Reds (Martinez) vs Red Sox (Bello): 7/2/25, 7:10pm

[iortiz]

This team is really a joke. Bush league team to say the least. 

[Jasonbay44]

This has been some of the dumbest baseball I’ve seen all season. What the f*** are they doing defensively? 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Why do so many in this forum defend Cora? He's at most a highly paid baby sitter.

[vegasbob]

The Keystone Kops action in the 8th is why this team is so frustrating .   Story boots  a ball that could have been an out at home , then the circus starts.

[vegasbob]

5 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I guess Cora was supposed be out there with a whip in hand.

Said nothing about Cora. It was in synch with your comment about Gonzalez admiring his flyball to LF.

Eat something disagreeable ???

[cp176]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Also, the same manger that got 6 scoreless innings from Bernardino, Alcara & Murphy.

With Wiessert or however you spell it loading the bases with no one up in the bullpen is just not ok.  It is a game that they are throwing away.  I’ll say what I have said before - Cora is an average manager at best.  Maybe that is good enough.  He handles people well.  He is not responsible for all of the poor play that we are seeing.  I don’t think that getting rid of him would really amount to much.  But he is average.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

It's hard to sweep a team. For this Sox team it's extremely hard.

[iortiz]

1 minute ago, Jasonbay44 said:

This has been some of the dumbest baseball I’ve seen all season. What the f*** are they doing defensively? 

I have seen so many this year by this team that I honestly have lost the count..

[iortiz]

2 minutes ago, cp176 said:

With Wiessert or however you spell it loading the bases with no one up in the bullpen is just not ok.  It is a game that they are throwing away.  I’ll say what I have said before - Cora is an average manager at best.  Maybe that is good enough.  He handles people well.  He is not responsible for all of the poor play that we are seeing.  I don’t think that getting rid of him would really amount to much.  But he is average.

In my book he’s below average and very close to bad. When you lead the league in errors and the basement back to back to back years is not a coincidence. 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

Actually, it's kinda dumb to be this emotional over an, at best, .500 ball team.

[iortiz]

Most Red Sox players especially in the IF do not play a position in a regular basis hence all this circa all year long. And has been the trade mark by Cora since he’s been here. Again it’s not a coincidence. Not to mention his ridiculous LvsR obsession. 

[dannycater]

I looked at the box score it said Red Sox 3, Reds 0...I went I'll go to the room and say hey the Sox are back on track...and then in 2.0 seconds flat, they were behind and then behind even more. Can't win when I even care.

[iortiz]

It’s fair to say, Toro is not a 3B. He can play a decent 1B but not 3B. Stop putting him there. 

[vegasbob]

And that is how you are 2 under .500 on July 2.    

IN THE BRIGHT LIGHTS , THEY ARE PLAYING WITH A BENCH/ROOKIE/4AAA LINEUP MOST NIGHTS.

[Duran Is The Man]

34 minutes ago, iortiz said:

Most Red Sox players especially in the IF do not play a position in a regular basis hence all this circa all year long. And has been the trade mark by Cora since he’s been here. Again it’s not a coincidence. Not to mention his ridiculous LvsR obsession. 

and his obsession with David Hamilton. i'd put my grandmother in the lineup before that loser, yet there he is day after day.

[Duran Is The Man]

good thing we got the Giants to throw in Hicks on the Raffy deal. i mean who doesn't want a guy that sucks as bad as him for $15M a year?

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, cp176 said:

With Wiessert or however you spell it loading the bases with no one up in the bullpen is just not ok.  It is a game that they are throwing away.  I’ll say what I have said before - Cora is an average manager at best.  Maybe that is good enough.  He handles people well.  He is not responsible for all of the poor play that we are seeing.  I don’t think that getting rid of him would really amount to much.  But he is average.

You may not like it, but we have nobody better than Weissert to bring in. He's our #4.

fWAR

1.4 Chapman

0.7 Wilson & Whitlock

0.3 Weissert

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not sure sure you'll be right, this time.

I’m usually right. 

[iortiz]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

You may not like it, but we have nobody better than Weissert to bring in. He's our #4.

fWAR

1.4 Chapman

0.7 Wilson & Whitlock

0.3 Weissert

Still when the bases were loaded Cora should have pulled him out for whoever. He didn’t have it tonight and anyone could see it by miles. He decided to throw strikes once the bases were loaded and the rest is history.  Weissert has been overused and now it is taxing him though.

[Maxbialystock]

2 hours ago, cp176 said:

With Wiessert or however you spell it loading the bases with no one up in the bullpen is just not ok.  It is a game that they are throwing away.  I’ll say what I have said before - Cora is an average manager at best.  Maybe that is good enough.  He handles people well.  He is not responsible for all of the poor play that we are seeing.  I don’t think that getting rid of him would really amount to much.  But he is average.

Just horsehockey.  You can't "throw away" a game you had little or no chance of winning when you had to use your lousy bullpen for all 9 innings.  

Cora made the right choice to use Bello in the first game, which worked.  But then he had to count on his bullpen for game 2. As it was, they only gave up 4 ER's.  The other 4 came from errors by Toro and Story.  Story has actually been pretty reliable for the past 2 months.  As for Toro, he plays 3b because Bregman's on the IL and Devers is with the Giants.  So of course he's going to try to get the best bats he can against a righty starter.  Toro's OPS against righties is .837.  

Too bad you didn't notice that the Sox actually made a couple of very good defensive plays for outs.  

 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, iortiz said:

Still when the bases were loaded Cora should have pulled him out for whoever. He didn’t have it tonight and anyone could see it by miles. He decided to throw strikes once the bases were loaded and the rest is history.  Weissert has been overused and now it is taxing him though.

I'm not saying the call was right, but I just am not into this sort of speculative blame assigning.

It's sad that Weissert is our #4. We had just seen RP'ers ranked below him get us through 6 innings. Sad,

[cp176]

7 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

You may not like it, but we have nobody better than Weissert to bring in. He's our #4.

fWAR

1.4 Chapman

0.7 Wilson & Whitlock

0.3 Weissert

I had 0 problem with bringing him in at all.  Leaving him in too long I did not like.  He has done this many times.  I’m not advocating for Captain Hook here but I would like like to see him give his team at least a chance to win.

[cp176]

6 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

Just horsehockey.  You can't "throw away" a game you had little or no chance of winning when you had to use your lousy bullpen for all 9 innings.  

Cora made the right choice to use Bello in the first game, which worked.  But then he had to count on his bullpen for game 2. As it was, they only gave up 4 ER's.  The other 4 came from errors by Toro and Story.  Story has actually been pretty reliable for the past 2 months.  As for Toro, he plays 3b because Bregman's on the IL and Devers is with the Giants.  So of course he's going to try to get the best bats he can against a righty starter.  Toro's OPS against righties is .837.  

Too bad you didn't notice that the Sox actually made a couple of very good defensive plays for outs.  

 

What makes you think that I didn’t notice the good plays?  I did.  Cora should have had someone up and throwing when the second man got on.  He has done this on many occasions.  He has pulled his starters early many times and left his relievers in too long often.  It isn’t a novel concept I hope to try to win games.  He is an average manager in my opinion and I do know that my option to doesn’t amount to much.  

[cp176]

5 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not saying the call was right, but I just am not into this sort of speculative blame assigning.

It's sad that Weissert is our #4. We had just seen RP'ers ranked below him get us through 6 innings. Sad,

Is this “speculative blame concept” comment for me?  It is my opinion that on numerous occasions Cora has left his relief pitchers in too long..  there is nothing speculative about my statement.  Once again it is my opinion which I think is quite mild compared to many I have read here.  

[notin]

12 hours ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

It's hard to sweep a team. For this Sox team it's extremely hard.

Except the Yankees :)

[notin]

3 hours ago, cp176 said:

Is this “speculative blame concept” comment for me?  It is my opinion that on numerous occasions Cora has left his relief pitchers in too long..  there is nothing speculative about my statement.  Once again it is my opinion which I think is quite mild compared to many I have read here.  

And too infrequent…

[Maxbialystock]

4 hours ago, cp176 said:

I had 0 problem with bringing him in at all.  Leaving him in too long I did not like.  He has done this many times.  I’m not advocating for Captain Hook here but I would like like to see him give his team at least a chance to win.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  As it turned out, the pitcher (Hicks) who replaced Weissert was just as just as bad.  Between them they gave up all 8 Sox runs, 4 of which were unearned thanks to errors by Toro and Story.  

I thought the Sox had no chance in this game because it was all on the bullpen, which has been unreliable.  Amazingly,  Bernardino, Alcaia, and Murphy went 5.2 IP while giving up 0 runs.  Was there a compliment for Cora for how that worked?  Of course not.  Everything the players do that's good is because they did it.  And everything they do poorly is on Cora because he used the wrong player, failed to teach a player how to defend, hit, run the bases, whatever.  

 

[Maxbialystock]

4 hours ago, cp176 said:

Is this “speculative blame concept” comment for me?  It is my opinion that on numerous occasions Cora has left his relief pitchers in too long..  there is nothing speculative about my statement.  Once again it is my opinion which I think is quite mild compared to many I have read here.  

20-20 hindsight.  Plus, let's face it, the Sox bullpen this season has been notoriously unreliable.

And of course you have never, ever said, "you know, I thought Cora handled the pitchers just right in that game."  I know that's true because in fact he was brilliant in the first game yesterday by using his 2d best starter to pitch the 4th-8th innings.  Plus, guess what?  He left Bello in after he gave up 2 runs in the 4th. 

You wouldn't know good managing if it bit you in the ankle.  

Did I forget to mention that last night the Sox bullpen gave up just 4 ER's in 9 IP?  Weissert and Hicks gave up all 8 Cincy runs and 4 of them were unearned.  I'm sure your response to that is that those errors were on Cora for not playing the right guys or not teaching them defense or whatever.  

 

[Bellhorn04]

17 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  As it turned out, the pitcher (Hicks) who replaced Weissert was just as just as bad.  Between them they gave up all 8 Sox runs, 4 of which were unearned thanks to errors by Toro and Story.  

I thought the Sox had no chance in this game because it was all on the bullpen, which has been unreliable.  Amazingly,  Bernardino, Alcaia, and Murphy went 5.2 IP while giving up 0 runs.  Was there a compliment for Cora for how that worked?  Of course not.  Everything the players do that's good is because they did it.  And everything they do poorly is on Cora because he used the wrong player, failed to teach a player how to defend, hit, run the bases, whatever.  

 

I agree with you, Cora absolutely did the right thing going for the win in the first game.

Disappointing to blow the second one, but the Reds are a decent team this year and 2 out of 3 is a good result.

 

[Nick]

13 hours ago, iortiz said:

Most Red Sox players especially in the IF do not play a position in a regular basis hence all this circa all year long. And has been the trade mark by Cora since he’s been here. Again it’s not a coincidence. Not to mention his ridiculous LvsR obsession. 

You have a very good point. He only sees the upside of platooning, usually it's all about lefty righty matchup. He wants better defense but he does nothing to help it. It's always about offense.