a700hitter

I would trade Lester. He should bring in a haul. All of Lester's numbers declined last year and they are significantly down this year. I would hope that he rights his ship in the second half and then trade him. Better to trade him a year too soon than a year too late.

This is not ace-like.

Finally, Bobby V isn't batting Salty between Ortiz and Gonzo. How many guys did Salty leave on base last night?

Cafardo, like the rest of us, knows that the answers are not within the organization. You can't blame him for not having the answers, because they have bollixed up this thing so badly that I don't know if anyone has the answer.

When did the practice start of rehabbing position by playing weeks of rehab games before being activated? I don't get it. Ellsbury and Crawford had injuries to arms and shoulders. There is absolutely no reason why their legs aren't in game shape. They should have been running every day and shagging flies etc. All they need to do is get their hitting timing back. I don't see the need for them to be getting all these ABs in the minors. It's bull s***. Before my time, Joe DiMaggio missed the beginning of the season with a bad heel. I believe that he missed 1 or 2 months. He got activated for a series in fenway and absolutely wrecked the Red Sox. No rehab necessary. This is union driven CBA driven ********.

Nova (9-3, 4.05) vs. Lester (5-5, 4.33) Let's go into the All Star Break on a good note.

Oh yes it has dawned on me. That's why I haven't made a post with my opinion on how to fix this team going forward. I just don't know. There are a lot of serious issues and deficiencies.

I forgot that we still have Hillenbrand in the beginning of 2003.

Suck on it Yankee Beyatches. A700Hitter gamethread and in person mojo was too much for the first place Skanks. That may have been the worst teams fielded by the Red Sox against the Yankees in 45 years of going to games. When the team took the field, I realized that except for AGon the rest of the guys in the field probably probably had a total salary of $8 million and that includes $3 million for Ross and $2 million for Salty. After the first 3 batters it looked like a long bad night, but Doubs is mentally tough. He took command of the game and i didn't get nervous again until we went to the pen. A Derek Jeter chant went up in the 7th inning and I didn't enjoy that, but then the old man bunted and he doesn't have the wheels anymore to beat those out. Ciriaco had a great night. What a beautiful bunt and a beautiful play in the field. To top it off he clears the bases with a double to put us on top and he steals 3rd base and forces an error. A number of people here debated whether he should come north after spring training. The guy is a spectacular fielder. He flashed some leather when I saw him in Ft. Myers. He got a nice standing ovation-- likely the first time that has happened to him in the majors. I felt good that Mauro Gomez got a bunch of solid hits redeeming his error. The Skanks were gunning his way all night long. Unfortunately for them, they got Ciriaco most of the night. I thought Sweeney's triple was a HR off the bat. That gave me a big laugh, ecause before he hit the triple, I said to my son that Sweeney hits a HR about once every 150 ABs during his career. As a joke, I told him that I would give my son $150 if Sweeney hit a HR in that AB.

Doubront vs. Hughes Stop the bleeding!!!

They were playing Jeremy Giambi ahead of him.

Where the f*** is Podsednik-- a real major leaguer.

Papi had better get used to walking. No threats behind him.

I call game thread for the nightcap. J_E s*** the bed on this thread. Lookup the f***ing starting pitchers in the future.

Getting beat like this by an old puss bag like Garcia is infuriating.

I'll be at the nightcap. Is anyone else going? I will not have to suffer those fools on Fox.

Yep, you hit the nail on the head. There is a lot wrong with this team. It's definitely not one thing. Watching Mauro Gomez playing 3rd base and Punto play 2nd is not a pretty sight in the lineup. AGon's power outage is distressing too. Add that to the pitching problems and the AAAA outfielders and it is bad news.

No, everything has not gone wrong. The team was built with thin suspect starting pitching. Two rookies in the starting rotation in the AL East is a recipe for disaster. Doubs has been okay but Bard flamed out spectacularly and our top 3 have been tremendously over rated. They have each performed like #5 starters. The bullpen lost it's biggest assets when it lost the back end of the pen that had been one of the best in baseball. Bard and Papelbon had shortened games to 7 innings over the last 3 seasons. Yes our bullpen has been better than our starters, but they have been sucking at nailing down games. Aceves already has 4 lblown saves and 6 losses. This team could have won only if everything went right. More than a few things have gone wrong so they are failing more quiclkly and more spectacularly than anyone had predicted. This team had little room for error when the season started.

Rebuild. It is clear that this Red Sox team should not be in the same league with the Yankees or Texas.

Backup player who couldn't make it with the Royals. What could we expect?