Rays (Pepiot) vs Red Sox (Giolito): 6/10/25, 7:10pm

[iortiz]

10 minutes ago, Jasonbay44 said:

How is this team so inept at pickoff attempts? 

This is on Cora. He should explicitly tell them to play easy baseball at this point and not trying to do more like trying to pick out guys. They simply can’t. They have to limit errors at all cost, again at this point. 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Nice grab by Anthony.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

That landed in Storyville.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Good-bye Pepe Le Pew.

[moonslav59]

Story is up over .640, now.

Could this be some sort of sign of regain some lost skill?

He was in the low .580's not too long ago.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Good performance by Gio.

[iortiz]

3 minutes ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

Good performance by Gio.

Quoting Forest Gump he’s like a box of chocolates. 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

1 minute ago, iortiz said:

Quoting Forest Gump he’s like a box of chocolates. 

Except for Crochet that could apply to the whole starting staff.

[iortiz]

El Toro just missed that man. The more I see the guy the more I believe he’s for real. Regardless the outcome he always gives you a professional and competitive AB.

[iortiz]

14 minutes ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

Except for Crochet that could apply to the whole starting staff.

Yeah but ups and downs are more pronounced to Giolito. Literally one day he’s better than Cy Young and the other he looks like a position player pitching. 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

16 minutes ago, iortiz said:

El Toro just missed that man. The more I see the guy the more I believe he’s for real. Regardless the outcome he always gives you a professional and competitive AB.

Like Narvaez he's been a pleasant surprise.

[Old Red]

Well pitched, and pretty well played game tonight. Good win.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

4 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Well pitched, and pretty well played game tonight. Good win.

Scoring less than 4 runs and winning has been rare this season.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Whitlock was also impressive tonight.

[Larry Cook]

13 strike outs!!!  
Not executing even runners are in scoring position has cost us at least a half dozen games!!!!  
 

Kansas City needs a left fielder !!  Hello Duran 

[moonslav59]

Nice to see Whitlock go 2 solid. I was wondering about his status as a "long man."

Nice effort, tonight. If KC catches that laser curve ball hit his way, it's a shut out!

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

Good performance by Gio.

GREAT performance by Giolito. Let’s see if he can be consistent with it

[FredLynn]

18 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Nice to see Whitlock go 2 solid. I was wondering about his status as a "long man."

Nice effort, tonight. If KC catches that laser curve ball hit his way, it's a shut out!

It hit him in a bad spot-the glove

[moonslav59]

8 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

It hit him in a bad spot-the glove

That was a wicked slice. Not easy.

[FredLynn]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That was a wicked slice. Not easy.

No

But it’s a play I think ML players can make, especially if they’re athletic. Duran also botched a catch in LF. They won the game but their defense is still absolutely horrible 

[moonslav59]

19 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

No

But it’s a play I think ML players can make, especially if they’re athletic. Duran also botched a catch in LF. They won the game but their defense is still absolutely horrible 

To me, the D has been the biggest miss on my expectations. We were so bad in 2024, that it was easy to improve, but it looks just about as bad.

The pen has been one of the biggest surprise, but my expectations were very low.

Of course, guys like Narvaez, Toro & Romy have shocked.

[FredLynn]

12 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

To me, the D has been the biggest miss on my expectations. We were so bad in 2024, that it was easy to improve, but it looks just about as bad.

The pen has been one of the biggest surprise, but my expectations were very low.

Of course, guys like Narvaez, Toro & Romy have shocked.

Can’t disagree with any of that. I know Cora is pretty frustrated. He said he keeps reminding the players they have to get better but they keep making the same mistakes. Makes them hard to watch. They give away too many outs.

[moonslav59]

15 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

Can’t disagree with any of that. I know Cora is pretty frustrated. He said he keeps reminding the players they have to get better but they keep making the same mistakes. Makes them hard to watch. They give away too many outs.

What is sometimes overlooked is how much bad defense taxes a pitching staff and can destroy team moral, even if just for a single game.

I loved the game of baseball and played it a lot. My issue was hitting, but at the risk of sounding braggadocious, I was real good on D (and baserunning, when I did get on base.) Defense has always been my bias. I admit it.

[iortiz]

10 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

What is sometimes overlooked is how much bad defense taxes a pitching staff and can destroy team moral, even if just for a single game.

I loved the game of baseball and played it a lot. My issue was hitting, but at the risk of sounding braggadocious, I was real good on D (and baserunning, when I did get on base.) Defense has always been my bias. I admit it.

100% this. 
 

The 100 M question is what are they doing to address this issue. From the distance it seems they are doing very little if anything. Cora can’t expect better results by just telling them we have to do better. Do they need to practice more? Do they need help with their mental health? Re-Remember fundamentals? A better coaching staff? Pretty much all of the latter? I mean, I want to think they are addressing the issue by addressing some of these possible problems. If they think D is going to be solved magically one day just because they are going to start playing better, simply it’s not a happen. They lead the league in errors for the 3rd year in a row. 

[Duran Is The Man]

4 hours ago, Jasonbay44 said:

How is this team so inept at pickoff attempts? 

Cora needs to tell them to FAKE THE THROW to second, unless the runner is half way to third.

[Duran Is The Man]

20 minutes ago, iortiz said:

100% this. 
 

The 100 M question is what are they doing to address this issue. From the distance it seems they are doing very little if anything. Cora can’t expect better results by just telling them we have to do better. Do they need to practice more? Do they need help with their mental health? Re-Remember fundamentals? A better coaching staff? Pretty much all of the latter? I mean, I want to think they are addressing the issue by addressing some of these possible problems. If they think D is going to be solved magically one day just because they are going to start playing better, simply it’s not a happen. They lead the league in errors for the 3rd year in a row. 

what blows my mind is it's a different set of players every year and they still make mistakes. doesn't matter who it is, whenever they put on a Red Sox uni, it's like all of a sudden, they have no clue on how to throw or catch a f***ing ball.

[FredLynn]

42 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

What is sometimes overlooked is how much bad defense taxes a pitching staff and can destroy team moral, even if just for a single game.

I loved the game of baseball and played it a lot. My issue was hitting, but at the risk of sounding braggadocious, I was real good on D (and baserunning, when I did get on base.) Defense has always been my bias. I admit it.

There are three major elements of the game: pitching, offense, and defense. I would rank them in that order in terms of importance-but you aren’t winning a ring without being good at all three.

[cp176]

4 hours ago, FredLynn said:

There are three major elements of the game: pitching, offense, and defense. I would rank them in that order in terms of importance-but you aren’t winning a ring without being good at all three.

Anthony and Mayer - two future stars.  I think that the jury is still out in my mind with respect to Campbell.  

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

40 minutes ago, cp176 said:

Anthony and Mayer - two future stars.  I think that the jury is still out in my mind with respect to Campbell.  

In order: already the team's hardest hitter, smoothest fielder, and wildest card (KC is the supersonic theme park ride that threatens simultaneous nausea and/or screams of joy).

The Core Four is here, now the Sox just need to transition them into the right positions for the long haul: 

C: Narvaez

SS: Mayer

LF: Anthony

2B? 3B? 1B? CF? Trade Bait? Campbell

 

[moonslav59]

6 hours ago, iortiz said:

100% this. 
 

The 100 M question is what are they doing to address this issue. From the distance it seems they are doing very little if anything. Cora can’t expect better results by just telling them we have to do better. Do they need to practice more? Do they need help with their mental health? Re-Remember fundamentals? A better coaching staff? Pretty much all of the latter? I mean, I want to think they are addressing the issue by addressing some of these possible problems. If they think D is going to be solved magically one day just because they are going to start playing better, simply it’s not a happen. They lead the league in errors for the 3rd year in a row. 

I will say that they really tried, this year, to do something.

The Bregman signing, alone should have addressed a significant problem with 3B defense. I had initial hopes that we'd give Devers a try at 1B, and since we had the worst defensive 1Bman in MLB (Casas) there was some hope we could do a little better, on my part.

I think the 2B defense looked better on paper with KC & DHam over E Valdez & Co.

Trading for Narvaez not only looked good on paper, it has looked good, for real.

Making Rafaela the FT CF was certainly a move to improve defense, and it was such a high priority, we kept Anthony on the farm to make it happen.

The return of Story as not "something they did" about the $100M question, but on paper, we thought we'd do better on D, as long as he stayed healthy.

I think we tried. I'm still not sure why we failed, this badly. It wasn't from lack of trying, IMO>