a700hitter

Bring in the Bullpen Clowns.

Time for a shower.

DH ing

JD boxed that ball.

He's a free agent at the end of the season.

2 prima donnas -- Eck and Price. Give them a reality show.

Betts was due to come out of his funk, but Devers is helping him. I am not skeptical of that.

Except for our bullpen. Hopefully, Eovaldi straightens that out. Without a quality pen, a sustained good run will be difficult.

We get the O’s toughest pitcher tonight.

Are you certain in discounting Dever’s presence in the 2 hole on Mookie coming out of his funk?

I think it goes beyond just the guy batting behind you. When a lineup has a wrecking ball in the lineup like David Ortiz or a JD, it changes the whole dynamic of the batting order and how pitchers approach a lineup. Mookie’s worst season was the year after Papi left. I don’t think that was a coincidence. People will say that he was banged up and that was probably part of it, but I think there was a down offensive season across the board for the Red Sox, because pitchers didn’t have to worry about the big cannon blowing up their games. I wouldn’t look at Beni as Mookies protection in 2018, but rather JD hitting 2 spot behind him. No pitcher wanted to put guys on base in front of a guy that can take you out of the park to all fields. Are there numbers to prove this? No. This is where statistics fall short. No stat can interpret the dynamics of the game. When things don’t work out according to statistics people lean on the randomness argument. I think that is a cop out. There is not as much randomness as people think. If the game was so full of randomness, the Orioles would have had a shot at the playoffs. Good teams usually perform well and bad teams perform to their level. The same goes for the players. There are many aspects that go into performance other than talent. There is the emotional element (that is huge), scouting, coaching etc. These play into performance day to day and on a long term basis. These affect the dynamics of team and individual performance. They are not randomness. Why do some players hit better in one spot in the order than another. You can’t just chalk it up to randomness because you cannot define or identify the dynamics at play. We also don’t know the dynamics of how a lineup affects an opposing pitcher. I am in the camp that protection in the order is not a myth.

I really can't take a team seriously that bats Travis d'Arnaud lead off.

Great news!

Leaving with a 4-0 lead after 6, it was not a lock with our bullpen and people would still be bitchin that Sale was under performing.

Put it in the books!

If this kid could throw strikes, he would be a nice bullpen arm. His stuff is great, especially his slider.

That should have scored Vasquez. Airhead, broke on contact.

5-0. We need 1 more to make this one bullpen proof.

He'll probably give up 4 runs and get the win and people will talk about him being surprisingly good.

Announcers are acting like this game is over. Shut up!

He's sucking this year. Period.

101 puitches. Cora is saving him for October.

Is he worth a flyer:

2 hits through 6 innings. This guy needs to get his s*** together!! And our offense had better put up at least 2 more tallies to secure this game. They have already lost games when Sale k'd 17 and 12 and failed to get him a win in a 14 K outing.

We need more runs.