a700hitter

A crappy Beckett and the implosion of Bard with the others performing would have had the team in the thick of the wild card race much longer, but IMO they would have imploded at the end of the season. The teams they are competing with-- Detroit, Tampa, and the Angels are much deeper in the rotation and when the gut check would come in late August and in September, our guys would have folded. Plus, the fact that 3 guys in the rotation would not be able to take us deep into games would eventually kill the bullpen. It would not have been enough and Beckett, Buchholz, Lackey, Doubront and Morales will not be enough next year. Mark it down, and I invite you to come back and tell me that I was wrong. If the FO thinks that can work, they are kidding themselves.

I don't need to look at the link. I have said it many times that I would have done what it took to get Gio Gonzalez. He's young and he signed a 5 year extension relatively cheap. I don't want to hear that it would cost Middlebrooks. The guys that the Nats gave up are not doing that well, and they kept Harper and Strasburg. Our bumbling buffoon would have had to figure out a way to keep our top prospect. I would have considered a guy like Edwin Jackson for a short term deal. He would stabilize the back of the rotation by taking his 33-35 starts and putting up innings. I would have considered Kuroda. Lots of pitchers changed laundry this off season. The Red Sox did nothing. That came back to bite them.

Just because the pitching failed in ways that were unanticipated and more drastically than anyone ever envisioned doesn't mean that the pitching wasn't thin. Anytime you pencil in two rookies in your rotation at the start of the season and one of them is not a "STRASBURG" your team is going nowhere, especially in the AL East. The Yankees tried it in 2008 with Hughes and Kennedy who were much more highly rated than Doubront or Bard and that was the only time they did not make the playoffs in 17 years. The two rookies in the starting rotation were the blaring siren that the pitching was thin. There was zero chance that they would both perform to league averages. Doubront is not a complaint. Thank goodness that he has been around league average. Otherwise, we might be the worst team in the league. Bard flamed out in record breaking spectacular fashion and they stuck with him well after it was obvoius that he couldn't do the job. Going into the season, they had absolutely no reason to think that he could be successful. His game was falling apart in Spring Training. As for the argument about the so-called big 3 performing to their standard levels, how many times have the 3 of them had 30 starts in the same season? The answer is 0. There was no reason to expect that we would get 90 starts from them this year. The contingency plans for injury to the big 3 and underperformance by the rookies was Dice K returning from surgery, Cook who can't strike out people in nursing homes, a pig lik Ohlendorf. That is not a contingency plan. This was the first year that the big three will make most of it's starts-- and they crapped the bed. Just because they under-performed as opposed to getting injured does not mean the pitching wasn't thin. There was no contingency plan for injury or under performance, and those things happen almost every year. The Yankees lost their #3 pitcher before the season started. Hughes has been terrible at times. The Yankees unlike the Red Sox were much deeper in starting pitching. Look at the Texas Rangers injuries. Colby Lewis is down. Feliz has missed the entire season and Holland has had health issues, but they have been deep enough to survive. We had no one comparable to a Feldman to step in and take a spot. No, the Sox rotation was thin and it completely blew up in their faces in ways that were unanticipated as well as ways that were entirely foreseeable. If Lester and Buch had been better, this rotation was still going to implode. It just would have happened later in the season, like it did in 2011. If they go North with the same crew next season, the result will not be much different. The only question will be when it collapses.

I agree. They were either disingenuous or stupid or some combination of the two.

I agree. They were either disingenuous or stupid or some combination of the two.

I am way short of the number of times that I mentioned the 7 run rule in the last 2 years. We are golden with 14 runs.

Fans nor the FO knew that these things would happen, but it was pretty obvious to knowledgeable fans and baseball writers and media that the Red Sox did not have enough starting pitching to be a good team. They are not even a mediocre team. They are a bad team. The Starting pitching was thin. That was not a big secret.

^ This is a 4th place team this season. Replacing Beckett with the oft-injured Johnson will not improve this team. This type of tinkering around the edges will have our boys watching the playoffs from their couches. They will miss the playoffs for the 4th consecutive years.

Crawford playing like a star.

Typical 30-40 pitch first inning for Lester. This is a horse s*** lineup that he is facing. He should be shutting them down and dominating them. This guy is still not showing signs of turning it around.

Trout was in the bag. No one compares. He has power and unbelievable speed.

SOS from Lester. We'll need at least 5.

Thanks for the laugh. I needed it.

I really thought that they would make some bold player moves after the collapse. It was my belief that they needed to turn things around in a big way to snap the fans and the clubhouse out of the shell shocked state they were in at the end of 2011. They needed to play well out of the gate to keep the press from dredging up last season. I was very surprised that they did not. After 2006, they went on a shopping spree, and turned things around. After 2003, they added Schill and Foulkes. Yet this past off season they did nothing. I guess it was because of the reckless disregard for payroll that Theo had. People said that the collapse couldn't happen again and that we added by subtracting Wakefield and Lackey. I warned that it could happen again. It happened two years in a row to the Mets (2007 and 2008), because they made no changes. I would not have been surprised if the 2012 Sox spiraled in September again. In a way, I prefer this horrible season to that gut-wrenching ending. I had a sickening headache every day in September starting a 5 O'Clock that got worse as the night went on. They didn't make any changes and the results have been as bad as they could be. Who could envision fighting for last place? They were in denial about what had to be done after 2011, and I firmly believe that this 2012 on the heels of the collapse has damaged their franchise. They will see revenue drop next season. Anyone buying or selling tickets on Stub hub can tell you that demand for their tickets has evaporated. They will be hit in the pocket books next season unless they make some bold personnel moves to generate enough excitement to get people to pay inflated prices in this bad economy. If they look at their ticket sales for this season and expect it to continue, they are making a serious mistake. Demand dried up after April. By that point they had sold most of the tickets, especially the high priced tickets. If they remain clueless like they did last season, they will really feel the financial hit.

^ Incredible whining. Games turn on a few plays. That's what usually separates the Champion from the also rans. What was the excuse for losing to the Giants in the regular season?

Maybe we will get to see him ride a horse at Yankee Stadium.

This team continues to embarrass itself. Lester will probably s*** himself tomorrow because it is a must win game.

If the Jays hadn't lost three of their starting pitchers to season ending surgery and lost Jose Bautista and Brett Lawrie to the DL, we would be in the cellar.

Ah hem, at the risk of being annoyingly repetitive, we should know going into any game that the Sox have to score at least 5 runs to have a chance at winning.

And they are beating us without Kipnis.

Nevermind going against the book that you never make the first or third out at third base, if the throw had been online he'd have been out by a full stride and a half.

We should be killing these pukes.

So we took this puke Lillibridge for Youk and we traded him to the Guardians and he hurts us.