jacksonianmarch

Your offense is dormant and your pitching a powderkeg. 5 games out by May 8th.

6IP 9 baserunners and 4 runs might be "keeping you in the game" but it isn't a good start

This is almost comical

I am just f***ing around. Relax.

So we are arguing semantics. Okay, good. The sox offense has been disappointing. You're 11th in runs in the majors, hardly an unmitigated disaster. But when your offense is built to be the leader and they aren't, then I can see how the pitchers could have extra pressure

UN? I never discounted the blame on the offense. I have just told you that the rotation has in fact sucked. The offense has lacked cohesion as some guys on the team are actually hitting well. The only guy who is an absolute puzzle is Napoli, as it appears he stopped juicing. This doesn't change the fact that the pitching has been atrocious, especially the rotation. Prior to yesterday, the sox had the 29th ranked staff ERA, the 29th ranked rotation ERA, and were the only team in baseball to have had 100+ innings out of their pen. In short, the staff isn't staying in games long enough to relieve the pen a little and when they are in there, they are giving up runs in bunches. Yes, they have had some good games. But they've also had some epically bad games. They don't even out. You cannot expect any offense, let alone one expected to be great, to always win every well pitched game. That's not reasonable. You should expect your offense to rescue your starters when they suck a few times as well. I bet the numbers show that even a good offense and team will still lose 30%+ percent of Quality Starts made by their rotation. I also bet you that even on a team with a good offense, a team will win a much lower percentage of games where the starters suck.

UN, they have the worst starting ERA in the AL. You always talk about the stats and straw man arguments. Well, you're not looking at the stats and you're the scarecrow

I liked Varvaro. I think he's gonna land on his feet in Chicago. Mujica was done

I think Johnson fell off the map with his last 2 performances. He's a crafty lefty without much velo who relies on command. He just walked 10 batter in his last 7.2IP. My guess is he dropped in the pecking order. Owens also inexplicably lost the zone thus far this year. My concern is that you've stopped the development of one of your MLB ready arms when you might need up to 3 starters by season's end

Miley has seen his K rate plummet and his walk rate rise. It's not like he's getting mauled out there as his BAA of .273 doesn't scream fluke. He seems to lose his rhythm and then lose composure and have a massively bad inning he cannot recover from

I know this was rehashed in the in season thread, but I think the big part of this decision is to keep Barnes as a pen guy. I would say that if your rotation was good, grooming Barnes in the pen might not be a bad idea. But with the rotation an utter disaster, how do you guys feel about moving a promising pitching prospect to the pen full time to take over for Suckica?

Kimmi, the starting rotation has been so bad that the offense hasn't even had a chance to get going before they are behind. It is a far different beast hitting with RISP when trailing than when you are ahead or tied. BTW, I feel for Nieves. Nothing like dealing away your pitching talent last year, bringing in a bunch of stiffs and then expecting the pitching coach to turn back the clock on them. Nieves hopefully will find work in short order

Great, Miller walks Bautista to get to their best hitter on the year

And Carp shits the bed enough to have to use one of the twin towers. WTF?

Not sure why anyone throws Betts fastballs. This kid murders them

Ogando looks like he has his velo back. That could be very good for you guys.

BTW, Pineda's velocity is creeping back. Lots of 93 and 94mph pitches today

Why go to Martin, though? Martin is a guy who has had good results, but needs to prove more to be anything more than a deficit or big lead kind of guy. Carpenter made sense there if Miller was unavailable

Let's assume Napoli stays a moving dumpster fire. One option is to move Panda to 1B and Hanley to 3B, paving the way for Castillo in LF.

Hughes was like that when he was on our team. His FIP would be solid but the production not so much. It's all about command both in and out of the strike zone. Buch seems to turtle when things get rough, which is no what you want to see out of your opening day starter

An error on Headley was just wrong. The ball was a double all the way. Headley dives and nabs the ball, jumps to his feet, and makes an off balanced throw that is on line but on a hop. A big league 1B makes that play 80% of the time. It was a short hop, but wasn't too close to his body to make it unpredictable. Jones butchered it. The scorer should have given Martin a hit

Well, you wont lose any more ground tonight. Our intrepid f***up of a manager cost us the game

And tonight's game was buttf***ed by our moron manager again. What a f***ing moron. So you have a 1 run lead entering the 8th. You bring in Martin instead of Betances, but have Betances ready at the beginning of the inning. You allow Martin to put 2 batters on before you bring in Betances. A lucky pop up double ties the game. Then a great play by Headley and a low throw to the backup Jones who sucks defensively and cannot pick it leads to 2 more runs. How bout this you f***ing idiot manager. If you have your setup guy ready for the 8th inning, then go to him. If you don't want to use him, then don't have him ready. Also, if you are holding a 1 run lead and you make other defensive changes to hold the lead, how about bringing Teixeira into the game for defensive reasons, as the guy manning that base is a DH and not a 1b. Total f***erage by our terrible leader, which will likely cost us the game. f*** you Joe

Whitley is dominating the best offense in baseball. He may not be an ace in the making, but the kid knows how to pitch

Thing is, by the time the managers go to the ump, the decision should be made.