Red Sox (Bello) vs Tigers (Holton): 5/13/25, 6:40pm

[notin]

20 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I think they were counting on 6-8 arms out of the 15-18 mediocre arms in the system would rise to the top.

The Chapman signing has worked out better than I expected.

The probably counted on Hendriks, too much.

I don't blame them for thinking Whitlock and Slaten would be good pen arms in 2025.

Chapman, Whitlock and Slaten are only 3 arms, and even they all had questions going into 2025. 

The rest were and still are hopes and prayers:

Hendriks, Wilson & Bernardino

Wink, Criswell & Newcomb

Weissert, Kelly & Guerrero

I Campbell, Penrod & Mata

Adames, Adams & Burdi

It seems odd to do so today, but I’m defending Weissert.   He’s appeared in 19 games this year and only given up runs in 3 of them.  And he caught flak for his Blown Save last night, but that was a product of the Ghost Runner rule.  The reality is all he did was give up a 2-out single.  Under normal (re:sensible) circumstances, it would have gone unnoticed…

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

8 minutes ago, notin said:

It seems odd to do so today, but I’m defending Weissert.   He’s appeared in 19 games this year and only given up runs in 3 of them.  And he caught flak for his Blown Save last night, but that was a product of the Ghost Runner rule.  The reality is all he did was give up a 2-out single.  Under normal (re:sensible) circumstances, it would have gone unnoticed…

I'm ok with Weissert. He's one of the rare Sox pitchers who hasn't made either a throwing error or chucked a wild pitch. 

But he'd better do one or the other soon, because I think it's required for Boston pitchers...

[Nick]

Slaten,  15 pitches, 12 strikes, 3 K's 

Whitlock, 32 pitches, 18 strikes, 3 K's but 1 BB and 1 HBP

Just throw damn strikes Whit....

He has blown 4 save opportunities out of his last 5 appearances. 

[Duran Is The Man]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

I think they were counting on 6-8 arms out of the 15-18 mediocre arms in the system would rise to the top.

The Chapman signing has worked out better than I expected.

The probably counted on Hendriks, too much.

I don't blame them for thinking Whitlock and Slaten would be good pen arms in 2025.

Chapman, Whitlock and Slaten are only 3 arms, and even they all had questions going into 2025. 

The rest were and still are hopes and prayers:

Hendriks, Wilson & Bernardino

Wink, Criswell & Newcomb

Weissert, Kelly & Guerrero

I Campbell, Penrod & Mata

Adames, Adams & Burdi

too bad they didn't go after Tanner Scott.  but why sign a good reliever when you can sign a bunch of guys to rehab a few years that might pitch some day?

[notin]

5 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

too bad they didn't go after Tanner Scott.  but why sign a good reliever when you can sign a bunch of guys to rehab a few years that might pitch some day?

They might help themselves by not taking any young pitcher with velocity and potential that also has a history of arm trouble or never started before and trying to force them into the rotation…

[harmony]

2 hours ago, Hugh2 said:

I think the .500 magnet is real.  

If it is, Sox win tonight and then lose the Atlanta Series 2-1.  This means we probably sweep the Mets and we all get excited only to get are asses handed to us at home by the Baltimore Orioles next weekend. 

The 103-103 record the Red Sox have posted since the start of last season is an improvement over their 156-168 (.481) record of the previous two seasons.

Going into Wednesday's games, the AL East had only one team with a record above .500 while the AL Central and AL West each had four teams above .500.

Nevertheless the Red Sox are only one game back of the final Wild Card slot.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

No.  He’s in Worcester.  Sent back down on May 3rd to activate Bernardino from the bereavement list…

Apparently, Cora's best move was to bring in a RP'er not on the roster.

I think hendriks was the only other real option. Had he blown the save, we'd be hearing about why he didn't bring in Weissert (or Guerrero) instead.

[iortiz]

3 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

The pen is weak: that's on Brez not Cora.

We finally spent on SP'ers- both in trade and financial capital, but so far that has not worked, except Crochet.

We seemed to have found a decent defensive catcher who is even starting to hit.

We improved the defense with the Bregman addition and the Rafaela to CF FT choices made.

The pen got worse. Jansen & Martin > Chapman & Wilson, and the '24 pen was no strength to begin with.

Sorry but Jensen is done and Chapman has been nothing but espectacular. Wilson also has been good vs Lefties. 
 

The real problem are Whitlock and Houck. They have cost us a handful of games. Also the offense lack of consistency in a daily biases. Quoting Forest Gump “it’s like a box chocolates you never know what you’re going to get.”

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, iortiz said:

Sorry but Jensen is done and Chapman has been nothing but espectacular. Wilson also has been good vs Lefties. 
 

The real problem are Whitlock and Houck. They have cost us a handful of games. Also the offense lack of consistency in a daily biases. Quoting Forest Gump “it’s like a box chocolates you never know what you’re going to get.”

So far, they have done better than the 2024 Jansen & Martin, but we needed much more pen help, last winter.

Granted, we needed SP'ers, too and a RHB, so maybe Brez robbed from Peter to pay Paul.

[oldtimer]

13 minutes ago, iortiz said:

Sorry but Jensen is done and Chapman has been nothing but espectacular. Wilson also has been good vs Lefties. 
 

The real problem are Whitlock and Houck. They have cost us a handful of games. Also the offense lack of consistency in a daily biases. Quoting Forest Gump “it’s like a box chocolates you never know what you’re going to get.”

The Sox have now blown 10 save opportunities. All least we are leading the majors in some category. It was just another painful example. We score 9 and that should be enough. And what's with Duran taking 3 called strikes with men at the corners and 2 outs. Swing, damn it, all three were obvious strikes.

[Bellhorn04]

2 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

The Sox have now blown 10 save opportunities. All least we are leading the majors in some category. It was just another painful example. We score 9 and that should be enough. And what's with Duran taking 3 called strikes with men at the corners and 2 outs. Swing, damn it, all three were obvious strikes.

They've actually blown 11 now, out of 21 opportunities.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2025-reliever-pitching.shtml

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

55 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Apparently, Cora's best move was to bring in a RP'er not on the roster.

Why let a little thing like that get in the way? 😁

[notin]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

Apparently, Cora's best move was to bring in a RP'er not on the roster.

I think hendriks was the only other real option. Had he blown the save, we'd be hearing about why he didn't bring in Weissert (or Guerrero) instead.

Well, bringing in the ones on the roster didn’t work so well…

[notin]

54 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

They've actually blown 11 now, out of 21 opportunities.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2025-reliever-pitching.shtml

Misleading interpretation , and you know that as we’ve covered this before.  You have to count the holds, too, since there is no such thing as a Blown Hold.

The true number is 11 out of 34 opportunities.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=0&season=2025&month=0&season1=2025&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&sortcol=12&sortdir=default&pagenum=1
 

The Sox had two blown saves last night.  One from Whitlock in the 6th, which was never going to be a save.  And one from Weissert in the 10th…

[vegasbob]

14 hours ago, iortiz said:

A much you want to blame Weissert, this is on Cora. First he leaves Whitlock and now Weissert. Whata moron. Horrible BP management. Horrible!

The reality is that it starts with another Diva---Bello unable to complete 5 innings thus burning up the pen. 

[moonslav59]

32 minutes ago, notin said:

Well, bringing in the ones on the roster didn’t work so well…

There are no good choices.