ORS

There is a game tonight ... might as well win it.

The San Antonio back yard came out stellar. I wish we could have kept that house, the back yard was great for parties.

Which back yard is that? It's been so long since I've been on the board, I can't remember where I was living when I mentioned my back yard. ORS has been in El Paso the last 3 years. Moved here with the company I was working for in San Antonio, same type of job, San Antonio was a big expansion and renovation of an existing military hospital, 4 year job from 2009-2013, El Paso is a new 1.1M sq ft military hospital, supposed to be a 3.5 year job from 2013-2016. I left to a new GC after year two, but the EP job is a nightmare, 18 months behind schedule. A tried and true Corps of Engineers clusterf***. Now my bow is oriented toward Houston, and in the process I may be changing jobs again. New company has a job for me in Galveston, rip the skin off and replace plus 50% interior renovations of a 10-story hospital (not military this time). But, and there's always a but, it's not looking like it will start when we thought. However, since my ship was pointed that way, my wife just received an offer letter for a job that's a big promotion and raise in Houston, so we're going regardless in late July. My current assignment turns over 8/15, and since Galveston won't start when we think, my ops mgr has suggested travel to another assignment may be in the cards. I'm not moving to city the size of Houston to travel to another place 2 weeks at a time for a construction job. Houston is a hot construction market. So, when I was in San Antonio, the company I worked with JV'd up with another big GC. I've reached out to some of the people with the other GC I worked with in San Antonio, and they've got over $1B in healthcare construction contracts that have either already started or are starting within the next 6 months. Two of them are $400M+ hospitals, and they need Supt's, so I'll probably end up there. I'll finally be living in a town with a big league team, an AL team at that. So I'll get to see the Sox play for the first time in like 7 years.

I still like baseball.

Well, the wee hours approach....and I'm in El Paso now, mountain time. Congrats everyone. ORS, out.

All is well, went from working 45-50 hours a week to 60-65. Same job, just more responsibility. And my wife's job requires more of her time as we'll. Same situation, same job, just more responsibility. Just no time to sit and watch/talk baseball into the wee hours .

I'm not "back". But had to make an appearance and say "hi" on tonight of all nights.

'Nuff said.

Didn't it come out that he was on the positive list for the round of tests that tested the waters, so to speak, in order to decide the need to implement official testing? That's more than Mac has against him, and he's still not in with better numbers while playing a position on the field. That will seriously hurt any chance Ortiz has.

No, won't get in with those numbers and the PED cloud over his head. At least not until they start putting the likes of Mac, Sosa, and Palmeiro in.

I don't disagree that more moving pieces introduces more probability that things won't work out. I just disagreed with your wording, which seemed to suggest that they did not address both Papelbon and Bard leaving the bullpen. They had a plan, but it came up craps.

No, he's right. Here's how BABIP is determined. BABIP = (H - HR) / (AB - K - HR + SF) It measures the success rate on only batted balls hit into the field of play. All other things being equal (BA, HR, SF), the player with more K's will have a higher BABIP since it is in the denominator.

Prior to today, I'd say there were mixed results trying him out as a SP. I think he just pitched himself out of the rotation today.

Lackey's not even a consideration this season. He won't be back on a throwing program until October/November or so. Lackey's future contribution will only come in 2013 and beyond.

There's a couple of problems with your "Fenway Park" reasoning re: Lackey contributing to the Sox under this contract. One, every one of his starts in Fenway prior to signing with the Sox was against one of the best offenses in the league, lead by one of the best middle of the order duos we've seen in quite some time with Ortiz/Manny. This isn't against a normal distribution of competition, but always against an elite offense. That skews things a bit, and it accounts for 9 of the 44, over 20% of the sample. Two, the remaining 35 starts were 18/17 in 2010/2011, meaning about half of the remaining data is tainted by him pitching through an injury in 2011. About 60% of the data you are using to reach your conclusion isn't really representative of normal conditions. I'll admit, the guy's name is like Judas to me. Can't stand him, both for his performance and attitude. That said, he'll be coming back from TJ next year, and it's reasonably possible that he his a solid contributor to the 2013 pitching staff. He's got the track record when healthy, and he'll have ample time to rehab prior to ST next year.

Yeah, but what does Cafardo think?

Jackie Bradley Jr is due for a promotion from Salem to Portland any day now (.367/.495/568). If he can keep up a high level of play in AA the second half this year. I think he causes them to pause in signing Ellsbury long-term, especially if Ellsbury regresses a bit to the player he was before last year. And, holy turds, look at that OBP!

Aviles is an idiot. He chops the first pitch he sees, a 96 mph jamb-job, when the tying run is on first and it's a guy that could steal. No patience to let the runner try and get in scoring position or a good pitch to hit.

I think I know what you are getting at here....and +1.

This reminds of your post in early May where you were predicting something along the lines of a 19-11 record after their last good stretch. Calm thyself. The Sox also have the bottom of their rotation going up against a performing offense. Buchholz, Doubront, and Bard don't inspire supreme confidence right now.