a700hitter

We have to hope that Buch can work his way out of this. I don't like his drop in velocity. He debuted in the majors in 2007. Eight years later, I don't think it is a good bet that he will become durable.

Yep, I remember. He threw 127 potches on a cold April night. Ridiculous. Johan Santana's career was ended early in 2012 when he threw a career high 130+ pitchesan early season game for the Mets one and only no-hitter. He was never the same after that. He had one more good game left in his tank.

I agree. In many ways they are glorified babysitters and press agents. Tito's strength was in keeping peace in the clubhouse, keeping the egos in check and the players motivated. His strength was not in-game tactics, although I thought he did a pretty good job of late game bullpen utilization.

Okay, I am always up for shooting the breeze.

I don't think that they are all dumb. There are few that have had IQ's exceeding double digits. Usually, they become pretty full of themselves believing the press clippings about their genius. LaRussa is the prime example. A smart guy that lost sight of the fact that it is a pretty simple game. He would start mixing and matching relievers in the 6th inning to the point where he slowed the game down to a crawl. Cardinal games became unwatchable for me with his double switches and the overkill of the mixing and matching. As a whole, my opinion is that managers have never been a very smart bunch, but as you pointed out, it is not a job requirement. I don't know why it seems to bother you that I have a low opinion of the intelligence of baseball managers and that I refer to them as the gym teachers of baseball. I guess that it might surprise you that Hall of Fame manager, Casey Stengel (aka "the Old Professor") did not enjoy the respect of a lot of his Yankee players, many who referred to him as an idiot. He was the butt of many jokes by the players. For me, it is part of the fun of the game to make fun of poor managerial decisions. I hope that it doesn't offend you that I also believe that generally politicians are disingenuous and dishonest.

There is a lot of money in boxing too. Don't ever equate money with intelligence. The pot industry is turning enormous profits. Does that mean that the local store manager is smart?

Sometimes your guy has nothing, and with all of the experience that managers have they should be able to do a better job of differentiating when a guy has nothing and those situations where the starter just needs to right himself. Too many times they get it wrong. As for managers doing a good job, IMO they are the gym teachers of baseball -- little more than a warm body that makes out a lineup card.

No disagreement there, so why not try to win the games and risk sending some of the middle relievers to an early retirement or TJ surgery?

Thank goodness managers don't have to be smart to be successful or some years the Championship would go unclaimed. But I think we can all call it stupidity when they do somenthing stupid -- like farrell bringing in Mujica on Sunday before the PH was announced. Giving up 6 or 7 runs without making a pitching change is dumb and it has become orthodoxy among major leag managers.

Yes, and sometimes you have to dig deeper into the system to eat up some innings. Sometimes a guy might be up for as little as one day.

I would have tried to avoid using him today. I would have gone to Miller after Badenhop. And while Capuano has been good thus far, we have little invested in him and Workam is waiting in the wings. If there is one group that I would not think twice about overworking, it would be the long men.

Bells, I am confused now. Are you taking the position that allowing 6 or 7 runs without a pitching change on a consistent basis during the season is good strategy or that major league managers are smart? I'll argue with you about either issue, but I just want to know which position you are taking.

Get Workman on the Pawtuckett shuttle if the load becomes too much for Capuano or Badenhop. Middle relievers are cannon fodder as far as I am concerned.

I think you have long men to go multiple innings more than once a week. I don't believe in spotting 6 or 7 run leads before changing the starter, so no, I would not criticize the manager for giving Buch the hook today if he replaced him after the 5th consecutive hit to start the inning with Adam Jones coming to bat. If Capuano or Badenhop get burned out, we have Workman and others to step up in that role. Our offense has been struggling. Spotting 6 or 7 runs early is too much. I'd rather burn out one of those guys than to leave a starter out there to take a beating when he has subpar stuff. I think that is an injury risk.

I just can't defend stupidity which is rampant among baseball managers.

There are 7 guys in the bullpen. That should be enough to handle the load. Capuano has ben a starter so going 3 or 4 inning a couple of times a week shouldn't be a problem. He pitched yesterday. Badenhop is the other long man. He could have gone to him earlier. I don't see the bullpen issue. You can't let games get out of hand when the starter is throwing BP. I think the tendency to leave starters in for 6-7 runs is ridiculous.

Agreed.

The bright sport is that they fought hard from being down by a lot of runs early in the game and almost came back. They scrapped like the 2013 team and didn't give up, but Buch dug too deep a hole for us. He has been a big diappointment thus far in 2014.

His Boston career has really been a disappointment thus far. If he can right himself this season and stay healty, they should consider trading him and getting good value.

He has packed on about 20 lbs since last season. Not a great idea for an aging guy with bad achilles.

Chen at 89 pitches.

We are back in the game.

.749 OPS for A.J. over 17 seasons .741 OPS for Salty over 8 seasons.

Last year, he had a great first half of the season, but was useless after that and in the playoffs. Overall, he debuted in 2007 and he has had one strong full season for us -- 2010.

Buch pitched awful in the first half of 2012, but pitched much better in the second half of that year.