a700hitter

I thought that by this point you knew that I am crazy. If Fred was here ranting, it would save me the trouble. I am really getting disgusted. When does this team actually hit bottom? The Yankee game turned out not to be the bottom. We got a momentary bounce from that game, but now we are skimming the bottom again and finding new ways to sink to lower depths. Fred, I am dying to read your first post when you come back. It should be a doozie.

I blame upper management. Bobby V probably regrets taking the job. Maybe he will fake a heart attack to get out of this mess.

But we have Daniel Nava.

Kill Doji instead.

Where the hell is Fred when I really need to read one of his rants?

Nava can make some contact, and he might actually get some hits if he is in a hot streak, but he is not a solution until Ellsbury and Crawford return. Benny the Boob had other low cost options that were much better than this bush leaguer.

Abreu is doing pretty damn good hitting in the middle of the lineup for the first place Dodger's, but let's go with Nava. This guy Cherrington is a real dimwit. He doesn't think ahead a single bit. He's clueless.

They needed a left handed hitting OFer, so they opted for Nava instead of Bobby Abreu. Both would cost the league minimum. Mind boggling. Simply mind boggling.

He was getting batters out. They didn't expect that. He had to go.

Daniel Nava? The season is over for us. This guy has a great story and one unbelievable memory for the rest of his life, but he is not a major league ballplayer. At the end of 2010, I posted here that he would never wear a Red Sox uniform again except maybe for a September cup of coffee and that if we saw him in a role other than that, it would be because we were in deep do-do. Well, we are certainly in deep do-do. This is the proof. Hopefully, he is hot and he gets a few hits. He is a train wreck in the OF so he will fit right in.

Does anyone know what he was doing to earn a paycheck from the Sox? He wasn't invited to Spring Training. Did he go train or play someplace or did he just sit at home and cash the checks?

I wish his numbers would be somewhere else-- another city and team. I don't want to hear it about this guy. Spare me the tale of his tape. Slow footed first basemen who hit 25 HRs a year are a dime a dozen, not worth $22 million/yr. Plus, we had to give up prospects to get him. What a steal!! No one is talking any more about him leading the league in HRs or hitting 50, because of the Monster. No, we won't even see 30. I don't give a rats ass what his OPS is at the end if he ends up with only 25 dingers. When Ortiz was in his prime, he was putting that up by the All Star break. That kind of money should have been spent on a higher premium position than first base, and if I were going to spend that kind of money on a first baseman, I'd rather have paid it to Prince Fielder.

I agree that he will not become a reliable starter in 5 weeks. However, on a staff that everyone knew (including the FO -my assumption) was very thin, you don't have the luxury of training a reliever to become a starter. The Bard conversion would not be a problem on a staff with 4 reliable starters who eat innings and a deep reliable bullpen. We have neither of those elements, so there was no luxury to convert him to starting on the big club. He should be learning his craft in the minors.

I think you are right that this level of futility had to be unexpected. I was one of the biggest critics of the off season construction of this pitching staff, and I fully expected that it would fall apart at some point. However, I did not expect it to fall apart this rapidly. The injuries to Bailey has certainly accelerated this collapse. IMO, a healthy Bailey would have delayed this situation. His presence would not have prevented the collapse. His presence was not going to make Buchholz, Lester or Beckett any better. His presence wouldn't have turned Melancon into a shut down 8th inning guy. The pitching was going to fall apart. I never had any doubt about that. The only questions were when it would happen, how bad it would be and whether our offense could bludgeon us past it. The injuries to the offense have highlighted the pitching deficiencies, because with 3 elite batters they cannot consistently bludgeon the other teams. The disintegration of the pitching was definitely foreseeable. The rapidity of the disintegration was unexpected.

That's what bad teams do. They find all sorts of ways to lose games that were winable. They are a bad team. Period.

You may not think so, but you are more reactionary than me in some ways. I am not one that cares about perceptions. That stems from the fact that most players are spoiled little entitled children. That's how they are developed. Organizational perceptions are of course important to the business, but that is crafted at the highest levels. I expect almost nothing from players in this regard. What gets me is the fact that he is so stupid that he didn't realize that the golf swing is not a good thing for a strained lat. Jacko brought this up. Not only wouldn't it be theraputic, but it would aggravate the situation. It shows me that he doesn't give a shitwhether or when he gets back on the mound. f*** him.

He was off the base before the catch. That should never happen. If the ball drops in, he is going to score anyway. You have to plant yourself on the bag and be ready to run when the ball touches the fielder's glove. It was brain dead play by a brain dead player.

We can't take a series from a team playing .300 ball.

He may have some speed, but he is a stupid base runner. He's got to tag and go on that. The OFer hit the ground. That gives him almost a full 1 second break off the base. Chances are that Gordon's throw hits him.

Can Byrd do anything right?

They are getting dominated through the soft part of the schedule.