Dojji

Rick Ankiel, OF

Oh, and also Morales averages less than 5 innings a start.

Morales has pretty mediocre command, But the "stuff" is good.

Shilling for a website fail. Wake is a shoo-in for the Red Sox hall of fame. He'll belong to no other IMHO.

Diamondbacks surrender a 7-1 lead byt giving up 8 runs to the Padres. I'll say that again. Diamondbacks gave up 9 runs to the Padres.

Leaving RISP's gets old real fast. lol @ Bailey not realizing he was hit.

Looking like 2007 Penny right now. Color me impressed.

Nicely done, Mr. Penny.

Might not be the worst idea, but I don't think it'll ever happen because the defensive downgrade is too steep.

Diony probably skimmed that and thought that Keeper was still talking about Ubaldo.

Boston leads the AL East!

Pedroia Kessel Rondo Krejci Mayo Lester Lucic Big Baby Bergeron Blake Wheeler

And in his other two major leaugue seasons he pitched 68 and 72 innings of quality setup caliber relief. That's a lot. Injury or not, that's some good durability and the fact that he bounced back to throw 70+ innings after his shoulder troubles is pretty good evidence that they aren't bothering him that much.

Thought these two deserved some special thread recognition for their seasons so far. Either of Ramirez or Delcarmen has been arguably better than Papelbon so far this year, and both of them are on pace for some serious innings this year as well, probably both of them will pitch more than Papelbon. Delcarmen: 0.95 ERA over 19 innings. On pace for 76 IP Ramirez: 0.79 ERA over 22 2/3 IP. On pace for about 90 IP. The really awesome thing about this is that the projected workload isn't unreasonable for either of them. Both of them have a history of being very durable on the mound and able to pitch regularly without showing a lot of fatigue or injury. One of the big reasons I was excited about the Ramirez trade was because we would have two workhorse righthanders behind Pap that had been near-mirror images of each other the previous year, and both good for more than 70 innings of relief pitching in a season. So far my hope has been validated and then some. Both are due some regression, but with our depth we can handle it, and between them MDC and RR have been our bullpen titans, and between them are the biggest reason we're contending with a rotation that has underperformed so badly and a slumping Big Papi. The really awesome thing about having two such durable righthanders is that you can throw them into situations that other teams have to risk the dregs of their bullpen on . Say, the starter goes 5 and out in a close game -- if neither has pitched three games in a row, Ramirez and Delcarmen can easily split three innings between them, filling quality innings to get the game to the closer. In the same situation most teams have to mix and match to get through the 6th and maybe the 7th too, before turning it over to the setup man. Add in Saito, Oki and Bard able to fill in around those two and our middle innings corps is easily the sickest in the league, But those three are supplements to the work Oki and MDC are doing and they would be struggling more if one of those two was to go down or struggle. It's the dependability of MDC and Ramon Ramrez that gives us the luxury to play the other relievers when they're rested or when they're strong and to develop Bard at the major league level without having to throw him into the fire. Anyway, I just thought that rated a shout out and a bit of love.

3 more innings in this Charlie Brown game too.

It was a two-out throwing error by Wilson Betemit in the second followed by Colon utterly flying apart.

Interesting game going on in Chicago just now. Minnesota up 20-0.

I guess that answers my question. Put any player in any position but be prepared to have them suck if they aren't prepared properly to play there.

That's... a lot of passed balls. The thing about Sandoval is that most prospects who have a chance to be a fulltime catcher are catchers fulltime in the minors, even those like Brandon Inge or Mike Sweeney who wind up playing significant time in other positions at some point in their careers. Sandoval is an exception to that rule, which is a concern with him defensively because he's had limited reps (as you said, little more than 1 full season of games behind the dish as a pro) and runs the risk of becoming exposed. Or of sticking at whatever position they play him in the meantime if his flaws behind the plate are a concern to the team (which is kind of what happened to Inge).

I don't know Sandoval from Adam. My question was because the guy has played very limited big league catcher and there's a lot of prospects who "can" play a position in theory but wind up not doing it for one reason or another. One example would be Pedroia at short) or Youkilis, who while he can play third base has never been called upon to do so fulltime. I thought Sandoval might be one of those, especially since most people who carry "C-1B" on their resume cards in the minors tend to have some flaw in their game behind the plate. That's why I used the analogy of Butler and left field (wherer Butler has similarly limited big league experience). was basically asking how creative you can be squeezing those guys into the lineup. .

Not sure I like that deal for San Diego. One great pitcher for two pretty good ones is a move that can go terribly wrong. (see: Carl Pavano and Tony Armas Jr. for Pedro Martinez)

Solid move by Chicago. Their starting pitching surely needed a little something. They've still got some holes of course but in that division, who doesn't?

Because I don't have my LF and DH sorted out yet and otherwise we'd have to have Granderson batting third.

Point of clarification: Pablo Sandoval has yet to play catcher in the major leagues. Is it really apropos to pencil him in at that position under the circumstances? Wouldn't it be like me sticking Billy Butler in left field?

Oeltjen, RF Granderson, CF Napoli, C Zobrist, 2B Overbay, 1B Butler, DH Drew, SS Gordon, 3B Bench: Dukes, OF Raburn, OF Snyder, C Weeks, IF Rotation Greinke Shields Zambrano Kuroda Laffey Bullpen: Downs Delcarmen Sherrill Lowe Richmond Bush