Youk Of The Nation

Maybe I should change the question mark in the thread title to an exclamation point.

Much like the night of my first high-school dance, it was only one base short of what I wanted, and it was still pretty satisfying.

Okay, not only does this really, really not need it's own thread, but this isn't the right forum even if it did. This has nothing to do with the Red Sox at all. I'm going to move this, for lack of a better place, to the General Baseball discussion thread. Please for the love of all that any of you hold dear in your hearts, PLEASE stop creating threads for every stray thought. This is not Twitter.

Time for a home run from Mookie.

How is Ortiz not better than Martinez? Leaving aside Ted's point about the relative impact on their franchises, he leads Martinez in nearly every major statistical category. Hits, runs, RBI, doubles, triples!, home runs, slugging, and total bases. His batting average and OBP are lower, but he played two more seasons than Martinez, and his OPS is only a couple points behind. He will most likely overtake Martinez in walks by the end of this season. Ortiz finished in the Top 5 of MVP voting five times, including four consecutively, Martinez finished in the Top 5 once. Ortiz also led the league in RBI twice to Martinez's once, and Ortiz did it at a time when he had much more competition for the honor. About the only statistic that Martinez has a decisive advantage in is stolen bases. Ortiz was a very important and very productive part of three World Series Championships, and he is respected and feared by every pitcher and team in baseball at a level that most guys can only dream of. Martinez should be in the Hall of Fame, I would never deny that, but I really cannot see any way in which you can make an argument that he is better than Ortiz. I can barely see an argument for saying that he's equal.

I wonder why no one player-manages anymore.

My mistake, I meant signed with.

What? If there was no DH, Ortiz would probably have been a defensively sub-par first baseman for a few years until nagging injuries forced him into a backup role and eventually retirement, likely around 2009-2010, and he probably would never have signed with the Red Sox in the first place. In return, we would have been treated to 10 seasons of watching Tim Wakefield striking out on pitches 20mph faster than he has ever thrown before. Why would you want to deny us that?

I could easily have predicted David Ortiz falling one hit short of the cycle, but I would never have predicted it would be the single he missed out on.

Maybe I unpinned that thread too quickly.

Okay, but this is about the rules of baseball.

Well, one of those games was a 22-run shellacking of Seattle, that kind of skews things.

Uh-oh. Might be time to take Wright out.

Good, I'd hate my winning streak to be interrupted by a postponement.

Yeah I'm not sure why you started it either, there have been zero rumors or suspicions about Red Sox players this season, and you yourself answered your own question with "not likely", which is what we all would have figured. I'm not going to kill the thread, but since there really hasn't been any reason to discuss Red Sox PED use in depth, I'm just going to move it to the General Sox discussion thread. If a Sox player gets suspended, though, we will probably need a separate thread to discuss that. I hope that doesn't happen though, obviously.

Alright, I'm going to close, unpin, and move this thread back to the Front Desk forum, now that it has served its purpose. Thank you everyone.

Keep hitting, keep scoring. The Sox have scored 11+ runs in four straight for the first time since 1950. Keep setting records. Win.

The Sox have gotten supremely lucky in the last decade with guys who never came up as first basemen playing first base extremely well. Youk was incredible defensively despite being a third baseman to begin with, and now Hanley. Granted, Hanley is so far a small sample size, but you're right in that he is playing like he was always meant to do this.

Apparently the last time an MLB team scored double-digits in four straight games was in 2007. Anyone care to guess which team it was?

I said the same thing the other day as well. The unexpected production from every spot in the order, the constant ability to say "f*** this" when they fall behind early and just go on scoring more runs until they're ahead again, the way everyone looks so happy and relaxed in the dugout and on the field, not to mention the production itself. It's a great feeling of deja vu, and you can't help but wonder if it's heading the same way again.

Now that's efficient relief pitching.

This team is unstoppable right now.

You have to give the guy a lot of credit. I never particularly cared for him and Orsillo as the TV team (I've mentioned before that I prefer listening to baseball on the radio to watching on television), but he's still good at his job. But he's been through a lot the last few years. Cancer, treatment, relapse, the whole thing with his son. I wouldn't be surprised if he's a little absent-minded or just plain exhausted from everything life has thrown at him on top of the constant travel of his job. A lesser man would have hung it up a couple years ago, but he's still doing it with a smile.

I'm not sure what it is with you guys and cryptic thread titles, but this is the best example of what I was talking about in the pinned thread that has come up since I made it. You created this thread literally directly above a thread discussing JBJ's performance on the field and at the plate. Now, on topic, I have to say...no. I do not think JBJ realistically can keep up this pace enough to win the batting title. I still think he'll do very well for the season, but not "better batting average than Miguel Cabrera" well. In fact, I think Pedroia has a better chance at the highest batting average for the team.

Yeah I don't particularly care for the idea of having to scan through each thread after it has been active for a while to see whether or not it should be merged into another one. That was part of the reason I made this thread in the first place.