seabeachfred

What the f*** is the matter with that guy Ted? He seems more intent to throw spears that bask in the glory that our team has accomplished this season. This "I told you so crap" is now for the birds. USER, lighten up a little. We're all on the same team and in this together.

You beat me to it mvp. 96-66 was what it was......only two games ahead of the Yankees though. It got a little scary near the end.

That was my favorite Red Sox team so I am kind of an authority on that team. We were 96-66, won the East by two games over the Yankees. So far this might be better.

Job complete tonight Jung. You're usually a sane and logical person on this board so if you are seething an angry at the Orioles and Showalter you can bet the rest of us should feel the same way without any conscience guilt. You're right; Buck has been a f*** and he got in his jollies rubbing our noses in the dirt back in Sept, 2011 and all of last year. But as Gomer Pyle Pyle used to say "SURPRISE SURPRISE"!!!!!!! Your guys didn't take that next step this season except for the other direction....SOUTH!!!!!! You can bet he and his team and the rest of the AL East will give us the respect we deserve from here on in.

If he is going to be in the Coco Crisp range for the Red Sox, I would want to resign Ells in a flash. Crisp was a terrible hitter for us, for average, for power and in the clutch. I vividly remember that five game series we got waxed by the Yankees in August of 2006. The papers played up the Damon-Crisp encounter and while Damon has ten or ll hits in that series, Crisp was 1 for 19 and a dozen runners left on base. No thanks!!!!!! If Bradley isn't projected to be a solid line drive hitter who can carry the load in CF I think signing Ellsbury would be a very wise idea. I still think that Jackie might have trouble hitting Big League pitching on a consistent basis and is 190 average this year in the Bigs makes me worry about him a little.

I've noticed Palodios, I've noticed very carefully!!!!!! I've always said this guy could play if only given the chance and for that was panned by a couple of my colleagues here, one a diehard Delarosa enthusiast. In limited action he has hit over 300, played pretty good defense and got some key hits. For some reason he seems to have lost favor from the front office but if we lose Salty I wouldn't be upset if they finally give this guy a full chance. I think the results would be very surprising to some. IMHO, we simply cannot put a near automatic out in that position, especially if we lose Ellsbury and have to use the struggling Bradley in the lineup next year. Here's hoping we don't lose Jarrod, though. He has been a much improved player for us this season and he may have finally caught his stride.

I really wish the Red Sox would cut playing with Middlebrook's mind. He is going to strike out a lot but with experience he will better learn the strike zone IMO and the strikeouts will decrease over the years. He also is capable of hitting 30 or more homers a year and driving in close to 100 runs. With he and Bogey on the left side of our infield for the next ten years we will have some good right hand hitting run producers there. Leave Will to work with his coaches and stop expecting him to hit 350 and strike out less than 50 times a year. Ain't gonna happen. Deal with him as he is; it is a pretty good package from where I sit.

All kidding aside Youk, do we really know how good the Red Sox can be as they enter the playoffs? At their best they can take them all on and get the job done, but we have seen them three different times this season going to temporary doldrums. We need to get our starting and relief pitching along with our offense operating in sync because then we are at least as good as anyone else. They cannot afford to have any part of their game come up a cropper. I see many of the teams pretty evenly matched IN BOTH LEAGUES.

No Kapsis, he can show his face and try to stand tall and face the music. He knows he's going to have to eat a ton of s*** after posting those ridiculous comedowns for our pitching staff and our team. I can see how he thought it would be near impossible for the Red Sox to make the recovery it did because many of us were shocked that we turned out so good, but he is going to have to live with it this winter. What is worse from his perspective is that his club is facing a ton of turd falling on them the next few years. Their stalwarts are decaying from age, injuries and drugs, their farm system is barf warmed over and there is a chance that their very good manager is going to be headed elsewhere (Chicago anyone?). If they fail to resign Cano they could find themselves in the sewer. One thing he has to know and that is the Yankees will not pull what the Red Sox did this year next year, and I'm sure he realizes that. Jacko, however, has always impressed me as a class act and he will take his shots and be a better man for it.

The way Farrell has used Berry recently makes me wonder whether it is even necessary to have him on the playoff roster. He has been put in as a runner numerous times the past week and never tried to steal a base. He was sacrificed one time and twice he remained glued to the first base bag. If we aren't going to run him we should add Bradley to the roster instead IMHO. At least Bradley can swing a bat.......well some of the time anyway.

Makes one wonder Ted why you and your Dad were 33 years ahead of me in finding my team. I would have thought it was there for me all the time and I just didn't pick up on it. You Dad was absolutely right though. When I saw Fenway it reminded me so much of Ebbets Field. The closeness of the fans, the intimacy of the park, the walk from the subway station over the bridge and seeing the ballpark just as I walked a couple of blocks and saw EF in my youth, but you said it all......I FOUND THE RIGHT TEAM. I know I come across sometimes as a nasty son of a bitch but you can take it to the bank....I LOVE THE RED SOX LIKE YOU CAN'T BELIEVE.

Talk about extremes. MB4Life and Sox Sport put the Red Sox in the gutter and YOUK puts them in the penthouse. Which way to go? Look, their 20-8 start out of the gate might have been a fluke, and drawing from last year's debacle it could have been. Now with only five games remaining in the regular season I don't see how anyone can say that their 95-62 record is any kind of fluke. They taken on all comers, stumbled and bumbled along the way, made their way through a couple of squalls, but for the most part they have taken all the comers on and have prevailed. They have owned the Yankees, beaten the Rays and Jays, taken care of the Guardians and Tigers and have gotten even with the Rangers. Their record after 157 games cannot be ruled a fluke even by an anti-Red Sox contingent, let alone Red Sox fans. Where I do find some agreement with MB4 and Sox Sport is that if we play the A's or Tigers or Rays the series will be challenging and we could wind up on the short end just as we could take care of them and advance to the WS. Those playoff series are crapshoots, three out of five and four out of seven. If our pitchers are dealing, our hitters are performing and our defense allowing the opposition only three outs in an inning our chances are as good as anyone else. It depends how we're playing when the post-season bell chimes.

The last few games has seen Bradley start to hit. He may, as you say, be ready to take over CF. However, I reserve the right to wonder if he can hit Major League pitching consistently. Keep in mind that he is still hitting under 200. You can't have such a person batting leadoff and being in the lineup if he is an outfielder. We'll just have to wait to see what happens because I'm sure the Sox are going to resign Ells even though I think they should.

This is a good opportunity for me to listen to you two wax poetic about Yaz and learn a few things about the guy. Remember, I was not a Red Sox fan until late 2000 so I missed enjoying his career with the Red Sox. I do know, however, that he was a favorite of my wife Linda. Every time she saw him on TV against her Angels she rooted for her team except when Yaz came up, hoping he would get a hit but not one that would beat her team. I still remember her rooting like the devil for the Red Sox in the '75 World Series against the Reds. Ashamed to say it now but I was an NL fan back then and rooted for the Reds. Hopefully, I can get a "get out of jail card" for that indiscretion.

Crawford seems to be a shell of the player he once was and I get the strong feeling after watching on TV out here that he has his share of troubles performing in a high tension environment. Keep in mind that he played in the relative graveyard quiet of Tampa Bay all those years where there was little pressure from the press and fans. When he got to Boston he, by his own admission, admitted that it was a lot more expectations arising than he had expected. He seemed to melt from the pressure and along with his injuries was pretty much cheered out of town by everyone----as was Beckett who went from savior to ******** in the space of four seasons. Gonzales could have been a stalwart for us for years but in order to clean the decks we had to let him go, especially when the Bums were willing to take Carl and Josh off our hands. I don't know about you or anyone else but I don't miss them one bit. I do not think they were real Red Sox type players.

Campfighter, I think if you polled everyone on this board you would get everyone to say the same thing you did. It's out of our hands now and they've already taken the Giants two straight, and with Pettitte pitching maybe his last game at YS and on Mariano Rivera Day at Yankee Stadium, it could be a sweep. If we want the Yankees home for the winter it is up to the Guardians, Royals, Rangers and Rays to win the majority of their remaining games. The Yanks have to leapfrog over those four teams to get in.

Good for you SFF. I was with you in spirit out here in California watching Koji get that last strikeout to win the division for the Red Sox....and their fans. Glad they won last night and I don't need to ask if you had a hell of a good time. Glad you did.

Mark and Dojii, put me in your camp concerning Ellsbury vs Bradley. Jackie is a hard working and likeable young ballplayer but he doesn't have the speed Ells had, strikes out too much and I am concerned about his ability to steal bases for us in the leadoff spot, and, more importantly, his ability to consistently hit Major League pitching. If I had my druthers I would want Jacoby to end his career wearing Red Sox Red and I hope sanity prevails and we resign him. However, it is out of our hands.

No question that no matter what happens from here on in this season has been an outstanding success. I mean, who even dreamed we would have 94 wins and a nine game lead with still seven games to go when the season started? The only thing I dreamed was that since the AL East was wide open this season, 700 Hitter and I thought we might sneak in a take the division with about 84 or 85 wins----that is, if all the breaks came our way. In other words, little if any chance for that to happen. I think we have to keep this whole thing is perspective if things go South for us in the Playoffs. Still, from what I've seen of our club this season, it is going to take a pretty damn good team to stop us. Our chances seem as good as anyone else's.

Right you are on that one BEL. No matter how frustrated we may get at Ells' frequent injuries, in my opinion we are a lot better with him in the lineup, and he and Shane do give us terrific defense in the outfield. Hope Jacoby is ready to play a game or two before the Playoffs start.

I'm with you all the way on this mvp, but I hope you will allow me the joy of just enjoying this AL East Division title for a couple of days before we all go on the warpath for our team again. We have as good a chance as anyone else to win the AL Title and I'm sure the team knows it.

I figure you are educated and intelligent enough to glean what I said and come up with a conclusion. Please don't tell me that you believed the team would win the AL East User, but, yes, I was wrong....and as you ought to know by now if I am wrong I will admit it. I was wrong. And glad I was. IMHO, though, I think Ben was helped this season when John Henry gave him the keys to the baseball operation and let him and Farrell run the show on the field. Up to know it has been a smashing success and I will guarantee you no one is more happier than I am right now......as happy, certainly, but not any more.

Great spirit and fire VA, but if you, me and others really want to stick to these guys the best way would be after we take care of our own business take care of them the last series of the year and knock their asses out of the Playoffs. That would be a real hoot.

Not only with us Dojii but with scouts as well, many times it's a guessing game and hit or miss can occur with even supposed top notch prospects. You hit a homer with Nava and I'm surprised there are still a few around here that stubbornly refuse to give you credit for that. Surprising because there are a couple of people here, and they know who they are, that were calling for the Red Sox to trade for Ronny Belliard early in the 2007 season due to the fact that Dustin Pedroia just didn't seem to have the wherewithal to make the grade in the Big Leagues. Thank God I wasn't one of them, but I always believed that Jed Lowrie was going to be as good as Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury, and while he has been pretty solid for the A's, hasn't quite reached the level of the other two. As far as Lars Anderson was concerned, that was Theo Epstein's work all the way. There are some of us who didn't much respect his ability to judge talent and his reluctance to see that Lars was a white elephant resulted in a total waste of a chance to get something from him in the trade market. That said, it is just as easy to screw up on a prospect as it is to hit the jackpot on one.

I'm kind of surprised that there are many of think the Red Sox should kiss Napoli off after this season. I don't. Yes, he strikes out a hell of a lot to suit me but he hits with power, drives in runs, has played a pretty good first base, has been a leader in the clubhouse, had fit it very well with his teammates and kills the Yankees. To me that's a lot to like. He also brings a fire to the team, not loud boisterous banter, but a fierce determination to succeed. I think we need him back.