. The Yankees got their third run because Hembree wet his pants out there with 2 walks and a balk. Maybe Hembree believes what you do--that the Yankees are superhuman.

 

Tonight Johnson and Smith got five outs without giving up any runs. Barnes gave up the double because he went to his fastball when his curve was working great. Then the walk, then Kimbrel with his 7 straight fastballs.

 

This was going to be a tough series, no question. But our bullpen just made it so easy for the Yankees in the first two games.

 

You could also be right about the off night, but to me it is no accident that he yields a triple in a key spot when he throws 7 straight fastballs. He eventually did use his knuckle curve and got guys out.

[jung]

I think Gardner was very confident he was going to get another FB at that point. He hit that thing really pure. But I am not really disappointed in Kimbrel. He is what he is. He had a good year coming into games earlier than the 9th last year and so far not so much this year. The real problem is that Cora has no real options.

 

Pen arms are not often the most reliable guys on your team. But these guys are setting new marks for Halloween performances, one night OK, the next time out ghoulish! Again the league is so weak that the Sox can likely get away with that during the regular season. But this pen is not going to fly IMO when they have to come up big and I see little shot of actually competing with the MF Yanks for the division like this. Fortunately we don't have to win the division to get to the post season. Dealin' Dave needs to be working on this pen though IMO. Cora has no idea what he has night to night and I really can't put that on him.

[Meh]

Dealin' Dave needs to be working on this pen though IMO.

 

Dude you got Kimbrel, Smith (who is a really good RP), Barnes who has been solid, and Kelly with thornberg coming back. You got a good bullpen. Just need a good lefty and you're set there. You need to go out and get a SP. Dangle Benintendi or Devers out there and try to get a pitcher.

[Sox75]

Marcus smart is such an *******

 

btw Marcus Smart won the game down that stretch. The follow put in, then the AMAZING D, where he takes a HUGE charge, it's not called, C's get the ball when Smart is leveled & it bounces away, the C's go ahead by THE CRITICAL 2.

 

The most important 4 pt swing, all because of Smart.

[illinoisredsox]

Yanks saw your 17-2 and raised you one at 17-1. They’re a dangerous and deep club. I’m shocked they made up 7.5 games in such a hurry.

 

Actually, thr Sox lost opening day, so they also put yogether a 17-1 stretch. It’s how they got 7 1/2 up so quickly to begin with.

Edited May 10, 2018 by illinoisredsox

[Sox75]

Yes. Vaz & Sandy SUCK right now, but I have ZERO faith in Swi!

 

As someone put it, he's the 3rd best option at any position you could think of.

 

I'm not convinced he'd out hit Vaz over a full season.

[jung]

Dude you got Kimbrel, Smith (who is a really good RP), Barnes who has been solid, and Kelly with thornberg coming back. You got a good bullpen. Just need a good lefty and you're set there. You need to go out and get a SP. Dangle Benintendi or Devers out there and try to get a pitcher.

 

The pen was a known issue before the season started and I don't see anything that suggests it is not an issue today. That would have been enough of a pen the way they played baseball about 10 years ago. But it will likely get them through the regular season because the league is terrible this year. Past that, dealin' dave better be lookin'

[Youk Of The Nation]

Meh. I'm not clairvoyant, but I'm pretty sure I'm right that Kimbrel is not, repeat, not effective when he only throws the fastball. It's the combination of the knuckle curve and the fastball that makes him so good. When he finally did use it tonight, he got strikes and got two outs. How can you be so sure throwing seven straight fastballs wasn't what led to the triple, which was in fact the game winning hit?

 

The Yankees lineup is not superhuman. Last night Pom, who has struggled, gave up 2 runs in 6 innings. The Yankees got their third run because Hembree wet his pants out there with 2 walks and a balk. Maybe Hembree believes what you do--that the Yankees are superhuman.

 

Tonight Johnson and Smith got five outs without giving up any runs. Barnes gave up the double because he went to his fastball when his curve was working great. Then the walk, then Kimbrel with his 7 straight fastballs.

 

This was going to be a tough series, no question. But our bullpen just made it so easy for the Yankees in the first two games.

 

You could also be right about the off night, but to me it is no accident that he yields a triple in a key spot when he throws 7 straight fastballs. He eventually did use his knuckle curve and got guys out.

 

First of all, you can't see inside my mind either. I didn't say I thought the Yankees are superhuman. I didn't even come close to suggesting that, because that's ridiculous. I said they are the best lineup in the league right now, and they are.

 

Secondly, I never said I didn't agree that Kimbrel could have been slightly more effective on a night where he wasn't at the top of his game by throwing curveballs. I only said that you have zero justification for claiming that he was "scared" to throw it. Maybe he thought he would get better results by throwing all fastballs and was just wrong. He has a good fastball, just not tonight, it's not exactly out of the realm of possibility.

[a700hitter]

Should Beni have caught that?

I was sitting down the LF line and Beni froze on that ball. If he broke in right away, he catches that ball.

[a700hitter]

Cora exposed.

I woud have stayed with Carson Smith in the 8th. He was throwing strikes, and he had good stuff. It would have played well against the 2 Yankee rookies at the bottom of their order. Instead, Cora we to the pen in search of failure and he found it in Barnes. i don't want to hear that he needs to keep the arms fresh for the whole season, because he panicked and went right to Kimbrel for a 5 out save after he let Barnes blow up the game. The only arm out there that I would want to keep fresh is Kimbrel, and Cora didn't think twice about taxing his arm tonight.

[Oscars]

When you have a runner on 2nd and 3rd with no outs in the 8th and get nothing (2 punch outs ) that was an epic fail by the hitters

[Maxbialystock]

I was sitting down the LF line and Beni froze on that ball. If he broke in right away, he catches that ball.

 

I believe you.

[Maxbialystock]

First of all, you can't see inside my mind either. I didn't say I thought the Yankees are superhuman. I didn't even come close to suggesting that, because that's ridiculous. I said they are the best lineup in the league right now, and they are.

 

Secondly, I never said I didn't agree that Kimbrel could have been slightly more effective on a night where he wasn't at the top of his game by throwing curveballs. I only said that you have zero justification for claiming that he was "scared" to throw it. Maybe he thought he would get better results by throwing all fastballs and was just wrong. He has a good fastball, just not tonight, it's not exactly out of the realm of possibility.

 

True. I can't see inside your mind. Yes, the Yankees have the best lineup in MLB with 209 runs scored, but the Sox lineup is 2d with 200 runs scored, and all we do on talksox is complain about how bad our hitting is. Oh, and the Yankees are hot right now, and I agree that makes a difference.

 

Despite all of the above,however, the simple fact is that in this very big series--for early May--it is the Sox bullpen that has been horrible in two straight games and Kimbrel was horrible right along with the rest of the guys. And he was horrible because he relied on his fast ball against the first two batters, Gardner and Judge, who absolutely whaled on that fastball. He threw no knuckle curves in 7 pitches to Gardner and 1 in several pitches to Judge.

 

I was wrong to call Kimbrel scared because I am pretty sure all his pitches were called from the bench. Oldtimer says the knuckle curve was taken off the table against Gardner because there was a man on 3b and a WP would tie the game. So scared is the right word, but not as applied to Kimbrel. He was following orders.

 

I came into this series worried because I saw and see the Yankees as a freight train about to run us over. I was therefore delighted that the Sox were competitive in game one because Pomeranz rose to the occasion and in game two because the lineup, with Moreland hitting instead of JBJ, rose to the occasion. The team as a whole has played well.

 

But the bullpen has beyond question choked. Tuesday night Hembree walks two after getting 1-2 counts and throws in a balk for good measure. Kelly walked a guy after an 0-2 count. Last night Porcello was awful, but Johnson--surprise, surprise--got three good outs and Smith got us two more, so we went to the bottom of the 8th with a 6-5 lead.

 

The Barnes and Kimbrel give up 4 runs before they get their collective 2d out.

 

The Sox are a good team that was ready to compete in this series despite how hot the Yankees are. But the bullpen--and Porcello--let everyone else down, and kimbrel was right in there with the worst of them.

 

Funny thing is, Kimbrel was crushed twice throwing fastballs and got two quick K's once he brought out the knuckle curve.

[S5Dewey]

Yanks saw your 17-2 and raised you one at 17-1. They’re a dangerous and deep club. I’m shocked they made up 7.5 games in such a hurry.

 

Well, they did get some help with the Sox losing 7 games over that period to the A's, the Rays and the Jays.

 

I've thought for some time that those people who are saying that they're not afraid of the Yankees are doing what my mom used to call "Whistling past the Graveyard". The Yankees are a very good team, may be (?) more talented than our Sox.

 

However, IMHO they're not as good as they look right now just as the Sox aren't as good as they looked when they went 17-2. If they continue at this .900 clip they'll be heralded as the best team ever in baseball - but I don't see that happening.

[Bellhorn04]

The Yankees bullpen has actually blown some games during this hot stretch but each time the offense has bailed them out with a game-winning rally.

[Slasher9]

Well, he had to bring Kimbrel into the 8th at some point this season,

 

.

 

Actually, no he didn't.

[Slasher9]

There is history to his not acheiving coming into innings with batters on. I'm not sure if it true, myth, or lore. I recall not seeing super success. I'd love to see the stats on it. OB and Remy brought it up right after and mentioned that it was questionable if he is only good for a clean ninth.

 

Kimbrell 8th inning tOPS+ = 128

9th inning tOPS+ = 96

 

he should not be used in the 8th inning. especially with men already on base.

[Slasher9]

Yanks saw your 17-2 and raised you one at 17-1. They’re a dangerous and deep club. I’m shocked they made up 7.5 games in such a hurry.

 

thanks for your input!

[Slasher9]

Meh. I'm not clairvoyant, but I'm pretty sure I'm right that Kimbrel is not, repeat, not effective when he only throws the fastball. It's the combination of the knuckle curve and the fastball that makes him so good. When he finally did use it tonight, he got strikes and got two outs. How can you be so sure throwing seven straight fastballs wasn't what led to the triple, which was in fact the game winning hit?

 

The Yankees lineup is not superhuman. Last night Pom, who has struggled, gave up 2 runs in 6 innings. The Yankees got their third run because Hembree wet his pants out there with 2 walks and a balk. Maybe Hembree believes what you do--that the Yankees are superhuman.

 

Tonight Johnson and Smith got five outs without giving up any runs. Barnes gave up the double because he went to his fastball when his curve was working great. Then the walk, then Kimbrel with his 7 straight fastballs.

 

This was going to be a tough series, no question. But our bullpen just made it so easy for the Yankees in the first two games.

 

You could also be right about the off night, but to me it is no accident that he yields a triple in a key spot when he throws 7 straight fastballs. He eventually did use his knuckle curve and got guys out.

 

meh. the fact that JBj was not in CF and mookie was playing right behind second base as if it were a mens league softball game with an extra fielder might have had something to do with that "triple". the fact that barnes was even used in yankee stadium or that kimbrell was used in a dirty 8th inning is also an issue. Cora is managing like a rookie. scared and clueless.

[Slasher9]

I woud have stayed with Carson Smith in the 8th. He was throwing strikes, and he had good stuff. It would have played well against the 2 Yankee rookies at the bottom of their order. Instead, Cora we to the pen in search of failure and he found it in Barnes. i don't want to hear that he needs to keep the arms fresh for the whole season, because he panicked and went right to Kimbrel for a 5 out save after he let Barnes blow up the game. The only arm out there that I would want to keep fresh is Kimbrel, and Cora didn't think twice about taxing his arm tonight.

 

great post.

[S5Dewey]

As painful as this is to admit there's a possibility that I may be wrong about something.

 

I've been an advocate of using your best reliever a/k/a Kimbrel in the toughest situations. As it turns out he appears to be more effective if he can start with a clean inning. When it comes to pitching, a "clean inning" is actually a luxury. In fact, at this moment I'd rather see Joe Kelly in the toughest situations and save Kimbrel for his "clean inning".

 

This does bring to bear the value of having a "True closer" vs. a "Fireman" though as it pertains to their worth to the team and therefore their salary. Is it possible that we (and everyone else in MLB) are overpaying for that closer when a "normal" BP arm can get those outs in the 9th inning and what's really necessary is the pitcher who has the kajones to come in earlier and get outs when the team is in trouble?

[Maxbialystock]

The Yankees bullpen has actually blown some games during this hot stretch but each time the offense has bailed them out with a game-winning rally.

 

Last night our lineup came back against reliever Green to get the 6-5 lead, only to have our bullpen blow another.

[Maxbialystock]

As painful as this is to admit there's a possibility that I may be wrong about something.

 

I've been an advocate of using your best reliever a/k/a Kimbrel in the toughest situations. As it turns out he appears to be more effective if he can start with a clean inning. When it comes to pitching, a "clean inning" is actually a luxury. In fact, at this moment I'd rather see Joe Kelly in the toughest situations and save Kimbrel for his "clean inning".

 

This does bring to bear the value of having a "True closer" vs. a "Fireman" though as it pertains to their worth to the team and therefore their salary. Is it possible that we (and everyone else in MLB) are overpaying for that closer when a "normal" BP arm can get those outs in the 9th inning and what's really necessary is the pitcher who has the kajones to come in earlier and get outs when the team is in trouble?

 

You have captured my earlier comment that I'm not so sure Kimbrel is worth huge amounts of money over the long term. Yes, 300 saves in record time. But many on talksox think saves are not a useful stat.

 

The wild card in any discussion about last night is that I'm pretty sure the bench called for all those fastballs, so maybe their lesson learned is that, when he goes in, you have to let Kimbrel be Kimbrel, and that definitely includes the knuckle curve.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Maxbialystock