Twins (Ryan) vs Red Sox (Bello): 5/2/25, 7:10pm

[Brandon Glick]

The Twins are not good this year. They're actually quite bad. The one thing they do well is starting pitching. This is an eminently winnable series for the Sox.

 

[mvp 78]

Red Sox play down to their opponents. The best the Sox can hope for is a split. 😔

[mvp 78]

Happy Birthday to former Red Sox: Eddie Bressoud, Jarrod Saltalamacchia (spelled correctly the first time), Erasmo Ramirez, Bill Piercy, Ralph Brickner 

I'm sure everyone here remembers Erasmo Ramirez's stint as a Red Sox. I sure did! 

[Maxbialystock]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Red Sox play down to their opponents. The best the Sox can hope for is a split. 😔

Meh.  The Sox are ranked 4th/5th in runs scored and 6th in team OPS.  I personally think the defense is much better than last year, despite the errors.  I like the infield with Bregman, Story, Campbell, and Casas, the outfield with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu, and the new catcher Narvaez.  

The team ERA, on the other hand, is 4.05 and ranked 14th. 

As I said elsewhere, the Sox currently have 4 starters with ERA's below 4.05:  Crochet 2.05 in 44 IP, Dobbins 2.45 in 11 IP, Fitts 3.18 in 18 IP, and Bello 3.27 in 11 IP.  In addition, Giolito's only start was a quality start (6 IP, 3 ER's).  Plus, if you throw out Houck's 2.1 IP and 11 ER's game, his ERA for the season is 3.96.  Is it worth mentioning that Chris Sale's ERA is 4.84 with the Braves this season?  

So the problem is demonstrably with the bullpen, a reality reinforced by the last two losses.  

[mvp 78]

16 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

Meh.  The Sox are ranked 4th/5th in runs scored and 6th in team OPS.  I personally think the defense is much better than last year, despite the errors.  I like the infield with Bregman, Story, Campbell, and Casas, the outfield with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu, and the new catcher Narvaez.  

The team ERA, on the other hand, is 4.05 and ranked 14th. 

As I said elsewhere, the Sox currently have 4 starters with ERA's below 4.05:  Crochet 2.05 in 44 IP, Dobbins 2.45 in 11 IP, Fitts 3.18 in 18 IP, and Bello 3.27 in 11 IP.  In addition, Giolito's only start was a quality start (6 IP, 3 ER's).  Plus, if you throw out Houck's 2.1 IP and 11 ER's game, his ERA for the season is 3.96.  Is it worth mentioning that Chris Sale's ERA is 4.84 with the Braves this season?  

So the problem is demonstrably with the bullpen, a reality reinforced by the last two losses.  

Bello, Fitts and Dobbins have only started 7 games total. We're already on the 7th turn through the rotation.

BOS is 7th in reliever fWAR, 14th in starter fWAR.

[mvp 78]

Sox have only swept in one series: STL

[moonslav59]

36 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Sox have only swept in one series: STL

But hey, we haven't been swept... yet.

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

But hey, we haven't been swept... yet.

That's why they have hovered around .500

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

That's why they have hovered around .500

Part of the reason, yes.

We tend to look at all the winnable games we lost and think we could be 4-5 over .500, but we've won a few games, maybe we didn't deserve to win, too.

Right now, we are on pace for being 5 games over .500, which can't happen, unless a game is not played, so we are on pace for 83 to 84 wins

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Part of the reason, yes.

We tend to look at all the winnable games we lost and think we could be 4-5 over .500, but we've won a few games, maybe we didn't deserve to win, too.

Right now, we are on pace for being 5 games over .500, which can't happen, unless a game is not played, so we are on pace for 83 to 84 wins

That sounds about right

[moonslav59]

29 minutes ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

That sounds about right

I thought we'd end up with closer to 90 wins- more out of how bad I felt the rest of the AL is than us being way better than last year.

I do think we look better on paper, but paper does not win games.

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I thought we'd end up with closer to 90 wins- more out of how bad I felt the rest of the AL is than us being way better than last year.

I do think we look better on paper, but paper does not win games.

I figured them for mid 80's in wins. I certainly didn't expect the orioles to be as bad as they have looked so far. The rest of the division is about what I expected

[moonslav59]

6 minutes ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

I figured them for mid 80's in wins. I certainly didn't expect the orioles to be as bad as they have looked so far. The rest of the division is about what I expected

I thought the O's got worse, but not this bad.

The Yanks looked worse on paper, before the Cole injury.

HOU looks worse on paper.

I felt SEA and DET and maybe KCR would be about the same- pretty good.

 

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

8 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I thought the O's got worse, but not this bad.

The Yanks looked worse on paper, before the Cole injury.

HOU looks worse on paper.

I felt SEA and DET and maybe KCR would be about the same- pretty good.

 

I thought the O's needed pitching, but didn't see this fall.

I was optimistic on the Yanks prior to the Cole injury as I thought they would have a more well rounded line-up than last year. And I expected Williams to perform much better than he has.

The rest of the division is about what I expected.

[Kimmi]

5 hours ago, Brandon Glick said:

The Twins are not good this year. They're actually quite bad. The one thing they do well is starting pitching. This is an eminently winnable series for the Sox.

 

The White Sox are not good either.  The Blue Jays were in a rut.  We awakened them.  I am still ticked about Game 2 of that series.  😡

That said, I agree that we should win the series.  One game at a time, starting with tonight.

 

[Nick]

2 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

Meh.  The Sox are ranked 4th/5th in runs scored and 6th in team OPS.  I personally think the defense is much better than last year, despite the errors.  I like the infield with Bregman, Story, Campbell, and Casas, the outfield with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu, and the new catcher Narvaez.  

The team ERA, on the other hand, is 4.05 and ranked 14th. 

As I said elsewhere, the Sox currently have 4 starters with ERA's below 4.05:  Crochet 2.05 in 44 IP, Dobbins 2.45 in 11 IP, Fitts 3.18 in 18 IP, and Bello 3.27 in 11 IP.  In addition, Giolito's only start was a quality start (6 IP, 3 ER's).  Plus, if you throw out Houck's 2.1 IP and 11 ER's game, his ERA for the season is 3.96.  Is it worth mentioning that Chris Sale's ERA is 4.84 with the Braves this season?  

So the problem is demonstrably with the bullpen, a reality reinforced by the last two losses.  

Nah, we outscored Toronto 18-13 but lost 2 out of 3. 

We failed numerous time to stretch the 6-0 lead and lost 6-7.

We thought early 2-0 was enough offense, again failed to score and lost 2-0.

Our offense can be improved by simply calling up Anthony. Their manager said HE HAS NOTHING TO GAIN FROM PLAYING AAA.

[vegasbob]

A series win this weekend is the only acceptable outcome after the butchery in Toronto.

Slaten's comments about failing to execute with 2 strikes multiple times shows just how ignorant he is.  Like some Sox pitchers who think 2 outs is an inning and 2 strikes , a K.   WTFU.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

BREG is the MAN.

[jad]

Love Bregman's approach,  Simple set-up, dead quiet when pitcher starts, completely balanced.  Reminds me of Manny.   It always seemed to me that the simplest swing was best (in tennis, golf,  baseball. whatever).  Not that it's necessarily the  most effective or powerful.  But when you're 'off', you can get back to the timing quickly because of the simplicity of the set-up.

(And oh yes, on that last play? that's why I don't want to trade Duran for some soul-less middle reliever)

[FredLynn]

Great catch by Duran!

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Excellent grab by Duran.

[FredLynn]

This doesn’t look good. 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

That's not looking good. Tough break for Casas.

 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Just now, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

That's not looking good. Tough break for Casas.

 

Does Devers move to 1st?

[iortiz]

Please tell me they have a plan B other than Gonzalez at 1B. Please tell me they don’t put all their chips on Casas regardless it is underperforming or injuries.  

[FredLynn]

Rafaela Ks

Again

🙄

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

The bottom 3 in the Sox lineup is a dark hole tonight..

[FredLynn]

5 minutes ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

The bottom 3 in the Sox lineup is a dark hole.

Can’t afford that if we are going to make the playoffs. One-MAYBE two black holes if the other 6 can mash. 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

I still haven't determined which ex-Sox player I dislike.more: Clemens or Boggs.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

I thought the O's needed pitching, but didn't see this fall.

I was optimistic on the Yanks prior to the Cole injury as I thought they would have a more well rounded line-up than last year. And I expected Williams to perform much better than he has.

The rest of the division is about what I expected.

Yes, losing Burnes was bad, but they also lost Santander.

I wasn't buying the Yankee Soto replacement talk. They also lost Torres. The Dugo/Rizzo losses were additions by subtractions, but I did not have much faith in Goldschmidt. Rice has been surprising and a bit unexpected.

I expected us to finish ahead of TOR and TBR and be close to NYY.

I thought we could pass HOU & BAL, but the O's have so much young talent nearing prime. (I think we do, too.)

DET & KCR are hard to predict.

Basically, no AL team jumps out as dominating, so that is why my hopes were up, this season- more than out of what I saw was an improved roster on paper, over the '24 Sox team.

We lost O'Neal, but we are already talking about a logjam in the OF blocking Anthony.

We lost Pivetta, a guy no MLB rushed to sign. We added Crochet, Buehler and essentially Gio.

We lost McGuire/Jansen and added Narvaez.

The biggest losses were K Jansen and a not as great in '24 Martin, but added only Chapman and essentially Hendriks. I saw this as our weak link and the only area we got worse, on paper, but with so much pitching depth, perhaps only mediocre, I felt we might cobble together 8 arms (some starters) to form an okay pen.

Better O

Better D

Better rotation and starter depth

Worse pen.

Plaus teams that were ahead of us in '24, mostly getting worse or breaking even- on paper.