Beaneater

A little help from the other guys would be welcome.

And we can put a lot of guys in scoring position.

We've got this going for us: the Sox pitching staff can put up a heck of a lot of zeroes.

I do not love that.

It's been done by slow oafish left-handers as well, when presented with an extreme shift.

Baseball is definitely a sport where, if you could go back in time and draft with the benefit of hindsight, you could make a killer team in about 3 years.

I had to look it up.

That is almost unfathomably bad.

This equals our total runs scored in the previous 11 games! Roughly.

MLB rules on options: "Once an optioned player has spent at least 20 days in the Minors in a given season, he loses one of his options." I don't think Mona has been in the minors at all this year, so 3 days in the minors shouldn't burn an option.

That is a mystery. He has two options remaining, I think, and I don't think that sending him down for 3 games would even burn an option.

If I had one wish for the current Red Sox offense, it's that they would somehow figure out how to swing at strikes and leave the balls alone. I know, I know, that's like the baseball-insight equivalent of rocket surgery. I've just lost count of how many at-bats I've seen where the batter looked at two pitches in the zone and swung at three pitches outside the zone. I'm sure it's 5377 times harder than it looks. But as a fan and spectator, it's frustrating.

O-for-7 with RISP through 3 innings. It's like a rare and precious work of art, crystalline in its purity and beauty, unmarred by flaws or imperfections.

That doesn't seem unreasonable. Yet look how we all felt after the Rockies series. We know there is something in this team. Can they find it again? I haven't given up all hope yet. Do I expect them to beat the Yankees? No. But I'm not burying the 2026 Sox just yet.

Is that a known fact, a done deal at this point? I've heard that he still has pain, but we're a few days away yet. Has there been definite news?

You were saying?

This Red Sox offense is going to give me an aneurysm. Leadoff double! Yay! Called third strike, burning an ABS challenge, followed by two groundouts on pitches out of the zone. They're saving the runs for the Bronx, right?

Lombard just had a very strange-looking play to end the game vs. the Twins. Bottom 13, tied 4-4, no one out, ghost runner on 2nd. Victor Caratini hits a 75-ish mph grounder right up the middle – like mathematically up the middle – I think it eventually went over the 2nd base bag. The ghost runner breaks for third, obviously. Lombard charges it and makes a decision to field it in front of the bag rather than letting it get behind the bag, which would have given him more time. As it is, he whiffs entirely on the attempt to field the ball, it trickles into CF, the ghost runner scores, game over. (Scored as a game-winning RBI single, naturally.) I know we talk about the route an outfielder takes to a ball, but this was the first time I've ever thought about the "route" an infielder took. It seems pretty clear to me that if he just let the ball come to him behind the bag, he makes the play, gets the batter-runner out, and holds the ghost-runner at 3rd. By making this weird curling route to field the ball where he did, he ended up failing completely. Odd. Was he just trying to field the ball in front of the bag to ward off any chance of it actually striking the bag (which it didn't, but he couldn't have known that)?

For sure.

28 Ks in the game, 17 of them from the Baltimore line-up. Great game if you like, you know, watching people strike out.

Well, Morán threw about two strikes, but he sent 'em off 1-2-3. Wacky world.

Still can't find the zone, but got some help from the ump and the batter.

I think this is a good indicator of how real the Gasper phenomenon is: the O's want no part of him right now. Lots of walks and HBP in this series.

So, pretty good line for Tolle today, eh?

I think Willson broke Webb.