TedWilliams101

Buehrle was able to get stretched out in the minors where as Prior did not. Prior only pitched 50 innings in his first year in the minors because of a non-pitching related injury. He then goes up to the bigs and 116 and 211 innings in his next to seasons. More importantly, though, is that Prior has a far more stressful delivery and possibly a weaker arm (again, this has nothing to do with the mechanics). For one, prior had far FAR better stuff than Buehrle. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't impressive how durable he is, I'm simply saying it's not a good comparison. If Buehrle had a similar delivery then I'd say it's a good point, but he doesn't. The point is that most pitchers have to get stretched out for a couple years until they can go 200 innings every season and some simply don't have the durability to last 200 innings period. Some pitchers have the durability the day the step into pro ball (lincecum, etc), but most don't. It's not the norm, especially for someone with a violent delivery. If they had just limited Prior's innings and slowly built up arm strength they could have possibly saved his career, but the point is that we just don't know. The human body alone is a gigantic and complicated factor that is different with every person.

Also, I think it's important to remember exactly how Prior fell apart. Yes, his mechanics were probably part of the problem, but he was used WAY to much in his first 2 seasons (106 pitches per start in '02, 113 in '03) in pro ball. Blowing out his achilles tendon might not have been just because of his delivery, there are a ton of factors, but the injury itself may have completely destroyed his arm. I'm sure taking the line-drive off his elbow the very next season leading to a compression fracture didn't help. The fact is, Prior could just have been a case of a guy with a weak arm/body and incredibly bad luck. I don't think it would be a stretch to think it possible that if he simply wasn't over used early on, he might have avoided blowing his achilles tendon and may have thus dodged all the following injuries.

My thoughts? Amazing. If he can continue to progress, make adjustments, and work on his change-up (and of course stay healthy), the sky is the limit. I agree it's way to early to start talk of "greatest ever", but as prospects go, the kid is as good as it gets.

Yeah, ok. The only other decent pitcher the Guardians have is Talbot, a rookie. Carmona is the best they have right now.

That's now 7 (team) left on base through 6 innings, 0 for 9 with RISP. Carmona got behind a lot of hitters and we couldn't do a thing. I really hope this doesn't come back to bite us. Gotta do damage against the pen.

A LOT of missed opportunities so far, we have to make Carmona pay when we get 2 on and no outs.

This team ISNT going to win 2 of 3 consistently against the top teams. Unfortunately, 2 of the top teams in baseball are IN our division and then the Jays look like a good team as well. We need to play much better than .666 ball against the bad teams. Anyways, we may very well have to win 100 games to make the playoffs this season.

It's time for Dustin to break out of this slump already.

McDonald's line against LHP so far this year: .326, .396, .605, 1.000 Bunting in that situation was STUPID.

Not with the way the O's have been playing. We have to play near perfect baseball if we are to win the division or even get the wild card.

When Francona gives a player the day off, he won't use him, even if life and death hung in the balance.

And the O's just took the lead. Damn this s***** offense today.

I get the point, but technically it wouldn't be anywhere close. There have been 3 perfect games (should have been) between ALL games played (30 clubs) this season. The O's have played just 1/15th of the total games. Thus, it would be more than 15 times more often, 30 technically if you just count the 2 actual perfect games.

Yes, but they should score more than 2 runs when they are facing terrible pitching. They have now left 8 on base. On a worse note, the Yankees retook the lead in TOR.

I'm sure this is sarcasm, but just in case: 4th in BA, 2nd in OBP, 1st in SLG, 1st in OPS, 1st in Runs scored, 1st in RBIs, 1st in total bases.

I can understand this team getting shutdown by good pitching, but Matusz was leaving a lot of pitches over the middle of the plate. Now into their pen, we have to do some damage.

Wow, our offense is stagnant. We should be crushing Matusz.

Pathetic. These are the hitters that gave Lackey trouble that inning (in OPS): .869, .656, .444, .450, .547, .466. How pathetic is that.

WTF Lackey. THis is the worst offensive team in baseball and you're struggling to get outs. Jesus, get your s*** together.

VMART!!!! 2-0!

Bay: 0.299, 0.386, 0.451, 0.837, 3HR, 24 RBI Beltre: 0.333, 0.363, 0.514, 0.878, 7HR, 40 RBI Who's the banjo hitter now?