a700hitter

He is big. I'll grant you that.

I think it can be argued the other way. it is our pitching that is to blame for not being able to win games where our offense scores 4 runs or less. What is the record of other teams in those types of games? As for your May ERA stat, what does that prove. We were sticking close to the Yanks in May. Now that their pitching has stepped up and ours has not, they have separated from us. E1, it is never as simple as one thing. We both know that. Give me credit for not being a dolt for chrissakes. The offense has taken a hit with injuries but has managed above average performance. It could be bettr. Yes, that is true, but I maintain that the biggest offensive failure on this team is not due to injury but rather the under performance of Agon. The pitching has not had injuries and is at the bottom of the league. Is it the only reason for the team's failure? No, of course not, but it is the main reason. It was the weak spot on this team when the season opened, because Cherries Jubilee and his band of clowns did nothing, zero, zip nada to address it. It is biting us in the ass big time. Is it the only reason? No, that's absurd. Is it the main reason? Absolutely. To think otherwise is absurd. Look at the ERA's of our starters. There's no stopper or number 2 guy. They are pitching like 5 number 5 guys.

The guys who have filled in for the injured OFers have done just fine. I don't think Crawford would have done any better than Nava up to this point. Pods has been good and Sweeney has done the job getting on base. Those last two guys have been out for the last couple of weeks and that did hurt us on the west coast, but it is not the reason why we are in last place. If two week injuries to Pods and Sweeney are the difference between us being a good team or a bad team, the FO really did not do its job. Stat guys can't have it both ways. They can't argue that teams with the best run differential are the best teams over the course of a season and then out of the other side of their mouths say that the team got the runs at the wrong time. You are arguing what, that the offense isn't clutch? That they only score against bad pitching? Well whether there is such a thing as a clutch player has been a topic of endless debate, and I am one who believes that certain players are more clutch than others, and i am not sure that Ellsbury or Crawford are any more clutch than their replacements. You lose me entirely if you are making an argument about a clutch team offense. The argument that we only score against bad pitching doesn't hold water either. That's why it is bad pitching, everyone scores against it. The Red Sox are a good offense so they score more than almost every other team against good and bad pitching. We have beat our share of good pitchers this season, so that argument holds no water either. If you want to point to a problem with our offense, it is playing first base. He is under performing in a Carl Crawford-like manner. He is supposed to be our best hitter, and he is no longer in the top half of the lineup. That's astounding. That's a problem. How do you not see that? Walking Cody Ross to pitch to Gonzo? I never thought I would see that. His under performance is a huge thing and it has nothing to do with injuries. The formula to success for the second half has little to do with health (although we need Pedey back). Here's the formula: Beckett, Lester and Buchholz pitch like top of the rotation guys instead of like bottom of the rotation guys plus Agon hits like the player we thought we were getting. It's that simple.

In today's lineup: Kalish, Gomez, Punto. Great stuff!! GTFO!

Your questions above are ridiculous and I think you realize it. There's no threshhold at which point one would say the injuries had an impact. Injuries always have an impact. Every team has them and they have to be addressed with depth or acquisitions. To blame 2011 and now 2012 Red Sox failures on injuries is just whining. Every team has injuries to one degree or another. The Yankees lost a front line starter for the entire season and their all time great closer, Mo and Joba and a starting outfielder who is an offensive catalyst and gold glove fielder. Yet, they are tearing it up. They built a team with depth to withstand injuries. Tampa is without their best player and leader, Longoria, and they have had other injuries. They have also been built deeper than the Red Sox. Of course injuries have hurt the 2012 Red Sox, but there hasn't been much effect on their offensive performance. The pitching has been the problem and there have been no significant injuries to our starters. They have no excuse. Injuries have hurt other teams, but they were built to withstand injuries. Oddly the Red Sox were built to withstand injury and under performance to their offense, which has done okay. They were built thin in the pitching ranks and everyone acknowledged that when the season started. There was no room for injury or under performance. They were vulnerable from the beginning, and now the weaknesses are cracking. Let me turn around the questions and mine will not be ridiculous. What injuries have caused our starting pitching to be at the bottom of the league? How much higher than 2nd place would our offense rank if Ellsbury and Crawford had not been injured? Has our offense been more negatively impacted by the loss of Crawford and Ellsbury or the under performance of Gonzo? Injuries is a whiny excuse. We are not a good team, and we weren't a good team on opening day and we will not be a good team when the OFers come back unless the money pitchers start pitching like top of the rotation pitchers and Gonzo starts hitting like a $22 million first base slugger. The problems have been under performance and poor execution, not injuries.

I like that.:thumbsup:

Injuries is just a whiny excuse, We came out of the blocks in last place. We've had no injuries to our starting staff of any significance. The pitching has no excuse for being at the bottom of the league. Oddly, the injuries to our OFers have not hurt our offense. Nava and Pods and Sweeney stepped in admirably to replace the production of Ellsbury and Crawford. Our offense has been second in the league. It's been the starting pitching that has been the problem. Injuries have not been the issue with them. Let's not start with excuses. going into the season, most people knew that there was very little room for error for this roster to be successful. Bard blew up spectacularly. Beckett and Lester have pitched like back of the rotation guys. Buchholz has been horrible except for his June starts. Our starting depth was expected to be Dice K. Look at the ERA's on these guys: Beckett 4.06 Lester 4.33 Buchholz 5.53 Bard 5.24 Doubront 4.42 Dice K 6.65 There's the reason for this team's failure. Compare that to the Yankees and Tampa starters or the Angels who have 2 stoppers with ERA's under 2.50. Pitching is the reason, not injuries. Edit: the biggest challenge for our offense in 2012 has been the disappearance of AGon as a premier hitter. He has become Casey Kotchman.

Yes, as he was rehabbing from the thumb, his arm started to hurt. Who would have expected that?

Injuries are not the reason. Our competition has also had key injuries. Tampa has been without its best player Longoria for more than 2 months. He hasn't played since April 30th. Desmond Jennings missed a month and their closer coming into the season was Farnsworth. He missed 3 months and just returned. Tampa had far less talent to start with than the Red Sox. The Yankees have been without their #3 starter Pineda for the entire season. They lost Mo, the best closer in baseball history. Joba got done in by a trampoline. Brett Gardner has missed the entire season thus far. It's not the injuries that have done us in. That's just a convenient excuse that the FO will promote and too many fans will accept. Edit: The Rangers have lost 3 of their 5 starters to TJ surgery.

He'll make $4 million in 2012, and he'll probably make close to that in arbitration for 2013. What a bargain! Plus, we had to trade Reddick for him.

I'll be glad to get Pods back in place of Iron Glove Kalish. Pods is a solid professional, who gets on base. He has good speed and he's a good fielder. Plus, there is the added benefit that he gives VA the vapors.

He was interviewing last season, and he was there for the taking. He's a proven guy doing the job with a very small budget. I'll never understand why they did not scoop him up at the time.

If we ran this team, with our combined skill sets, this would have been a much better season up to this point. They have a light weight running one of the premier franchises in all of sports.

and Ben Cherington is not up to the job of rebuilding this organization. He was Duke's gopher and Theo's apprentice. He's not qualified to do this job. Neither was Hoyer who s*** "l over himself in SD and ran back to hide behind Theo in Chicago.

I don't wish him any bad fortune. He was a great pitcher for us. He was a foul tip away from the save last night, and he lost the game on a bloop to RF. I like the Mets so I was rooting against him last night, but wish him the best. He was the greatest Red Sox closer of them all. Also, think about this. If he was our closer this season instead of Aceves with his 6 losses and I don't know how many blown saves, we'd be right there challenging the Yanks. The FO decided that Paps wasn't worth it and Instead, we're in last place on July 4th.

If they lose this series and drop another 2 games in the loss column, the division will no longer be in play. There are too many teams to climb over in the division and none of them are patsies. You don't want to hear it but the are not going to play .660 ball for the last 76 games. I don't know how to fix this team right now. I don't think a big pitcher fixes things, when we have our big guy Gonzo with a complete power outage, with Pedroia injured and under performing, with just too many game playing sacks of garbage like Punto and Gomez in the lineup, with Lester and Beckett pitching like end of the rotation guys, and with Aceves blowing game after game. How do you fix such a mess? A little tinkering at the trading deadline will not help, and there will not be enough time after the TD to catch the Yankees. With 2 wild cards in play, there is a chance to get hot enough to win one of those spots, but getting to a 1 game playoff doesn't justify moving top prospects for a 2 month rental. They could take their chances with what they have got, but unless they start making a move before the TD, even a wild card spot will be very difficult to capture. If they are in the same position at the TD, the smartest move would be to come up with a good plan to break up this team and sell off the parts to start over. That would mean trying to shed as many contracts as possible. Gonzo's and Crawford's contracts can't be moved. Plus, we would be selling low on them. However, Beckett and Lester could be moved. They still have value. I think Lester should definitely be moved, because his performance has declined for a second year in a row. He's still a valuable commodity and he could bring a nice return. The 2012 team was doomed from the start. You never never ever start a season with two untested commodities in your starting rotation unless one of them is a Strasburg-type prospect. That had zero chance of working. We were lucky in that one of the guys worked out. Doubs has been a fine back of the rotation guy. Bard, on the other hand, blew up in spectacular fashion. Two rookies in the rotation is too much risk. I said it in the off season and during Spring Training. Dice K as the fall back plan if 1 of them flopped, was a terrible idea. He has sucked since 2008, so that just made no sense. They made no bold moves, other than firing Tito, to move past the negativity of the 2011 season. They opened the season with the same crew that crumbled from apathy and expected things to be different. They needed to make some bold moves. Yes, it might have required going over budget, but it was necessary to change course. They didn't, and this was the very predictable result. I feel like 2012 has the feel of September 2011 part II. People look for explanations that do not lead to the harsh truth that (he 2012 team never had a chance. People will look to blame injuries. It wasn't injuries. The team was poorly constructed. It had major flaws in the rotation. The starting pitching is near the bottom of the league. The good pitching on the last road trip was an aberration. We were facing two of the worst offenses in the league. Is the season over? Is all hope lost? No, this is baseball. In 45 years, I have learned that anything can happen. But things are not going in the right direction. There is little hope that things will turn around before the TD, and time is running out.

I am starting to think that those who said he was toast are turning out to be right.

Does Pedroia's injury dampen your enthusiasm?

Downward spiral on its way.

Yes, he has been placed on the DL. That should be great for the weekend.

I am sure a lot of Cubs fans felt the same way after 2011.

Yep, there is no reason at this point to think 2013 will be better. We thought 2011 would be better than 2010, and we had reasons for that. We thought 2012 would be better than 2011, and we had no reason for that. At this point, we have no reason to think 2013 will be better than 2012. Mere hope is not enough.