Dojji

All we know about these guys is that they're both 16 years old.

throw in an "it should be rolled back to a previous version" and the vote won't be so lopsided.

He hasn't been as consistent as Ellsbury and Ellsbury has the best steal rate. I'd actually be more enthusiastic if I thought Crespo was doing more than a bit of grumpy handwaving.

Now you're just being a grouch

http://storage0.album.bg/3b/electrolux_387183.jpg

Ya well when you edit someone's title to reflect your opinion, it's about the same as editing the content of their post to express your opinion. It's in pretty bad form IMHO.

Lester could fan 220 this year.

Turning those switch hitters around results in a largely righthanded lineup in a park built mostly for lefty pull hitters.

Sure you want to know WB?

The results say he was left in too long, sure. There's more to this than just the results though. I just hate the insinuation that Tito is somehow stupid just because all the risks he takes don't turn to gold.

We already know that's not true. Not "at all costs" anyway. Paps does come in in the 8th from time to time. It's more true that we tried to build our bullpen so he doesn't have to. And usually that works but there are exceptions.

Sure. The guy wasn't getting shelled. At least half of Oki's troubles was him being a BABIP victim. One of those Texas Leaeguer bloops carries a little further (or a little less far) and nobody scores. He gets a ground ball he probably gets two.

PAPELBOMBED!

Win for me! Seriously, this one isn't a strawman. I think Francona gets too much crap about his day to day tactics. There's a lot of times that baseball puts you in a no win situation and we use the Hindsight Machine to criticise his moves simply because they don't work. The fact that a move doesn't work shouldn't be enough to launch tirades. I just don't see what Tito did in this situation that was so counterintuitive. Bringing in a member of his setup corps for the 8th surely isn't it. Sticking with him with a large lead even after a few rocks in the road sure isn't. Having the closer lined up and ready to go when crap hit the fan was his only controversial move, and it was a great one.

Had to be done, I suppose. Racism is not anything we should be prepared to tolerate. Besides, it wasn't even that creative a slur. I mean if you must be a raging bigot, you could at least do us the favor of being an ENTERTAINING racist bigot, couldn't you?

OK so you disagree. If I applied your own rules to you that makes you automatically an idiot, apparently.

I'm not going to tell you he's a perfect bullpen manager. No one is. What I'm saying is that he called it right today. I don't see too many managers that would have reacted dramatically different, and the one move he did make that might be different, was a good kind of different. (he got Papelbon instead of another setup man)

What happened with Oki can happen with any manager. You have a guy who's usually effective. He is crap today. You have two choices, and you have them with every plate appearance. 1: Sit there and wait 2: Pull him and bring in another pitcher. Neither of these is an excellent choice. You're either burning an additional pitcher, which can bite you in future games, or you're trusting a guy who isn't good today, which can burn you now. How you manage that decision and the kind of heat you can take if it goes wrong is why Tito gets paid as much as he does. Remember, Hideki Okajima is a good relief pitcher. Regardless of how you feel about him at the moment over the course of a season he's consistently one of our best. Oki letting in some hits, maybe even a run, then bouncing back and putting up those three outs himself was a distinct possibility even at the time he actually did get him. It is not as cut and dried as simply "well he's let on some baserunners, time to go get him." That adds strain to your bullpen and should be avoided if possible if you want to make it to September with 12 healthy arms. So with a big lead in hand he pushed his veteran a bit trying to squeeze an out or two out of him. Any manager does that if he has the leeway in a given game to get away with it. Pulling him before the first run scored would have been a panic move with a 6 run lead. Personally I think that Oki could have come out a couple bats earlier, and Tito wanted to give him a chance to bounce back -- but he hedged his bets by warming up Papelbon instead of Bard so that if things really went to hell -- like they did -- Tito could roll his best reliever out there rather than trust Bard, Delcarmen and RR, all of which have just as many warts as Oki. I just don't see too many managers who would have run that inning differently given the same parameters.

INSURANCE RUNS and let's have a Happy Saito Inning or something.

OUT OF IT!

HOLY CRAP ELLSBURY!!!!!

With 97 pitches on his arm and a then 6 run lead? Nah, we've gotta get this guy into top form for the playoffs, I don't want him pushed in September. July is the time for long-innings heroics, I don't mind Tito pulling in Lester's horns right now.