Phillies (Luzardo) vs Red Sox (Suarez): 5/14/26, 6:45pm

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, drewski6 said:

thats exactly what i was thinking about haha, and probably the coolest thing Henry has ever said.

Sounds like a cold hard dictator, to me.

😜

[drewski6]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

If we were 19th, now, we'd maybe be in the last WC slot.

19th would mean 25 more runs scored.

(FYI, fangraphs projected Contreras at .791.)

"Nobody could have predicted a bottom 10 offense"

Whats 30 - 19??

HOW DARE YOU SAY WE HAD A PROJECTED BOTTOM 10 OFFENSE?  WE HAD A PROJECTED ...(checks notes)....BOTTOM 11 OFFENSE!!

We splitting these hairs?

You dont rely on a bunch of sophmores to do the most important thing in baseball.  Hit the ball hard.

[drewski6]

Everybody knew we had a bad offense coming into this season.

[drewski6]

Maybe not worst offense at fenway since 1908 but certainly bottom 1/3 of the league.

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Everybody knew we had a bad offense coming into this season.

Everybody also knew we had to trade Duran for prospects. 

[Old Red]

4 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I had to put Fred on ignore.  It's not just the negativity but his posts tend to be extraordinarily repetitive.  You are negative but in a way that's not boring.  😄

That cracks me up when I hear someone gets put on ignore. If that’s the only way you can control yourself like one I know fine, but you don’t have to respond to anyone’s post let alone read it. To much negativity? The way this team has played it deserves all the negativity it can get, and then some. Fans are showing up at Fenway with bags on their heads, and planes are also circling Fenway with a banner trailing say fire LOWbrez, and sell the team. The negativity from Fred is pretty mild compared to what’s out there on other venues, and the airwaves. Repetitive? As I’ve said before Fred has been more right than others on here who are more repetitive than Fred when they constantly say they are not apologizing, or defending Bloom JH, or Brez when everyone knows they are, and then telling Fred to go root for someone else like they have some kind of authority, and it’s not the first time they’ve told someone the same thing, and that’s a fact.🤔Carry on.

[moonslav59]

39 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

"Nobody could have predicted a bottom 10 offense"

Whats 30 - 19??

HOW DARE YOU SAY WE HAD A PROJECTED BOTTOM 10 OFFENSE?  WE HAD A PROJECTED ...(checks notes)....BOTTOM 11 OFFENSE!!

We splitting these hairs?

You dont rely on a bunch of sophmores to do the most important thing in baseball.  Hit the ball hard.

Did anybody here or elsewhere project bottom 10?

Okay, someone projected bottom 11. Good for them!

We are bottom 3, now.

[notin]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Did anybody here or elsewhere project bottom 10?

We are bottom 3, now.

I would have thought bottom 10 surprising, but not insane.  Bottom 3?  No way.  The Sox lineup might look light to some, but it wouldn’t have been hard to find 7 or 8 that looked even lighter…

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

I personally never thought the Red Sox were just "a" bat short. Not to go deep in October. They lost two stars in the batting order from a year ago, not to mention several other specialists who contributed. People forget Romy was their lone .300 hitter or that only half a dozen teammates had more plate appearances.

Even if you counted on Anthony to replace Devers -- I didn't -- they were two different hitters: a classic masher who opponents feared (especially in New York), and a more discerning batter who was an On Base machine...

Losing Bregman, though, compounds the gaping Raffy hole in the lineup. I'm talking specifically about talent (not this season's stats), because even if Durbin repeats his rookie year, he's a downgrade.

The Duran and Story wipeouts suck, but no diehard Sox fan is really shocked. It's more of a surprise that Abreu looks like a legitimate All-Star.

Contreras replaced last year's Opening Day first baseman and clean-up man -- Casas -- and Will is what we always hoped Tris could be at the plate, and ten times better at 1B.

But Boston never filled -- and is still missing -- two quality bats smackdab in the heart of the order.

 

 

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, notin said:

I would have thought bottom 10 surprising, but not insane.  Bottom 3?  No way.  The Sox lineup might look light to some, but it wouldn’t have been hard to find 7 or 8 that looked even lighter…

Yes, 19th to 21st would not have been shocking, especially when the whole AL sucks.

I thought we might hit 10th, but more likely 11th to 15th.

[notin]

41 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Everybody also knew we had to trade Duran for prospects. 

So?  That means nothing if enough teams are interested…

[moonslav59]

The AL is bad, and the Sox are dead last in runs scored (161.)

They are 19 rus away from 13th and 28 from 7th & 8th.

It's not a fluke, as we have an 85 wRC+ and the nest team, TOR, is at 93. We are 5th in BAbip (.293.)

We are 4th in runs allowed (174) and 5th in Earned Runs allowed (162)

Sox are 3rd in ERA- (89) and 5th in xFIP (3.93)

We blow everyone away on DRS:

40 BOS, 18 TBR, 8 NYY & SEA, 4 LAA (more than next 4 teams combined!)

OAA

17 BOS, 5 KCR, 4 TOR, 2 CHW & NYY (more than all the plus teams combined!)

 

[moonslav59]

16 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

But Boston never filled -- and is still missing -- two quality bats smackdab in the heart of the order.

One was supposed to be Anthony, but that was always speculative.

I'm not sure adding Bregman and Bichette would have mattered much.

[drewski6]

33 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Did anybody here or elsewhere project bottom 10?

Okay, someone projected bottom 11. Good for them!

We are bottom 3, now.

I predicted that we wouldnt have enough offense, and plenty did also did.  I dont think I envisioned it being this bad, so sure.

But Breslow does bear a lot of responsibility is my point (again and again).

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

5 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Patience is not one of my strong suits. I expected a drop off and was part of the "cliff dweller" club during the DD era.

I think 2021 gave JH a false sense of security that we could win without major expenditures, and to some extent, many fans were fooled into thinking the rebuild need not be 5-6 years long.

The higher farm rankings also added encouragement, and when some of the prospects from DD's so-called "depleteled farm" came through (Devers, Houck and a few others to lesser extents) the drop off in 2022 and beyond were couched as bad luck or blips on an upward trajectory.

It took Bloom longer than many felt it should have to build up the roster depth and farm system, and the lack of top pitchers hurt like hell. Brez has shifted the focus to pitching, and now the offense is the major weakness. It's no suprise.

My hopes t start the year were based on two things:

1. The rest of the AL sucks. (I even felt the Yanks were over-rated.)

2. The additions of Suarez, Contreras & Gray were better than what we lost. (This has been true, so far, but the returning player's drop off has been astoundingly extreme.)

I might be one of the few that has yet to give up on 2026, but I'm certainly void of any optimism, right now.

The dropoff from Duran and Story plus Anthony and Mayer not performing like top prospects so far have been a major factor why the offense has been so impotent.

[drewski6]

5 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

The AL is bad, and the Sox are dead last in runs scored (161.)

They are 19 rus away from 13th and 28 from 7th & 8th.

It's not a fluke, as we have an 85 wRC+ and the nest team, TOR, is at 93. We are 5th in BAbip (.293.)

We are 4th in runs allowed (174) and 5th in Earned Runs allowed (162)

Sox are 3rd in ERA- (89) and 5th in xFIP (3.93)

We blow everyone away on DRS:

40 BOS, 18 TBR, 8 NYY & SEA, 4 LAA (more than next 4 teams combined!)

OAA

17 BOS, 5 KCR, 4 TOR, 2 CHW & NYY (more than all the plus teams combined!)

 

so we're getting good luck on balls dropping in hahahahah (5th in babip) and yes, we have great pitching and defense.  But the noodliest noodlebat offense since noodles were invented is too much to overcome.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, drewski6 said:

I predicted that we wouldnt have enough offense, and plenty did also did.  I dont think I envisioned it being this bad, so sure.

But Breslow does bear a lot of responsibility is my point (again and again).

I think everyone expected a drop.

I had hopes the younger players would show age progression growth, especially those nearing or in prime, and I felt Story & Contreras were not that far from prime to think they had another good year in them.

We all knew much of the our line-up was speculative on upside potential and the floors were low on several players.

These "floors" are deep underground caves, at this point.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

The dropoff from Duran and Story plus Anthony and Mayer not performing like top prospects so far have been a major factor why the offense has been so impotent.

Agreed, and how much of that can be blamed on Breslow, Cora and the hitting coaches?

Most of us felt we needed at least one more big bat, so Brez is and should not be blameless, but the major failure is with those 4 plus Narvaez & Durbin.

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

so we're getting good luck on balls dropping in hahahahah (5th in babip) and yes, we have great pitching and defense.  But the noodliest noodlebat offense since noodles were invented is too much to overcome.

That BAbip is not a good sign we will improve. It actually projects a possible drop off, going forward.

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I think everyone expected a drop.

I had hopes the younger players would show age progression growth, especially those nearing or in prime, and I felt Story & Contreras were not that far from prime to think they had another good year in them.

We all knew much of the our line-up was speculative on upside potential and the floors were low on several players.

These "floors" are deep underground caves, at this point.

Agree if someone is like expect some light rain and it monsoons, its hard to say that person was right

[Old Red]

5 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Fair enough. Frustration and anger sometimes causes poor word choices.

I'll never put Fred on ignore.

I’m sure Fred will rest easy knowing you’ll never put him on ignore. Like it’s some kind of punishment, or something. I know it never was for me with my 10 times.🙈

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, moonslav59 said:

That BAbip is not a good sign we will improve. It actually projects a possible drop off, going forward.

Right it shows that when it comes to batting average, we've gotten lucky....And we have one of the worst batting averages for this team in 100 yrs

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Agreed, and how much of that can be blamed on Breslow, Cora and the hitting coaches?

Most of us felt we needed at least one more big bat, so Brez is and should not be blameless, but the major failure is with those 4 plus Narvaez & Durbin.

Any credibility to: had breslow not spat in bregmans face , that bregman could have returned and these monster drop offs wouldnt have happened?

I dont usually put a lot of stock in that stuff but a lot are saying he had a huge impact on teammates (positively)

[drewski6]

I put 110% of it on Breslow

[notin]

7 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

so we're getting good luck on balls dropping in hahahahah (5th in babip) and yes, we have great pitching and defense.  But the noodliest noodlebat offense since noodles were invented is too much to overcome.

5th in the AL, not MLB (11th in MLB).  So not necessarily so freaky.

[drewski6]

7 minutes ago, notin said:

5th in the AL, not MLB (11th in MLB).  So not necessarily so freaky.

worthy clarification, ty

[notin]

13 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Any credibility to: had breslow not spat in bregmans face , that bregman could have returned and these monster drop offs wouldnt have happened?

I dont usually put a lot of stock in that stuff but a lot are saying he had a huge impact on teammates (positively)

But they weren’t this bad before Bregman, and while he apparently did help some teammates, that doesn’t explain why half of them have plummeted below pre-Bregman levels, unlike Houston when Bregman left.  He also appears to have had minimal impact on the Cubs so far this year, if any impact at all..

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

5 hours ago, illinoisredsox said:

Nah.  SBF could never write posts that take longer to read than War and Peace.

Maybe it's Stephen King.

[notin]

1 minute ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

Maybe it's Stephen King.

Or just Annie Wilkes…

[drewski6]

10 minutes ago, notin said:

But they weren’t this bad before Bregman, and while he apparently did help some teammates, that doesn’t explain why half of them have plummeted below pre-Bregman levels, unlike Houston when Bregman left.  He also appears to have had minimal impact on the Cubs so far this year, if any impact at all..

Well, good sir, if you told me that I was just looking for a reason to blame Breslow, you would be right approximately 1/3 of the time