Red Sox (Dobbins) vs Tigers (Skubal): 5/14/25, 6:40pm

[Duran Is The Man]

the team that leads the league in errors every freakin year....makes another critical error. LOL. eff you Wong.

[FredLynn]

1 minute ago, iortiz said:

This is on Cora and Wong.

Cora needs to be fired

Yesterday.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

1 minute ago, vegasbob said:

How many 1 run losses before these guys get tired of it.  Wong's half-assed sail ball to CF gave this one away. 

Might have put the successful hitter on just to have the force out possibility with a LH'er due up.  Who knows ?

Lots of mediocre teams in MLB so far this season. The Sox are just one of them.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

The morons in the Tigers booth are having an orgasm.

[vegasbob]

Maybe  we can study the advanced metrics to make ourselves feel better that this team is really good on paper and ranks well within the AL and MLB in general.      The W-L's are reserved for those who only watch the games and see the results.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

1 minute ago, vegasbob said:

Maybe  we can study the advanced metrics to make ourselves feel better that this team is really good on paper and ranks well within the AL and MLB in general.      The W-L's are reserved for those who only watch the games and see the results.

Right now the Sox don't have the pitching to compete. What else is new?

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

7 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

the team that leads the league in errors every freakin year....makes another critical error. LOL. eff you Wong.

He was the Wong guy behind the plate.

[Oscars]

4 minutes ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

He was the Wong guy behind the plate.

With yet another error by the Sox, they have highest errors per game record in MLB.

Sox management told us in the off season this would be fixed! 

Edited May 15, 2025 by Oscars
Incomplete

[illinoisredsox]

35 minutes ago, iortiz said:

We just can’t catch a break but Cora should have sent Rafalla earlier. Cora is missing those little mistakes which are costing us a lot of games. 

If he sends Rafaela, they walk either Devers or Bregman.

As for Wong’s error, the hit scores the runner who stole second.  It let him trot home, not sprint home.

Still, Wong has played himself out of the starting position IMO.  Barring injury, he’ll likely be catching one game in five at least in the near future.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

6 minutes ago, illinoisredsox said:

If he sends Rafaela, they walk either Devers or Bergman.

No reason to walk Devers. Just throw him FB's, but not low ones.

[illinoisredsox]

26 minutes ago, iortiz said:

This is on Cora and Wong.

Who walked the leadoff guy in the ninth?  Who is totally unable to hold a runner anywhere near 1st base?

[mvp 78]

Bums

[oldtimer]

4 minutes ago, illinoisredsox said:

Who walked the leadoff guy in the ninth?  Who is totally unable to hold a runner anywhere near 1st base?

We spent the money and  have the prospects but don't seem to be able to put it together. Is it leadership?

[illinoisredsox]

37 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

We spent the money and  have the prospects but don't seem to be able to put it together. Is it leadership?

It’s a culture that’s been instilled over the past several seasons.  The kids who came up in the early to mid teens were surrounded by an organization (owner, executives, managers and coaches, and  older players) who were used to and committed to winning.  Ownership abandoned that when they fired Dombrowski, the player leaders moved on and despite lip service, they were not replaced.  They couldn’t even get a semiexperienced front office type to interview when they fired Bloom (what was Breslow, the 11th or 12th guy they contacted?

Basically, you have Devers from those years, and I think we can all agree he is not a leader.  Not his fault, some people aren’t (I am not one, for example).  These current young players haven’t had the same culture the kids from a decade ago did.

They caught lightening in 21, but most of those guys are gone as well.

There is a lesson/hope to be taken from the Tigers.  On August 10th last year, they were 55-63 and weren’t looking all that great.  They finished the season 86-76 (going 31-13 over the last quarter of the season), grabbed the 3rd Wild Card and won a playoff series.  They learned to win and haven’t stopped.

This Red Sox team hasn’t learned to win.  We can hope the light goes on like it did for the Tigers last year.The AL East is weak, which helps some.  I hoped that the Abreu/Rafaela play might change their psyche a little, but same old same old after that.

And I fully acknowledge the light might not go on, but we can hope.

[vegasbob]

1 hour ago, illinoisredsox said:

Who walked the leadoff guy in the ninth?  Who is totally unable to hold a runner anywhere near 1st base?

Lead off walks have undone a few Sox relievers the past several games.   OTOH, Chap,man has been consistently effective and saved  6 of 6 , BUT with 2 losses including today's.   Sox  relievers are credited with 7 of the 23 losses.  

[FredLynn]

2 hours ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

Lots of mediocre teams in MLB so far this season. The Sox are just one of them.

But this team has accepted mediocrity year after year after year. There’s nothing worse than being mediocre. You don’t compete in October and you don’t get a good draft position. Tanking is much better.

[moonslav59]

We did what we could against Skubal, but the rest of the team let us down, again.

We can't seem to get all aspects of this team going at the same time, for more than a 2-3 game stretch, and even those are rare.

It's mid May, and this team is looking like another .500 club.

I still think an Anthony and or Mayer call-up could give us the spark we need, right now. (A decent RP'er, if we had one, would likely help more.)

[Bellhorn04]

Why do we love baseball when so often it just kicks you in the head, stomach, butt and privates?

[Bellhorn04]

8 hours ago, FredLynn said:

But this team has accepted mediocrity year after year after year. There’s nothing worse than being mediocre. You don’t compete in October and you don’t get a good draft position. Tanking is much better.

But you'd rather not be the Pirates.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

9 hours ago, vegasbob said:

Lead off walks have undone a few Sox relievers the past several games. 

My cousin the pitcher used to say when he walked the leadoff batter that we should just let him circle the bases and score -- because they do 99% of the time anyway. And then he could start fresh again with no one on.

[oldtimer]

11 hours ago, illinoisredsox said:

It’s a culture that’s been instilled over the past several seasons.  The kids who came up in the early to mid teens were surrounded by an organization (owner, executives, managers and coaches, and  older players) who were used to and committed to winning.  Ownership abandoned that when they fired Dombrowski, the player leaders moved on and despite lip service, they were not replaced.  They couldn’t even get a semiexperienced front office type to interview when they fired Bloom (what was Breslow, the 11th or 12th guy they contacted?

Basically, you have Devers from those years, and I think we can all agree he is not a leader.  Not his fault, some people aren’t (I am not one, for example).  These current young players haven’t had the same culture the kids from a decade ago did.

They caught lightening in 21, but most of those guys are gone as well.

There is a lesson/hope to be taken from the Tigers.  On August 10th last year, they were 55-63 and weren’t looking all that great.  They finished the season 86-76 (going 31-13 over the last quarter of the season), grabbed the 3rd Wild Card and won a playoff series.  They learned to win and haven’t stopped.

This Red Sox team hasn’t learned to win.  We can hope the light goes on like it did for the Tigers last year.The AL East is weak, which helps some.  I hoped that the Abreu/Rafaela play might change their psyche a little, but same old same old after that.

And I fully acknowledge the light might not go on, but we can hope.

Maybe it's time to ask the question about Cora. He is in his 6th year of managing the team. For many of his years, the Sox refrained from investing in the players. This year is different. Despite the investment the results aren't there. I also feel the strong prospects are being held back and that they might just provide a spark needed to get us into a winning culture. Do we need a driven manager? I'm not thinking of a Billy Martin type, but one that generates that fire in the players that seems so lacking at times. 

[mvp 78]

11 hours ago, illinoisredsox said:

It’s a culture that’s been instilled over the past several seasons.  

It's not the culture, it's the just the players they have. The Sox won't really contend until they move on from guys like Connor Wong, David Hamilton, Trevor Story, Triston Casas and maybe even Jarren Duran. I know Cora loves him but he's the most inconsistent guy in MLB. He'll put on an MVP like season, but would be likely to drop a can of corn popfly for a series clinching out. 

Acquire a professional 1B and re-sign Bregman. Then you have Bregman, Devers, Abreu, Rafaela, Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Narvaez and 1B. I'm much more comfortable with that lineup every day than what we've thrown out there recently. You can then add bench guys like Mikey Romero, Jhostynxon Garcia, Franklin Arias when they are ready rather than using Sogard, Toro and whoever else. 

[notin]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

We did what we could against Skubal, but the rest of the team let us down, again.

We can't seem to get all aspects of this team going at the same time, for more than a 2-3 game stretch, and even those are rare.

It's mid May, and this team is looking like another .500 club.

I still think an Anthony and or Mayer call-up could give us the spark we need, right now. (A decent RP'er, if we had one, would likely help more.)

Anthony just puts a new name in the OF.  With Rafaela hitting, Jarren Duran is the weak link, but he’s also their best leadoff option.  And it’s not like Anthony is a lock to top his .674 OPS this year.

Mayer could more easily outproduce Story.  So that makes more sense.  But it does nothing about the bullpen issues and nothing to replace Houck in the rotation…

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

Maybe it's time to ask the question about Cora. He is in his 6th year of managing the team. For many of his years, the Sox refrained from investing in the players. This year is different. Despite the investment the results aren't there. I also feel the strong prospects are being held back and that they might just provide a spark needed to get us into a winning culture. Do we need a driven manager? I'm not thinking of a Billy Martin type, but one that generates that fire in the players that seems so lacking at times. 

He's a winning coach WHEN HE HAS THE RIGHT PLAYERS. He's not able to take a .500 team and make them better than what they are like some other coaches. He needs prime Mookie, Xander, JD, etc. Otherwise, I think he's happy to just babysit and get along with the guys and not make too much of a fuss. 

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, notin said:

Anthony just puts a new name in the OF.  With Rafaela hitting, Jarren Duran is the weak link, but he’s also their best leadoff option.  And it’s not like Anthony is a lock to top his .674 OPS this year.

Mayer could more easily outproduce Story.  So that makes more sense.  But it does nothing about the bullpen issues and nothing to replace Houck in the rotation…

Whether Roman is a lock to be better than Duran in '25 doesn't matter. It's about getting him up here and getting him the MLB experience NOW so that he's ready when the team is actually ready to compete. 

[Old Red]

3 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

He's a winning coach WHEN HE HAS THE RIGHT PLAYERS. He's not able to take a .500 team and make them better than what they are like some other coaches. He needs prime Mookie, Xander, JD, etc. Otherwise, I think he's happy to just babysit and get along with the guys and not make too much of a fuss. 

And Most of all JH likes him.

[notin]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

Whether Roman is a lock to be better than Duran in '25 doesn't matter. It's about getting him up here and getting him the MLB experience NOW so that he's ready when the team is actually ready to compete. 

When they’re ready to compete?  When exactly is that?
 

Despite the opinions here on the board, I can promise you the Sox haven’t run up the white flag.  They’re looking bad now, but they’re also still winning almost 50% of the time in a game where winning 60% of the time is elite…

[moonslav59]

13 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

Maybe it's time to ask the question about Cora. He is in his 6th year of managing the team. For many of his years, the Sox refrained from investing in the players. This year is different. Despite the investment the results aren't there. I also feel the strong prospects are being held back and that they might just provide a spark needed to get us into a winning culture. Do we need a driven manager? I'm not thinking of a Billy Martin type, but one that generates that fire in the players that seems so lacking at times. 

Fair points, and I've been a big Cora supporter. Maybe some complacency has set in. It's hard to know.

[notin]

8 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

He's a winning coach WHEN HE HAS THE RIGHT PLAYERS. He's not able to take a .500 team and make them better than what they are like some other coaches. He needs prime Mookie, Xander, JD, etc. Otherwise, I think he's happy to just babysit and get along with the guys and not make too much of a fuss. 

So he can win when given a team most managers could win with?  Not exactly the loftiest praise.

Casas injury aside, could no manager win with this team?

[moonslav59]

13 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Whether Roman is a lock to be better than Duran in '25 doesn't matter. It's about getting him up here and getting him the MLB experience NOW so that he's ready when the team is actually ready to compete. 

He doesn't have to replace Duran. It could be Rafaela. It could be our 1Bman, if Cora can get Devers to play 1B.

It could be a combination of a few players.