a700hitter

Doubront stepped up today, but Aceves, who had been the best of the bunch so far, really s*** the bed today. He looked awful. Hopefully, Bard steps up tomorrow and locks down the 4th spot.

What kind of s*** is Bobby V talking about his players? I haven't seen anything that I think would cause a problem.

I am trying to be optimistic about the rotation, but it is March 22nd and opening day is less than 2 weeks away. No one is stepping up to win the 4th and 5th spots in the rotation. Silva washed out before games started. Padilla pitched a few games and now he is injured. Ohledorf sucks. Doubront has been inconsistent at best. Bard has had terrible command. He ended well in his last outing, but he needs to step it up in his next outing or Bobby V is going to send him back to the pen. The only guy that has performed better than expected has been Cook, and he will not log enough innings to start the season in the rotation. Aceves has been the best of the bunch and he probably deserves a spot in the rotation, but losing him from the pen would be a huge blow. Our bullpen has been equally disappointing. Melancon has been horrible as has Albers. Ditto Miller and Bowden. Bailey has looked ordinary. They have two weeks to get on track, but I don't think there is any cream that will rise to the top in that time. It looks more likely that the s*** is sinking to the bottom. I'm not being negative. This is how they look at this moment. IT is bad enough that many of us are pinning our hopes on an early return by Dice K, but that is a long shot.

This Durango is parked in the lot at my condo. [ATTACH]821[/ATTACH]

One Division Championship with the talent that he had throughout the 8 years is no BFD.

My Dad saw him. I think he won the batting title in 1941, but ran into too many walls.

You poor bastard.

Teams stocked with talent that won only one division, and several years they finished second to less talented Yankee and Tampa teams IMO.

I stand by that. Unfortunately, the major leagues are stocked with monkeys with learning disabilities.

Pay them and they will come. Liking the manager is not aways the best thing.

It's their profession and livelihood. If they want to quit on the team because they don't like the manager, I don't want them on the team anyway.

I think you might be right. The Sox may never wanted to convert him to a starter. I am pretty sure that Bard asked for the opportunity.

All a talented team needs is a good in game manager that gets his team prepared to play. The rest is BS.

He replaces Papelbon. That's a wash at best, and Bailey has not looked that good so far.

...or the story being fed to them by the Sox is changing.

I would have preferred to have Scutaro at SS with Iglesias as his backup. I would have let him learn at the major league level getting about 50-60 games under his belt with Scutaro filliing in for Pedroia and Youk, so Iglesias would solely play SS. Unfortunately, we salary dumped a .290 hitter for a bum to free up payroll for an acquisition that never happened. If Valentine prevails and Iglesias is the starting SS, Punto should get released. Guys like him are a dime a dozen.

THe published reports seem to agree with you--- that they will be pulling the plug on Bard as a starter.

A few of our members probably saw him pitch. It would be interesting to hear from them. I remember that he was a Red Sox announcer in 1967.

You are right. The injuries will keep Bowden and Albers around for a while. The fact is that we just have no pitching depth to cover for those injuries. I said it earlier that the success of the pitching this season will ride on Bard's ability to handle the rotation spot. If he blows up, we just don't have adequate depth to cover 2 rotation spots.

Bobby V's comments about Bard after the game and hi question to Bard prior to the game show me that he is very concerned about the prospect of Bard being a starter.