seabeachfred

Oh s***, you read my mind User, and the answer is yes. Every time the Red Sox lose I have a tendency to rail and the poor pooches take off and hide. My bad.

You're Dutchy, aren't you!!!!!!

I'll have a crack at this one. Perhaps Pedroia's contract might be a year or so too long, but I would rather give him an extra year or two than two years less. And no, Ellsbury is not a better ballplayer than Dustin. Besides, as mentioned by one or two people here, the chances are Ellsbury is fleeing Boston after this year. Unlike Pedroia who made it loud and clear that he wanted to be Red Sox player for life Ellsbury has never said anything of the kind. To my knowledge he has never gone to management and asked for talks about an extension or something would have gotten out as it did about Pedroia. I think we're mixing apples and oranges here. Pedroia wants to stay and makes no bones about it; Ellsbury, well who know how he feels? My take is he is looking for the big payday wherever he can get it.

Reading these back and forth grenades, I'm reminded by a strong belief of mine when I in the company of my four dogs.......DOGS ARE BETTER THAN PEOPLE, PURE AND SIMPLE.

Well we could have made a real move to get Matt Garza, a suggestion that was met with snickers and snotty remarks by a few characters on this board, but they might look at the box score of the Rangers-Yankees game tonight and see that he pitched a hell of a game and now has a 7-1 record with an ERA under 3.00. Yes, I think he was just what we needed and didn't get. Yeh, he spit, looked like a cow, was thoroughly unlikeable and all that s*** according to some, but you don't pitch with your face and spit hurts nothing if you play on natural grass and we still need a solid starter and there are hardly anymore out there, are there? Well Peavy, but some have some misgivings about him too. OK, let's give Webster a few more starts so we all can get sick to our stomachs. Now you all know why I don't post on the game threads during games.

Well he finally stepped up and become a stopper when we needed it most. The Rays have been red hot and someone had to stop them and Jon did. I just wonder if he has turned a corner and will be steady for us from here on in, or whether he was giving us a tease with that performance last night. I still think we need to add a starting pitcher and reliever to the mix. These next two games with Doobie and Lackey might tell us a lot about the strength of our rotation.

I get blue in the face this here and elsewhere but Lester has to step up tonight finally and utterly. We gotten nothing but crapola from him the past two months and his stubbornness in the face of seeing his cutter getting hammered time and again is getting me thoroughly pissed off at that stupid jackass. Nevertheless, we need a much needed shot-in-the-arm win tonight and he is the guy we have to depend on for getting it for us, otherwise, how does second place sound? And maybe third buy the end of the week. The Red Sox have to set their feet in the ground and make a dramatic stand tonight.

Long term contracts aside for the moment, I think what they did with Pedroia was absolutely the right thing to do. Dustin busts his ass every time out, loves playing for the Red Sox, is not intimidated by the demanding crowds in Boston and has become the co-face of the franchise along with Papi. He can hit and he can field and he can run and he is a competitive fireball. Now for those long term contracts......for Pedroia BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was thinking about that myself this morning Jung and you are absolutely right. I remember so well how Madden used to make a monkey out of FrancoMa when the two teams played each other after the Rays became a contender. He never had to move his infielders when we got men on base because he knew that Coma kept his runners tightly roped to the bases and knew he would n ever move the runners. The result was no pressure on his fielders and a resulting double play usually came from Tito's one ridiculous base at a time mantra. He was also ahead of FrancoMa with hit and runs and sending his runners on us. As I said he made a monkey out of Terry. I have always said he cost us division titles in 2005, 2008 and 2009, and the AL Title in '08.

Maybe User. In two starts he has given up only two runs in each game. That is very good. What is not very good is that we only got him two runs and no runs in exchange, though I don't think anyone could have beaten Moore tonight. Just as long as it's not Webster. The guy all the makings of an under-achieving heartbreaker. Great stuff but no clue of how to use it with the result that he getting the living s*** kicked out of him. Maybe he will come around, but I'm starting to doubt that, and, yes, I have very little faith in DLR who seems to be reverting to the stiff he was with the Dodgers. Let's see is Workman can keep this kind of pitching up. If he can maybe we finally hit pay dirt with one of our supposed pitching prospects. Yes, Workman has pitched well for us.

And I still cannot understand why owner John Henry can just shitcan this miserable medical staff from top to bottom and stop working around the edges, adding one or two new guys a year and keeping the rest. The whole s***** group should be barf-canned once and for all. Between their failure to order MRI's when they were needed, their misdiagnoses that has waylaid many of our players over the past four-plus seasons, and their failure to keep our players on the field, they have earned the right to he shown the door. The move by Buch to get a second opinion was the wise move, just that it took him too damn long to decide to do it.

In other words, Clay is acting like a real candy-ass, but we need him badly and I hope he can get his s*** together in his head as well as his arm and get back in the game.

I've tried to figure all that out since I came back on this board in late 2011. Some of the differences and conflicts between posters are just disagreements about how the Red Sox should be run and what should be done for make it better, but a little of it does seem to be personal. By that I mean that some posters just don't like to hear anything negative about the Red Sox written....PERIOD, and they rant and rail when someone like you or Sox Sport or Iortiz or Jung or someone else we all know does it. I think all of this crap would end if everyone would just realize we're all in this together, that we love and live and die with our team. We just proclaim our devotion for the team in different ways. And just for the record Ted, keep up your good work. I know I'm dealing with a knowledgeable baseball man when I read your missives, and, thank God, that you don't deal in ********.

Well we have to give credit where credit it due Jung. Matt Moore was lights out tonight and when you can't break through with a couple of runs against him you have to tip your cap to him and move on. We once had a lefty who could pitch like that at times but the guy disappeared the past two seasons. We'll see if he reappears tomorrow. We also lost out on Matt Garza. I know that doesn't faze too many of our colleagues here but I really thought he might be just the guy we needed for the late summer push. Next possibility? Maybe Jake Peavy perhaps?

BTR, I don't give a damn what the circumstances are, a win over the Yankees is always a cause for utter delight and last night was a real fan pleaser.

Call it coward or scaredy cat but I decided not to watch this game until late in the evening and when I tuned in it was the start of the ninth inning, having avoided all the angst you and others had endured. The last three innings were scary enough and I really thought that there was no way we'd get a homer from Napoli with two outs in the 11th and a 3-2 count and one foul ball off the guy in that at-bat. Needless to say we can win these kind of games this year; we couldn't come close to doing this last season Ted, and now I'm wondering if Cherington is going to roll the dice and try to upgrade both our rotation and bullpen for the dog days coming up.

Now I don't want you to get a big head User, but, yes, you made that prediction and it paid off last night. Certainly we can use Napoli with a hot streak to back up Papi so he sees some good pitches to hit. I also remember about your pitch for Uehara as our closer, but you have to share that with me and one other guy on this board whose identity slipped my mind because we were saying the same thing, though, truth be told, not as enthusiastically as you were. Also truth be told, we would not have won this game last year.

In a way it is User. We strike out too damn much. Between Salty, Napoli, and now Drew (finally back from what was supposed to be a few days that took over three weeks), not to mention a few others who whiff too often, strikeouts are useless outs. Some outs can lead to SAC flies, sacrifices, runners moved over, etc. A strikeout is a wasted at-bat and we've had way too many of those. That's one area that needs some real improvement.

I live in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area and read about the damn Dodgers ad nauseam and I can tell you straight out that Kershaw is NOT for sale, not for any price. They are talking about a massive extension for him with the club. I don't as much as some of you about Sale but I will bet dollars to donuts the chances of getting him are a hell of a lot better than getting Kershaw, that is, if the ChiSox are interested in trading him----which they really should since they will be rebuilding and have absolutely no chance of making the Playoffs this year or most likely the next couple of years. Come to think of it, maybe not us either unless we upgrade our pitching, both rotation and bullpen and find some way to keep our players on the field for the first time since 2008.

I share your frustration with Buchholz and this whole seemingly unraveling ensemble we call our beloved Red Sox. Certainly Clay could have handled it better by getting a second opinion much sooner than he has---and he still hasn't. I just think the guy is injury prone and not very physically strong. To get hurt falling down covering first base or sleeping with your arm around your daughter are bizarre ways of getting injured if the result is the sidelines for the rest of the season, which now I'm afraid is going to be the case with the guy----the second time in three seasons. I don't know if there is a solution but one possibility is for him to have a total and complete check-up----and not from our medical staff whose incompetence over the past few years has been criminal in its mistakes and misdiagnoses and failed to call for MRI's and the like. Then this off season put him on a rigorous strength training program to give the guy some physical strength so he might be able to hold up from that point on. Right now his absence is casting a pall over the whole pitching staff and most likely a lot of people on this board.

Good point Stallion; perhaps it was really bad luck on Ells' part, but even when he gets a minor injury he does seem to take a long time to get back in action. I heard today that John Henry wants to retain him for the future. We'll see.

Right now Buchholz is useless to us. The guy can't stay on the field and he is so much like Ellsbury it's a wonder they're not joined at the hip. Both feel they have to be 100000% before they get back on the field, and to me it is starting to look like 2011 again with Clay. Remember? He'll be back in a week, then two weeks, then a month and finally out for the season. Anyone who counting on him getting back in the fold for us is either very optimistic, naïve or just out to lunch. In the meantime we need a quality starting pitcher very badly because, once again, I don't want to see Webster on that mound one more time. Right now he sucks.

Could be and is are two different animals SoxSport. If that is correct about Garza via Red Sox and Rangers I'm pleased and delighted because IMO we need a quality starting pitcher very badly in the second half. Since I believe Theo Epstein is sensible why would be hold onto Matt when first of all the Cubs will not have him next season and more importantly have no chance this side of Heaven of getting to the Playoffs this year. I will use as a segue what the Nationals did with their young pitcher last year when they shut him down and said there will be o ther years for play to the gallery. Well not this year; the Nats seem to be going in the other direction. I think when you have a chance to strike gold you go for it because next year may not be next year. Hitting much closer to home, I vividly remember the post 2007 season when our young guns Pedroia, Lester, Papelbon and Ellsbury were waxing poetic about what a grand future the Red Sox had. Well five years later and five seasons coming and gone and nothing accomplished in the championship arena, not a division, league or WS title. What would the cost be for Garza? I would hope Cherington is on the horn with Epstein or one of his minions and find out what they would want for him. Sure they would be playing us against the Rangers, but I don't relish the thought of seeing Webster toe the rubber for us anymore this season and getting the s*** beat out of him. I think one good starter and another solid reliever and we could actually make a move towards winning something this year. Without that, no.

I've wondered about that Stallion. From what I've heard over the years Beckett was pretty much a competitive lion and hard ass on the mound and a pretty good clubhouse guy back in '07 when he carried the Red Sox to the title. I also heard that when he came to ST in 2008 featuring an enlarged gut he brought a different attitude with him. Youk was Youk; everything about him was intensity. OTOH, Aceves seems to have been a prick at each stop and now he pulled this "injury" game on us. All in all it is hard to tell where competitive fire starts and plain *******ism takes over. I will grant you and others that by the time we traded Josh he was pretty much a dickweed.

Really Bellhorn, how many people on this board alone would have entrusted a bum like Alex Wilson with that four run lead. Not many I would guess. You wouldn't and I wouldn't and most others wouldn't and the simple reason is that Wilson has proven to be a choke-up who cannot pitch with a lead. Give him the ball when we're behind and no pressure and he does fine, but never never never give him another chance unless we have at least a six run lead. Farrell has done this kind of s*** a few times this season earlier in the campaign and somehow the team recovered from those devastating losses This one might not be able to be overcome, and, remember, we face Weaver tonight Felix Rodriguez tomorrow. I hope this devastating loss doesn't send the team into the tank. I'm so pissed off now that I've decided to take a one week hiatus. I have a few foils on this board as it is and I don't want to lose the friends I've made by going over the cliff. I still can't believe we could have lost that game last night.