jacksonianmarch

I came here after the herald closed theirs. Welcome

Unfortunately I side with Pablo on this part. If there is too much inflammation/pain, your exam will be useless. You need the inflammation to be down to get an accurate eval

Youk, we're irrelevant until we clear up our offensive issues. Arod and Tex look old and Headley looks like the worst player in baseball. You can't have 3 dead weights in your lineup and expect to win. And thank god Hicks had to leave, otherwise Ells doesn't steal home or knock in the insurance runs. It's time for CC to be dropped from the rotation. He can't command his inferior stuff which makes him useless. Nova needs to be in there.

Swept by the A's. Pitiful. And we got 3 f***ing quality starts in a row. An embarrassing performance from our offense against a sub par staff at home.

So our offense sucks. Our rotation has 3 quality starts all year. Eovaldi is still as maddening as ever. Severino has been slammed in his two starts. CC is sitting mid 80s now. Pineda finally had a good start yesterday vs a AAA lineup. This is not a good start to this point. Hoping for better, but this team is just boring

Bad news bears level today

I think Kelly just threw his last pitch as a starting pitcher for Boston.

Hembree and the flowing mane

At least you guys are facing a real big league pitcher. We're facing the reincarnation of Bill Pulsipher and we cannot hit him

Time to go to SP#7

Betances' K/9 right now is 22.5. Sick

Noe Ramirez to AAA. Heath Hembree to the bigs

BTW, anyone whining about today is too short sighted. Buchholz looked vintage today against a good lineup. First time I have seen him throw well in over a year

Kimbrel isn't a control freak, he's a power guy. Coming in with sacks packed isn't easy for him. But he's still humping 98. Koji looked completely terrible. No splitter, no bite, everything hung and he was afraid. It wouldn't surprise me if we find out about some sort of injury or something (blister, forearm strain). Because he went from looking invincible to looking horrible

Afraid to throw split. Can't snap it

Something is wrong with Koji

Pot, kettle, black

Dojji, Wright isn't a big league starter long term. I think he's a nice option to have, but to count on him to be a #3 when he is a poor man's Wakefield isn't prudent for a team hoping to be playoff contenders. He's a good flex option, maybe a #5 if he can prove his early season success is more than luck. You don't know what youre gonna get with ERod. It will be his first "full" season and teams do adjust. Look at Severino, who is being bombed right now, yet last yr was practically untouchable. Expect a bit of a regression until he can adjust back and stay healthy. Porcello has to stay in the rotation. He's shown he can be a steady presence at the back end of a rotation for his entire career. I think Kelly belongs in the pen and Buch is a disaster. His stuff isn't there. His head isn't there. If he doesn't adjust and pitch well over the next couple weeks, then he should be let go. So assuming this, you need a #2 and maybe a #4/5 depending on Wright. Santana isn't really a 2. He has the stuff to be, don't get me wrong, but he has proven that he is unpredictable. Can be ace like at time and then put up a year where he is below replacement value. If you get him for free (which you wont) then he'd be great, but I'd be afraid to take on his contract and his history for anything of value

Yeah, the sky isn't falling, but the offense really goes into droughts more than a good offense should. They went 0-24 with RISP between Friday and Saturday Yesterday, we still sucked on the offensive end, not being able to score runners on 3rd and less than 2 outs in two separate situations. But Tanaka looked really good and had some nice velocity topping out in the mid 90s on his seldom used 4 seamer. He allowed 1 unearned run and had another cheapie in the first with the 3 weak grounders causing a run. Betances and Miller struck out all 6 guys they faced. And the scary part is that on May 9th, we add maybe the most dominant arm of all in Chapman. That pen is going to limit all games to 6IP.

Yes, it does take time and reps. Montero ate himself out of the position. Sanchez is just hitting his stride. That being said, if Sanchez were to come up, it'd be as a backup for at least the next few seasons. Also, Sanchez has a gun, better than Swihart's for sure. The biggest issue with Swihart in the sox system is Vasquez. You have a far superior defender who is the same age. This isn't a rookie learning from a vet thing that could eventually lead to taking over the starting gig with more time and training. This is a poor defensive catcher with a solid hit tool who lost out to a catcher the same age with a ridiculous set of defensive tools. The problem in terms of Swihart's value is that his big league sample size saw him as the worst catcher in baseball defensively. That torpedoed his stock. And with a club that needs that D to help the pitchers and the fact that the current starter has nearly the same service time, he's done here as a C. And he won't return the same value he had before last season. His stock is currently low and the only way to recoup that would be to have Vasquez either get hurt or dealt and have Blake prove he can be a big league catcher

As an outfielder. UN?, I know you love this kid, but there's a reason why a no hit player in Vasquez beat him out. And it isn't like the kid is really young, he's 24, about the age he should be hitting the bigs. He might be the second coming of Posada, but they don't allow poor defensive catchers to stay catchers anymore. The days of the hit first slugger behind the dish are over.

I disagree Dojji. Vasquez didn't have shoulder surgery, he had TJS. There's a set timetable that most people recover within. And you had Hanigan, a capable big league catcher. All the publications had Swihart as this 5 tool catcher capable of being a solid defender blah blah blah. He was exposed at the big league level and looks like a hit first fringe catcher at the big league level. While he showed he can hit big league pitching, which is a plus, he likely showed that C wasn't his long term spot which will kill his trade value.

3 losses in a row now with an offense that cannot seem to hit with runners on and a rotation keen on giving up the long ball

Lap band, lol

This was inevitable. Swihart needs a new position if he's to stay a red sock.