Red Sox (Giolito) vs Orioles (Bradish): 8/26/25, 6:35pm

[Bellhorn04]

10 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

Next up, Bello and Crochet.  A sweep would be oh so nice--and timely.  Sox hitting continues to be suspect, however.  

Sox have won 5 of 6 road games in which they gave up 3, 0, 1, 7, 3, and 0 runs.  

Sox hitting does not continue to be suspect.

Major league pitching continues to be tough to hit.

[Bellhorn04]

9 hours ago, FredLynn said:

Unrealistic to who? You?

As I’ve written here many times it all depends how many other guys in the lineup you have that are useless with a bat in their hands. If you have 6-7 mashers you can afford players who are offensive bums. If not you aren’t going to compete with better teams 

LOL 6-7 mashers to be able to compete.

Nice baseball IQ Fred.

[FredLynn]

5 hours ago, Hitch said:

What a ridiculous statement. 

How’s that OPS doing? Or the latest hitting streak of batting roughly .100 coming along?

JBJ reincarnated!

[Yaz Fan Since 67]

I am at the beach and fortunately these games are on TV as they play the O's.  But being on vacation I've only been able to catch the end of them.  Wong is hitting again, that's good news.  Was it me or did Navaez dog it to 2nd on the play that went to the backstop and he was out at 2nd?  

[moonslav59]

8 hours ago, FredLynn said:

Of course it is-offensively. We are never going to agree on this. Given the fact that we have guys like Narvaez and Yoshida and Hamilton on the roster we simply can’t afford to have a black hole in CF. We were there once. We shouldn’t go back. Only Bregman and Anthony are hitting very well. 
But you’re in luck! Rafaela isn’t going anywhere. So we will all have the privilege of watching him flail around out there with a bat in his hands like a fish out of the water.

Narvaez is one of baseball's best hitting catcher's this year. 

DHam is a sub and the 13/14th player on the 13 everyday roster.

We have the best balanced line-up in MLB, if you look at most of our top 10 batters by PAs being over .740, .720, .700 or whatever mid level range you want to pick.

DHam is 12th in PAs, and due to Mayer's injury and KC's demotion and our #7 guy traded (Devers,) #8 DFAd (Toro) and our #10 demoted (KC) he is playing more, but hey why not use the last few week sample size you bash Rafaela with and apply it to DHam? Don't look now, but he's hitting like did, last summer.

Active players and their OPS (League avg is about .719.)

.777 Duran 581 PAs

.737 Story 533 (leader in RBI)

.709 Rafaela 478 "Oh the Horror!"

.811 Abreu 395

.906 Bregman 374

.727 Narvaez 367 (not a black hole)

.850 Anthony 274 (should lead the team in PAs from now on)

.830 Romy 244 (another guy you think is bad)

.573 DHam 161 (.735 since June 19th & over 1.000 since July

.827 Refsnyder 157

.503 Wong 136 (hardly play 30th.)ed & .761 since July 20th)

We are the one team in MLB without a black hole, and you use that as a reason to say we can't afford a guy just below the league average in our line-up.

[moonslav59]

8 hours ago, FredLynn said:

Wrong again! I focus on winning and Rafaela is an impediment to doing that.

I'm not wrong. You talk about Rafaela every game thread, like he's the reason we are losing, while the team is actually winning.

We are 67-53 in games he starts. He's hitting .768 in high leverage situations, while the team is at .735 (the rest is worse.)

[Hitch]

21 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

How’s that OPS doing? Or the latest hitting streak of batting roughly .100 coming along?

JBJ reincarnated!

You've called an almost 4 WAR guy 'an impediment to winning'. Of all of your hyperbolic takes, this one may be the worst yet. 

[Bellhorn04]

10 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not wrong. You talk about Rafaela every game thread, like he's the reason we are losing, while the team is actually winning.

We are 67-53 in games he starts. He's hitting .768 in high leverage situations, while the team is at .735 (the rest is worse.)

He has a 3.7 bWAR.

Fred does not understand major league baseball.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Sox hitting does not continue to be suspect.

Major league pitching continues to be tough to hit.

4th in MLB in runs all season. 4th in MLB since July 1. 11th since August 1. The runs have fallen a little bit, but the pitching has held up by being 2nd in ERA since August 1.  

This team continues to march on. Not going to nitpick when it looks more and more likely that they are headed for October. 

[moonslav59]

42 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

He has a 3.7 bWAR.

Fred does not understand major league baseball.

While offense is more important than defense, someone just below the norm on O but way above the norm on D can be a damn good overall player, as WAR demonstrates.

Also, Rafaela is one good game away from being average or even slightly above average on offense, if you include baserunning.

[Duran Is The Man]

6 hours ago, Hitch said:

Bradish is going to be some pitcher. Not looking forward to facing him through the years.

no kidding. his pitches had some nasty movement and his location was excellent.

[Bellhorn04]

Just now, moonslav59 said:

While offense is more important than defense, someone just below the norm on O but way above the norm on D can be a damn good overall player, as WAR demonstrates.

Also, Rafaela is one good game away from being average or even slightly above average on offense, if you include baserunning.

Yep, WAR is great for identifying whether a player's pluses outweigh the minuses.  

Just think of those Baltimore teams of the late 60s and 70s.  Earl Weaver plugged Paul Blair and Mark Belanger into the lineup every damn day no matter how lousy they were hitting.  And this was long before WAR of course.

Weaver knew a bit about the game.  

[illinoisredsox]

1 hour ago, Yaz Fan Since 67 said:

I am at the beach and fortunately these games are on TV as they play the O's.  But being on vacation I've only been able to catch the end of them.  Wong is hitting again, that's good news.  Was it me or did Navaez dog it to 2nd on the play that went to the backstop and he was out at 2nd?  

They didn’t show it, but more than likely he was going hard to first and didn’t initially see what had happened on the play, probably overrunning the base.  He then saw the catcher running back to the backstop and decided to go.  Unfortunately, he’s slow as molasses to begin with and whatever’s going on with his knee didn’t improve his speed.  I’m thinking it was just bad judgement by a rookie.

No way to know what the first base coach was telling him.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

He has a 3.7 bWAR.

Fred does not understand major league baseball.

Does he make more outs than we'd like? Yes. Do those more out contribute to losses more than we'd like? Yes. Those should not be the only two questions that  matter.

[moonslav59]

16 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Yep, WAR is great for identifying whether a player's pluses outweigh the minuses.  

Just think of those Baltimore teams of the late 60s and 70s.  Earl Weaver plugged Paul Blair and Mark Belanger into the lineup every damn day no matter how lousy they were hitting.  And this was long before WAR of course.

Weaver knew a bit about the game.  

Good example.

How many times have you heard me saying we need to trade Duran or Abreu?

How many times have I suggested trading Rafaela?

This kid is a big plus value for our team. CF is a very difficult position in Fenway and also in other parks. He brings a ton of value on D and is a decent baserunner.

[moonslav59]

12 minutes ago, illinoisredsox said:

They didn’t show it, but more than likely he was going hard to first and didn’t initially see what had happened on the play, probably overrunning the base.  He then saw the catcher running back to the backstop and decided to go.  Unfortunately, he’s slow as molasses to begin with and whatever’s going on with his knee didn’t improve his speed.  I’m thinking it was just bad judgement by a rookie.

No way to know what the first base coach was telling him.

The announcers said it appeared he did not know the ball went to the backstop.

[notin]

7 hours ago, Hitch said:

What a ridiculous statement. 

You sure?  The Sox have lost 60 games this year.  Clearly these were all the fault of Rafaela and his slightly-above-league-average bat.

Its likely why the Padres traded away Ozzie Smith, knowing full well hit bat would just drag that team down…

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not wrong. You talk about Rafaela every game thread, like he's the reason we are losing, while the team is actually winning.

We are 67-53 in games he starts. He's hitting .768 in high leverage situations, while the team is at .735 (the rest is worse.)

How’s his ops doing? And I think he’s got something like 6 hits in his last 65 ABs. He has no plate discipline and his offensive performance is sinking like a rock. He’s a fair target for criticism and trying to defend him for his offense really isn’t a good look. Face it: he’s not helping the team with his bat, and he has too much company. I predicted his end of season OPS was going to be between.720-.740. I don’t think he’ll even be that good.

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, Hitch said:

You've called an almost 4 WAR guy 'an impediment to winning'. Of all of your hyperbolic takes, this one may be the worst yet. 

Offensively he IS an impediment to winning. Hes just like JBJ when he went down the tubes.

[Tedballgame]

11 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

This team is 4 GB the division lead in late August, and we have fans that want to speculate on Rafaela falling to .700 and magically turn into a sucky player on that precise AB.

I'd normally laugh, but Fred is serious. This is what he focuses on, everyday.

I love what Cedanne brings to the team. Gold glove, defense in centerfield. The ability to play shortstop, second base, and all three outfield positions. His hitting and plate discipline have improved greatly from last year. He is only going to get better. Anybody that hates him does not know baseball.

[FredLynn]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Narvaez is one of baseball's best hitting catcher's this year. 

DHam is a sub and the 13/14th player on the 13 everyday roster.

We have the best balanced line-up in MLB, if you look at most of our top 10 batters by PAs being over .740, .720, .700 or whatever mid level range you want to pick.

DHam is 12th in PAs, and due to Mayer's injury and KC's demotion and our #7 guy traded (Devers,) #8 DFAd (Toro) and our #10 demoted (KC) he is playing more, but hey why not use the last few week sample size you bash Rafaela with and apply it to DHam? Don't look now, but he's hitting like did, last summer.

Active players and their OPS (League avg is about .719.)

.777 Duran 581 PAs

.737 Story 533 (leader in RBI)

.709 Rafaela 478 "Oh the Horror!"

.811 Abreu 395

.906 Bregman 374

.727 Narvaez 367 (not a black hole)

.850 Anthony 274 (should lead the team in PAs from now on)

.830 Romy 244 (another guy you think is bad)

.573 DHam 161 (.735 since June 19th & over 1.000 since July

.827 Refsnyder 157

.503 Wong 136 (hardly play 30th.)ed & .761 since July 20th)

We are the one team in MLB without a black hole, and you use that as a reason to say we can't afford a guy just below the league average in our line-up.

Narvaez has tailed off as expected. DHam is a sub who is going to see more reps than he really should. Wong will likely improve on his abysmal OPS to date because there’s no place for him to go but up. Even Story has an OPS barely above league average. These are some of the reasons we can’t afford to have a black hole like Rafaela out there every day 

[Duran Is The Man]

2 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

Narvaez has tailed off as expected. DHam is a sub who is going to see more reps than he really should. Wong will likely improve on his abysmal OPS to date because there’s no place for him to go but up. Even Story has an OPS barely above league average. These are some of the reasons we can’t afford to have a black hole like Rafaela out there every day 

i just don't understand your hate for Cedanne. did he steal your girl or run over your dog?

[notin]

2 hours ago, FredLynn said:

How’s that OPS doing? Or the latest hitting streak of batting roughly .100 coming along?

JBJ reincarnated!

What’s wrong with JBJ Reincarnated?  And when did JBJ die, as that is the necessary first step to being reincarnated?

Are you really complaining that Rafaela has turned into a Gold Glove winning All Star and former ALCS MVP that posted roughly 18 bWAR in a 6 year stretch?

 

 

 

[notin]

2 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

i just don't understand your hate for Cedanne. did he steal your girl or run over your dog?

He did steal my dog and run over my girl.  But that’s not the same…

[Bellhorn04]

4 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

Narvaez has tailed off as expected. DHam is a sub who is going to see more reps than he really should. Wong will likely improve on his abysmal OPS to date because there’s no place for him to go but up. Even Story has an OPS barely above league average. These are some of the reasons we can’t afford to have a black hole like Rafaela out there every day 

The Sox are 31-16 since July 1 with a +89 differential, while Rafaela has been slumping.

You go on your gut feelings and ignore the most obvious facts.

[FredLynn]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

He has a 3.7 bWAR.

Fred does not understand major league baseball.

What you mean to say is that I don’t agree with you. I understand baseball just fine, like just about everyone here. But I don’t subscribe to groupthink. I do my own thinking and I post my own take on things. You aren’t required to agree with it. We all have the same goal and we all have our own opinion on how best to achieve it.

[FredLynn]

6 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

i just don't understand your hate for Cedanne. did he steal your girl or run over your dog?

Both of those

I don’t hate Cedanne. I didn’t hate his twin JBJ either. I just don’t think he is a contributor to our offense the way the team needs contributors right now. He’s fallen off the cliff as far as I’m concerned.

[notin]

10 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

Narvaez has tailed off as expected. DHam is a sub who is going to see more reps than he really should. Wong will likely improve on his abysmal OPS to date because there’s no place for him to go but up. Even Story has an OPS barely above league average. These are some of the reasons we can’t afford to have a black hole like Rafaela out there every day 

Are we really attacking Rafaela by defending Wong with an OPS that has no place to go but up?  Thats the textbook example of a rationalization.  Unless his OPS is 0.000, it can go down…

[Bellhorn04]

1 minute ago, FredLynn said:

What you mean to say is that I don’t agree with you. I understand baseball just fine, like just about everyone here. But I don’t subscribe to groupthink. I do my own thinking and I post my own take on things. You aren’t required to agree with it. We all have the same goal and we all have our own opinion on how best to achieve it.

Your maligning of Rafaela shows that there are some things you simply don't grasp about major league baseball.  Not even the fact that everyone disagrees with you is enough to persuade you. 

 

[notin]

1 minute ago, FredLynn said:

Both of those

I don’t hate Cedanne. I didn’t hate his twin JBJ either. I just don’t think he is a contributor to our offense the way the team needs contributors right now. He’s fallen off the cliff as far as I’m concerned.

Offense is only half the game.  It might be the more exciting half, but it’s still only half.  And Rafaela only comes up 4 times in game. His lack of contributions is minimized by those around him in the lineup…