a700hitter

Yep, they gave him away.

The Abyss

He attended my High School in Brooklyn.

"Gone in 60 Pitches-- The Story of the 2012 Boston Red Sox Starting Pitching"

"Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?" Written by Jimmy Breslin about the 1962 Mets, but it could be updated for the screen using the 2012 Red Sox.

Our guys will be running home after the regular season. That is the only run that we will see the 2012 squad make.

You have disliked Bobby V before he became the Sox manager. I don't like him either, but players don't need to like their managers in order for a team to succeed. The Yankee dynasty teams of the 50's were not big fans of Casey Stengel. Other than a small handful of players, Stengel was pretty much despised by his players during those years. Stengel was one of the first managers to implement a lefty-righty platoon system. The players hated it, because they wanted to play everyday. The handful that played everyday may not have hated him, but they thought he was a clown and a buffoon and they disdained him. Mantle never listened to nor obeyed any of Stengels rules. The guy was almost entirely incoherent when he spoke. Yet, the Yankees won. Baseball is full of examples of winning teams that despised their managers. The opposite is really the exception. The Red Sox had a likable manager and in the end they had disdain for him. He could no longer reach them. This years performance has almost nothing to do with Bobby V. He has been pretty much of a boy scout. He's carried the FO water from day 1. He knows that his pitching sucks, but he never says a negative word about the staff. He has no big shut down hammers to go to at the end of games to lock down games, but he has not complained. Bobby V made one remark about Youk-- a calculated effort to let players know that there were no sacred cows. He picked on a player who was declining in skill with a replacement waiting in the wings. That was the time for the FO to stand behind the man they had hired. Instead they let Pedroia take back the clubhouse for the players and the FO helped to castrate Bobby V. After that, no culture change in the clubhouse was possible unless the players imposed it themselves. Since the Youk incident Bobby V has been charged with the following high crimes and misdemeanors: 1. Mentioning to the press that Shoppach asked him about playing time. Oh my, what a breach of confidence! A player wanting playing time really puts the guy in a terrible light. The truth is that Bobby V never liked Shop and probably wanted to get rid of him and bring up Lavarnway. Unfortunately, the castrated manager had no control over his roster. 2. He mentioned that Buchholz asked for an extra day off. If the guy felt fatigued and that he thought he needed an extra day to perform well, where is the controversy here? Buch didn't like answering some questions? Too bad. 3. Disclosing to the press that Crawford had some soreness in his wrist. How this is a controversy is beyond me. These guys didn't play for a manager they liked and they are not playing for Bobby V either. The achilles heel of the team has been the horrendous pitching. Losing reveals a lot about the character of people. Bobby V has actually been more gracious loser than I had expected. The players, on the other hand, have revealed themselves as selfish, entitled, thin-skinned prima donas. I can't think of any of our so-called stars that has been a stand up guy throughout this misery. There isn't a single leader among them. Papi comes the closest, but he has lost his way with his bitching and moaning about his 1 year $15.5 million contract. Boo hoo for him. They all need to look in the mirror and grow up and start acting like adults.

I'd like to think that they will miss out on the last place prize. Call me a cockeyed optimist.

The wheels are starting to come off. What is coming will make us long for the first half of the season. There is no hope of players coming back from injury, no hope of our starting pitching rounding into shape, no hope of acquiring reinforcements. It will spiral down the drain and the only fight will be with Toronto for the basement.

This whole organization has embarrassed itself from top to bottom.

He was too damn big to show any outrage at him.

The O's should celebrate. They are playing good ball. We continue to embarrass ourselves. Our starters flat out suck.

http://www.csnne.com/baseball-boston-redsox/redsox-talk/Red-Sox-players-scrambling-amid-reports-?blockID=756887&feedID=3352 Joe Haggerty:

When a business turns bad like this, there can be no sacred cows. The only part of the organization that has continued to do a good job is the marketing department.

In the meant time, I am thinking that my rooting efforts should be shifted to the Yankees losing the division lead possibly causing them to miss the playoffs. IMO, there is more chance that this happens than the Red Sox making the playoffs.

The FO needs to start searching for his replacement ASAP so the guy can hit the ground running.

No, he needs to help anchor a new staff.

The signs were there in Spring Training as I exlained. He would lose focua and become unglued. The manager asked him if he wanted to continue as a starter, because he saw the signs. He was throwing Bard a lifeline, but the kid was too stupid to realize it. Bobby V was the last manager to name his starting rotation, and that had to center around his concerns over Bard, because Doubront had earned the spot with more than a week to go. He was walking 6 per 9 innings with a 6.57 ERA. The signs were there. I was witness to one of his meltdowns. Four cherry picked starts during the regular season mean nothing. They should have pulled the plug on the experiment the minute that Bailey went down. That was the excuse they needed to sell it to Bard, the press and the fans.

He was a good late inning guy IMO. If he was back to that form, he'd be with the big club. He has been floundering in AAA. His ERA is 7.16 in 27.2 inn at Pawtucket and just tonight he walked 4 guys in 1/3 of an inning. He's most probably ruined.

^ This is really some pointless research. He imploded. They gave him sufficient chances to show progress. For every baby step he took forward, he took two giant steps backward. His career is in tatters. The guy is praying to get back to the majors as any sort of reliever. He'll never ask for the chance to start ever again.