SoxSport

Tito won't go that extra inning with a starter when it's warranted. That just puts the burden on the mediocre middle relief. Not the way games are won. He is just relying on the hitters to bail him out. And they often do.

Bedard strong, but knocked out by pitch counts. That's how managers lose games--fixing what ain't broke. If the other team knows they can get a pitcher out of the game on pitch counts, they'll keep the bat on their shoulders early and leave it to the ump.

That's just great. When I was growing up in Boston, Sain pitched for the Boston Braves. He also pitched later, I believe, for Al Lopez' great White Sox teams of the 50s. Billy Pierce, Nellie Fox, Aparicio, Minoso, etc. I recall about 25 years ago sitting at a racetrack with Kitty (Jim) Kaat all night talking about baseball--about the '67 final series between the Twins and the Sox which decided the pennant. Other than that I can't remember a damned thing we talked about. I do recall Jim Palmer telling me he'd have thrown Earl Weaver off the mound if he ever tried to take him out of a game on pitch counts. Of course, Earl would have never done that--he was too smart a manager.

The HR derby uses corked bats and juiced up balls. All for TV promo. The ESPN guys let that slip a couple of years ago. Wonder if that effects the hitters. Throws off their timing a bit.

Hey, is that Bedard or Andrew Miller out there? 4 walks in 2 innings. Not good.

Sain was an incredible pitching coach. A real pioneer. He taught the strike zone just like Ted Williams. His thinking was location--hit the corners. the places a hitter can't reach. Sain would not believe in pitch counts. His thinking was probably more like Halladay's. If you limit pitch counts on a pitcher, he won't be able to throw any more than that. How many pitches a starter can throw is really determined by how sharp he is that day. If a guy isn't sharp and is getting hit, he doesn't belong in there to give up 7 runs--even for 50 pitches. Sain did not believe in heating up bullpen pitchers to throw just one inning. That's because of all the wear and tear required to warm up. He believed in more innings per appearance. It's the number of appearances that wear down a relief pitcher. That's the opposite of the Red Sox philosophy of one pitcher per inning, and probably why they have to turn over so much of their bullpen every year. There is no medical evidence that pitch counts help pitchers' durability--which makes it remarkable that pitch counts have been adopted by most teams. if Sain was alive, I don't think he'd be happy with the way pitchers are handled these days. Pitching is an art, not a science. And there's no sense in trying to make it a science without proper justification.

Aceves gives up the tying run, blows the save, and then gets the win.Wake gets screwed. Same thing happened to Garcia last night with the Cardinals. Isn't it about time MLB addressed this? You should not get the win if you blow a save. The win should revert to the SP who left with the lead. Common sense.

They're all a bunch of f**cking bastards. why are we paying taxes.

Pap has definitely changed his brand of cereal this year.

...and the "Tea" party. Gotta be fair.

Good to see the Sox ahead. Big night for Papi. Watched the first few innings. Ump and official scorer as clueless as Obama.

Ells and Crawford are hitting lefties better. Reddick seems to hit them OK. AdGon and Ortiz power numbers are down vs lefties. But Papi is doing a lot better than last year when he was useless against lefties. Pedey hitting cleanup? Deserves it. He can hit anywhere. Mighty Mouse Pedey. Against righties, Tito no doubt wants Ells-CC batting 1-2.

Sabathia has lost weight too. Don't think the Yankees have haven't had him on a conditioning program. Papi, by the weigh (couldn't resist that), has also lost some weight this year. Less of a tire showing. Quicker with the bat? No doubt conditioning has a lot to do with performance. Injury frequency, as well. And the older you get, the more important it is to keep your weight down. But it's very hard to do that when you are making $15 million a year. Human nature. Wonder if Beckett got his millions out of the stock market in time? LOL PS. Beckett was one of those who was well-conditioned and ready to go in spring training. Lester looks pretty good, too. The fat guys are Wakefield and Lackey. Jenks? Is he still on the roster? Shouldn't be.

Great opportunity for the Sox to pick up momentum. Garcia and Colon have been overachieving.-- I don't expect that to continue for much longer.

Good to see Crawford coming around. He should be back to his norms by the end of the season.

The Yankees used to have classy fans--and still do have many. They are a rich, classy organization. Their AAA ballpark in Scranton reminds me of Yawkey's old Fenway. Spotlessly clean. What's changed things is cable TV, the critical importance of TV revenues in sports, and the dominance of NY as the major TV market. You now see a predominance of NY teams in network cable games, including MLB.com. That's because the advertising revenues are greatest for the NY market. ESPN , for example, is basically a NY cable station. And a lot of the mediatalk is about the Yankees, Jets, Knicks, etc. Check out the Globe which, by the way, is NY-owned(NY Times--which also owns a piece of the Red Sox). And then you have the major sports drafts, which are mostly held in NY and dominated by noisy NY fans wearing their team shirts. The NY fans know all this--they know their teams are the "media" teams--and it has just bred a lot of arrogance into the new generation of NY fans.

Is Hellikson a rookie? He and Pineda. Reddick will have to stay consistent to be considered.

all optimists with rose-colored glasses, please shut up. we are talking about game tactics here. questionable tactics. We are talking about a solid fundamentals team with the Guardians-- a team that will beat you 4-3 with scratch hits if you play stupid.

hey f*** 2004 and 2007. that's history.

Watching the way pitching is handled by Tito, and his lack of judgement, I'm not optimistic of this club getting to the World Series. Tito pisses away too many games with bad handling of pitching. The lineup sometimes saves him, but not always.

so Tito loses STILL another game trying to fix what ain't broke. How many is that? wow. it's insane to take a guy out on 70 pitches in a tie game. that pitch count machine sucks. it makes sane people do insane things. if there is a worse handler of pitching in baseball than Tito, he should not be in baseball.