yawkeyway

Jethro, I think I'm confused about your point. Is the point that, since the sox have mostly righties, they dont get that one step advantage that lefties tend to get? Is that what you meant by speed? I went to look up some home/away records for the past few years, and found this for win percentages: 2003: .519 Road .654 Home 2002: .630 Road .519 Home 2001: .512 Road .506 Home 2000: .531 Road .519 Home 1999: .556 Road .605 Home 1998: .506 Road .630 Home 1997: .481 Road .481 Home 1996: .469 Road .580 Home 1995: .611 Road .583 Home 1994: .451 Road .484 Home That does it for the past 10 years. Looking at this, it is really hard to come up witha conclusive answer. I was unable to find the all time split stats, so if someone had those they would help I guess. But this really shows it goes either way. Some years (1998), we're infinitely better at home, other years (2002), we're better on the road. I think it comes out that we do slightly better at home (in the past 10 years at least) from looking at the numbers, but it isnt too drastic. But maybe it doesnt need to be drastic? A small difference can equal 4 or 5 games, and thats all thats needed for the yankees to beat us. You also need to factor in the "home field advantage", which can be pretty big at Fenway. The team could certainly win at Fenway. I think its a bit unfair to pin our problems on the ballpark. I think you could attribute it to crappy ownership, crappy personnel decisions, etc. But, if we had to get rid of fenway, I wholeheartedly agree with this. Keep the original Fenway standing for posterity. Its too cool of a place to tear down.

aww, shucks, the weatherman? I couldn't have a cooler name? Anyway, sox up 2-1. Very nice. We need to claw back at the yankees, seeing as how they lost.

The MFY didnt just lose, they got killed 8-1! And the weather in KC looks like it should improve soon, here's the doppler:

Damn. RBI triple. Wake is not sharp tonight, must be the damn near perfect weather in KC. Knuckler doesn't knuckle as well.

It's tough to be supportive of a guy with the second highest ERA among starts in all of baseball. It's rapidly approaching 7. Sorry, but I won't be able to bring myself to cheer for him any time soon. Talk to me when it goes below 5, then I might consider it.

In response to 67bleachers' post: I'm really unsure if Lowe will ever be able to settle down. Once you get on sox fans' bad sides you really can't win 'em over again unless you are stellar again (evidence for this is in him pitching a no-no after completely sucking the year before). To say that he'll bounce back from a 6.84 ERA is maybe giving him too much credit. He'll never be the #2 starter again, barring any major surprises. I don't think the "man-child", as you call it, will ever go away. Mental problems are much harder to crack than mechanical, and I think Lowe is a lost cause. I'm just glad we didnt sign him for 9 million as we had proposed. Pedro is, without a doubt, the most intelligent pitcher in the game. He could afford to lose another 2-3 MPH on his fastball and still get hitters out (although not at the rate he did 3 or 4 years ago, but thats understandable). Trying to improve on his intelligence is like trying improve something that is already perfect. Sure he could learn to shut his mouth at times ( ), but as far as baseball smarts goes, he's pretty much tops. And finally: This is something that I had never really thought about, but really is puzzling. Dominicans tend to own Pedro. But, fun fact: Pedro owns manny (13 k's in 29 at bats, and he's held him to a .138 average). Maybe thats why Manny wanted to come to the sox, so he wouldn't have to deal with Pedro anymore! Maybe its because they've spoken to him, since they share common roots and such, and know how to handle him. Maybe its in their blood? Phew, my fingers hurt, but it was worth it. Good post 67blecahers!

But Jennings is worse than Lowe. MUCH worse. It doesn't truly matter that he pitches at Coors. A 8.49 ERA is worse than a 6.02 ERA, no matter how you look at it. True, maybe the rockies would be interested in Lowe, since his sinker ball would keep balls out of the thin air at Coors. I wonder, do the Rockies have any sinkerballers on their staff? Have they in the past, and have they been succesful? No matter how much I hate lowe, I'd rather have him over Jennings.

I'm partial to Rookie of the Year and the Sandlot. Both are great movies, especially for kids. Major League wins in the comedy section, but I probably like these other two more.

But it isnt a few bad starts. He's given up 6+ runs in 4 out of his 8 starts this season. I don't think we're giving up on him that quickly then. His ERA is at 6.02. It's not like its only been two starts into the season, we're talking about 8 starts so far and 40.1 innings. His WHIP is up there near 2 as well. Also, he's been pitching poorly both home and away, but he's pitched REALLY poorly at home. Seeing one of your supposedly good starters struggle so much, especially at home, is a tough thing. If this continues I think the fans are justified in their hatred. I expect to see the "LOOOWE, LOOOWE.....YOU SUCK" chant making a comeback sometime soon.

I think they hit the nail on the head with what he was worth. I wouldn't have wanted to pay more than 6-7 mil/year for Ortiz. He's good, sure, but he isn't well rounded like some other players, so he really shouldn't command a double digit salary. But I'm glad they got him signed, he can swing a bat. I doubt it'll really have any effect on any possible Pedro signing though. Even though they share an agent, and the signing went without any hiccups, Pedro is too self-centered to really notice those things.

Overrated by Red Sox fans, accurate by all other fans. RSN treats him as this savior. One who, along with nomar, will save this team from its impending doom by hitting .800 with 50 homeruns in 4 weeks. It's not gonna happen.

Here's an intersting article about the whole "wait for something to happen" thing: http://redsox.bostonherald.com/redSox/view...articleid=28273

From: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=1803754 (wouldn't it be a shame if Fossum really developed well). So they tried to shop Kim out and got no answers, lol. That's why he's in AAA right now I guess. It makes sense. Get his value up for a trade or get his skill up to help us.

, hate to see people eclipsing Pedro. Glad to see it wasn't a yankee though. As far as strikeout performances go, anything over 13 (striking out more than half of the outs in the game) is really really impressive. Any pitcher that can do that commands my respect.

Haha, I haven't noticed the ass thing but I'll definitely need to see it now. He seems like he can get really distracted with things (whether it be his ass or the second baseman's shoe). As grassinzimsteeth said, he can be spot on or way off. And jarjar, I think the players have better things to do than read fans bash them on message boards. . It would be cool, but I doubt they do. I wouldn't want to read criticism online if I were a baseball player.

Pedro's only been slightly worse than in past years, he hasn't been horrible. He's certainly pitched well enough to be one of the top 3 pitchers in the league. He has a 3.75 ERA (compared to a 2.62 career), a 1.20 whip (against 1.02 career) and 56 k's in 57.2 innings (a bit slower than normal pace, but still great). Sure he hasn't been Pedro of olde, but that comes with age. I'd still pick him over any other AL pitcher save Schilling.

Does anyone know how long Mueller will be out? I'd like to get a prolonged look at this guy to see how he handles over more than two games. He travelled down with the team to Florida, so thats a good sign at least.

Playing against the D-Rays would help any team get out of any slmp. . But the sox haven't looked as bad recently as they did a few weeks ago, which is certainly a good thing. Things can only get better from here on out (barring any major injuries), and hopefully a lot of the things you said will come true. Whatever happens, this will be one of the more memorable sox seasons to date, I hope.

Haha, yes! What a steal that trade was. We got Tek, one of our most consistent producers and one of the best catchers in baseball, and Lowe, who has shown signs of brilliance. But I guess this thread is about how Lowe is not brilliant right now. He's gone, I agree with that, but he isnt as bad a pitcher as he looks right now. It's just his mental makeup. He doesn't have the mentality of a pitcher, starter or otherwise. He showed this 3 years ago when the whole "loooowe, looooowe..... YOU SUCK" phenomenom took place.

The hitting woes stopped for a while, and they're back on now (or in this game at least). Its crazy that we can go from 9 runs in a game a few nights ago to 1. Youkilis was the hitting bright spot, but everyone else just plain sucked. Pedro pitched well enough to get a win, 3 runs is certainly sufficient for a major league offense to work from. But you got to hand it to halladay, he pitched pretty well. 2-1 in Pedro's favor now in the P vs H matchups.

Just the fact that they have to call it "extra innings EXTRA" speaks volumes of the show. It's crappy, and they're just trying to fill the time slot. The guys on it are somewhat stupid, and Sam Horn/ Jim Rice/ Dennis Eckersley have the combined charisma and commentating ability of a potato. As far as the female thing, that would make it interesting. I've been seeing a moderately attractive woman doing some stuff for NESN recently. Not the morning sportsdesk one, but someone else.

Damon makes 8 ml/year, but he's signed through next year (when he'll be making 8.5). Probably just over half of what Beltran will make. But he's signed through next year. Beltran isn't. That leaves us with yet ANOTHER hole to fill for the next offseason if we lose Damon and dont resign Beltran. The team can't afford that. I'm against the deal precisely for this. Imagine having to get at least 2 sp's, some bullpen help, a cf, rf, ss, c etc.. It's painful to think about.

It is tough to tell when you're looking at players this early. Hell, its hard to tell with Hanley Ramirez right now. Some say he'll be great, others don't agree. I think he'll be great, and seeing him and Soto together (if they both develop) in one infield would be amazing.