joe

Folks, the Red Sox can’t advance without solid pitching. Hopefully Theo will be doing a lot of things this off-season. To the White Sox fans: I was not impressed with your team or your silly manager. I hope the Yanks will sweep you… remember you did not earn it, we gave it away!

Well, I just came from work and I have not seen anything, and yet I think I can answer your question: Because that Penguin in the dug out forgot that Matt is useless this time of the year, and he also forgot that he has Arroyo. All Penguins are created equal!!!!! They will never change until they are fired.

The White Sox are not a very good team now as they were. Their offense is no match to ours, their pitching is just above average at best. I see the Red Sox easily beating them 3-1.

Two thumbs down to Francona.

We could have DiNardo and Papelpon, and..., but the problem is that Tito won't use them until its too late.

There is some truth to that, but Yanks should blame themselves for the followings: 1-They made two costly errors. 2-Their manager kept their struggling starter for too long. 3-I am not sure why Sierra was in the lineup, he is not productive. 4-They had several chances (left bases loaded), and they did not deliver. Sox will gladly take any win.

LOL...LOL...LOL, of course it was Millar. Who else?

You guys are arguing about Millar, but the fact is that Millar did not add himself to the lineup list. It was his manager who put him in this lineup. Therefore all the blame should go to his manager! Look at how he is managing this series: on Tuesday Sox played two games. Game1=Wakefield, game2=Schilling Everybody knows that Schilling is struggling and he is likely not to pitch more than 6 or 7 innings. On the other hand Wakefield has been pitching 8 or 9 innings consistently. Papelbon is a starting pitcher, so if you use him in the bullpen, he can be used as a long reliever. Mike Myers, and Bradford are NOT long relievers! A smart manager would have used the following combinations: 1-Wakefield with Bradford/Myers. 2-Schillings with Papelbon in same game, and immediately take Schillings out of the game if he is not pitching well. Dumb Francona did the followings: 1-Wakefield with Papelbon. 2-Schillings with Mike Myers, and Bradford, and he made sure to keep struggling Schillings in the game until Schillings shot himself in the foot and we lost the game, and the Sox’s winning momentum is killed (they easily lost the next game). I am not even going to talk about his poor lineup choices. Sox, Yanks, and Guardians are pretty equal teams; it will take few smart moves by managers to tip the scale to one team or the other! We DO NOT have a smart manager to tip the scale in our favor. Instead, we have dumb Francona because Theo wanted to do it on the cheap! The Sox team has to play much harder to compensate for their manager’s stupidity.

I have to agree with you. When amateur Francona manages the game without Brad Mills help, expect bad moves like that.

The Yanks will play 4 games against the Orioles, and I think they will easily sweep them. The Orioles are a very bad team now. The Red Sox will play 4 games against the Blue Jays. The Sox has struggled against the Jays, and I just don’t see the Sox sweeping them! Assuming the Sox will win two games, then they will be behind by two games when the Yank-Sox series starts. Sox are playing at home, but the last time Sox-Yanks played at Fenway Park on July 14-17, Yanks took 3 out of 4!!! Sox are coming out of a long team-wide slump, while the Yanks are hot. Honestly, I am very concerned.

In my opinion “carrying the team” = RBIs. I don’t see how could Millar be carrying the team in September if he has only 5 RBIs, yet he played the most. Olerud who played once every three days has 11 RBIs, Damon and Cora both have 6. It is probably not accurate to use batting average as the sole indicator of the batter’s contribution to the team. If the team does not benefit from your hit, your hit is worthless(except to you since your batting average will go up). I guess you could say it is not his fault if his team can’t benefit from his hits, but this is why there is something called “clutch hitter”

I disagree. Timlin is simply not sharp tonight. This was clear from the beginning. It is the job of his stupid manager to take him out when he is struggling before more damage is done. The whole bull pen was available. What is wrong with using Mike Myers? Francona's stupidity = loss

Pitching-wise, in my opinion the most urgent issue is to get a "real" closer, not another starting pitcher or replace an existing one. Mike Timlin might not be able to handle this role for too long.

I would be worried. Matt has a long history of a “miserable” late-season pitching.