Jayhawk Bill

Yes. http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/gl.cgi?n1=gagneer01&t=p&year=2008 Check out the correlation between Leverage Index and Blown Saves. Do we have a "Choke" emoticon?

Pauley was OK into the third, but he lost 2 mph and a couple of inches' break on his fastball by the fourth inning. At 90 mph on a second look, the Angels are hitting him well...he needs the 92 mph fastball to succeed.

And the first line drive costs Boston...3-1.

I'm afraid that it may be pronounced "Paw-tuck-et."

Note that Pauley hasn't allowed a line drive this inning.

Drew looked bad trying to field Aybar's double.

I'd really NOT want to see that, given the injury potential for Pedroia, especially on plays at the plate. Lowrie should've volunteered, anyway.

The Blue Jays were 7th-best, too, with above-average hitters at every position except SS (and, maybe, 2B).

To the contrary: I typed what Boston needs. Even in 2008, Lugo gets it right 91.4% of the time on ground balls. Asking for a half-dozen consecutive accurate throws doesn't seem like so much in that respect.

Who said that he was one of the best defensively? I'd always heard that he was a good hitter who was adequate, not great, with the glove. FWIW, Julio Lugo is batting over .300 and his VORP is +2.1. Here are a few shortstops whose 2008 seasons at the plate are within a run, plus or minus, of Lugo's: Michael Young Derek Jeter David Eckstein Orlando Cabrera Pretty good company, IMO. Considering defense, Julio Lugo isn't yet contributing a whole lot, but his bat is thus far offsetting his glove. Remember, there are lots of shortstops who don't hit .250, let alone hitting .300. Lugo is doing all right...let's pull for him to do better.

Girardi will be fired unless he wins, and he may be fired regardless. He was fired in Florida for badmouthing his front office in public, despite his amazing ability to pull wins out of thin air. BTW, has anybody else noticed that the Yankees really suck but that they're still only 3.5 games back of Boston? Despite most of the team's mediocrity, Girardi has the Yankees at .500 in the AL East, a division significantly tougher than the 2006 NL East. He may not kiss up to his boss well, but Girardi sure knows how to manage.

Game. Sweep!!!

Or like he did in the second half of 2007, when he batted .280 with little power and few walks. He hit exactly .300 the first half of 2006 and .295 for all of 2005, too. Lugo sucked from the time he was traded to LA until the 2007 All Star Game, roughly a year. He no longer sucks...he's a .300-hitting shortstop whose arm is accuracy-challenged, and he's badly overpaid, but he doesn't suck. *** C'mon, MDC...end this.

Kudos for catching the typo in the 30-odd seconds before I edited it. :thumbsup:

Well, I guess it's all relative: what do Oriole fans do when they're leading 8-2 after eight innings and they're about to sweep the four game series?

Except for a shortage of "Burrs:" Chris Burr, the George Mason standout who only made it to A-level ball and who is now in his 11th year of managing the Vienna Senators, seems to be the only "Burr" in recent years.

No. I'm here in the Game Thread, too. Wrong again, OFF.

Edited. Gotta say that I like Thurston's attitude...he can only reach base by getting hit by a pitch, but when he does he doesn't flinch, he sprints down to first base, and he tries to take out the pivot man hard when he's the leading end of a double play. Thurston's "great catch" yesterday was largely the result of a bad break, but his leaping catch today was pretty darn good for a middle infielder. He's out of options, so he'll be gone soon, but Thurston may end up being among my all-time favorite position players who hit .000 in their Boston careers.

I didn't say that I have Pitch f/x from the minors. I don't need it--I'm referring to the 275 pitches he threw in MLB. "Three games" sounds small, but 275 pitches is a reasonable sample, particularly if the performance is suspect: and when an ERA goes down from both AA and AAA in MLB, especially from a pitcher who's not necessarily forecast to excel in MLB by scouts, many might consider the performance suspect. Look at the actual results from last season. Take his first game, the one that caught my attention. There were four strikes, all in the bottom inch of the zone, called balls: pitches 1, 30, 32, and 54. There were 13 balls called strikes: pitches 10, 16, 21, 27, 45, 65, 67, 71, 77, 85, 92, 95, and 96. Even if one expands the strike zone from the regulation zone by four inches to account for umpires giving pitchers "the black," there were still nine outside pitches that were called strikes, pitches that missed by as much as about half a foot. Kerwin Danley didn't extend that same courtesy to the Rays' pitchers...it was a clear case of favoring Kennedy. Here's the XML File: http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2007/month_09/day_01/gid_2007_09_01_tbamlb_nyamlb_1/pbp/pitchers/453178.xml

"I'm smarter than you are" attempted put-downs are often more effective when proper grammar is used.

I think that word got back to MLB that folks* were watching their umpires award Kennedy strike calls on pitches that should've been balls that were called balls for the opposing team's pitchers. Pitch f/x allows such analysis. Kennedy was getting a couple of runs shaved off his ERA last year through favorable pitch calling, and this year he's not getting those calls. Accordingly, it's now evident that he sucks. * "Folks" may possibly include the author of this post.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080416&content_id=2534186&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb Wow...if those corneal ulcers aren't the very least-worrisome type, Betemit may be in big trouble. Were I a GM, I'd only trade a player with negative value for Betemit until we see if he can recover. This could literally be the end of Betemit's career if the ulcers don't heal properly.

Too kind; no insult taken, of course, and thank you and back at you for the kind words. :thumbsup: Why would you say that? Baseball Prospectus's MORP suggests that, even after two "disappointing" seasons, Coco is still worth much more than his contract. MORP is a good tool--barring some specific reason otherwise, it suggests that Coco could get Boston quite a good relief pitcher. Do you know specific, modest trade requests offered by Boston that were turned down in the past ten days, after Coco had begun to demonstrate his 2008 value? I haven't seen any such stories--what I've seen is Ken Rosenthal's, "One general manager interested in Coco Crisp is convinced that the Red Sox do not want to move the center fielder, saying, 'Anytime somebody asks, they ask for the moon.'" I think that Theo knows Coco Crisp's true value to either Boston or any other MLB team, and that Theo won't let Coco go for less than that very high value.