SoxSport

Fire Danny Ainge, too, for trading Perkins for two bench guys--at the wrong time.

Miami seems to have jelled as a team. The Celtics seem to have become unjelled--probably due to trading Perkins. I always thought their starting 5 had great balance. Ainge screwed the pooch trading Perkins, a starter, for two bench players. Funny, Ainge, a starter, was traded from the Celtics in the 80s for bench players: he made the same mistake as GM! What you hope now is Theo hasn't screwed the pooch signing too many left handed hitters, while letting two right ones go.

Tek can be productive if he's used sparingly and against LHP--which they are seeing a ton of with that imbalanced lineup. He got a hit last night in the late innings before getting replaced. He becomes more important with Salty clearly not ready to start for a $160 million dollar team. Tek needs some help, and Rosenthal says help will be coming soon. Poor Salty has "Theo" written on his back.

Pitch counts are way overblown. There is no medical or scientific basis for it. I read an article on it where Halliday said basically it depends how you feel. How tough your pitches have been. I've talked to other pitchers in the past who have said the same. I don't know where this stuff started. It used to be 120 pitches was the rough limit. now it's down to 100 pitches. Does it make sense for a $15million dollar starter to pitch 5 or 6 innings (Buchholz pitched 5 the other night), and replace him with ten cent relievers for the rest of game? OK. Maybe the closer is close to the level of the starter. But the rest are not. That's the easiest way to lose a game. Trotting out half your bullpen to finish a game. Somebody is bound to get hit. Pitch counts have screwed up the game. The old common sense no longer prevails. You replace a guy when he's getting hit. Some days he doesn't have it. That's the time for relief help. But managers now leave a guy in to get bombed--losing the game--instead of using their relievers. And they take a starter out of a quality start just on pitch counts--even when he is dominant. The result is they don't have relievers when they need them--like last night in the 8th inning. Actually, Beckett should have pitched the 8th inning. He might have got the win. He certainly deserved it. Some of you kids out there don't remember the game before pitch counts. Incredibly, it was played with more common sense in those days. The pitch count thing is way out of whack. You condition a guy to throw 100 pitches, that's all he can throw. It's in the conditioning. When Schilling pitched for the Phillies, he could throw 120-130 pitches in his sleep. He got in trouble only when Tito left him in for 140-145 pitches. That was a long time ago for Tito.

Last night, Beckett is throwing a shutout in a 1-0 game. Tito takes him out after 7 innings and 103 pitches. With a depleted bullpen. You coddle your millionaire starters like that, and they will be a bunch of complacent pussies before long. Tito just isn't aggressive enough.

Commentator: The Sox have a lot of really good players, but they are not yet a really good team. Maybe they need a few hungry kids like Iglesias in the lineup--to light a spark.

Drew leads off--swinging away, naturally. Whatever happened to the first hitter getting on base? The Twins will bleed a run while the Red Sox swing for the fences--with the wind blowing in. LOWRIE WALKS. LOWRIE WALKS. And gets pinch run with Iglesias? Crawford: another terrible strike by West. ALLRIGHT!!!! Crawford and Iglesias get cookies. Tito is smelling roses.

The way Oki is pitching, Tito blew it not pitching him in the 8th. Oki did not get strike 3 from this terrible ump. Nice pickup by AdGon, but no DP. The Sox have too many left handed hitters, too few left handed pitchers. Epstein can add, too. Throw him a curve, Oki. 87 mph fastball? Strikeout on curve. Oki looks good to me.

Somewhere in the universe, Orson Wells is still applauding. Ellsbury: 1 pitch, 1 out. Fans are begging for a HR. Pedroia gets his fastball in--for a double. AdGon gets booed for not going to left against the lefty. Youks gets a free pass. Ortiz hits into the shift. The Sox are getting killed by left handed pitching. ANY lefthander. Ortiz and AdGon were pulling against the lefthander. This club is dysfunctional right now.

Bleed a run, Tito.

Oki still has a good curve.

Some announcer just said the Sox should have used a lefthander in the 8th, but they don't trust Oki. replays showing how bad umpires are on balls and strikes.

The Red Sox suck on fundamentals, Tito.

Cahill beating Texas--in Texas. How does Oakland do it? Pitching. Even on the road.

Lowrie just roped one --into the left fielder's glove. Scutaro will never get the SS job back. Another lefty pitcher for the Twins. Do you think Crawford might have tried to bunt his way on? Nope.

The team has no life. They are just going through the motions. No patience at the plate. Major shakeups if this club doesn't turn it around soon.

Youks swinging at bad pitches. Tito couldn't create a run if his life depended on it. Everybody swinging away at the first pitch.

That tying run had blood all over it. Why the hell was Aceves put in in that spot, coming out of Pawtucket? Pap looks damn good. I hope Boras gets him a big contract.

The rain delay game yesterday was an example of bullpen overuse. How many pitchers? Different ones for innings 6,7,8 and 9. 4-0 win. Why did Buchholz go only 5 innings? Maybe the rain delay was a factor. But why not 2 pitchers, a couple of innings apiece, for the last 4 innings? Because the modus operandi these days is one inning per pitcher. A full bullpen heatup to go one inning. And that's why bullpens wear out.

I don't know if they had any other options than Wakefield at that point. That's the danger of shuffling a new pitcher in every inning. You go through 3 or 4 guys, and if the game goes to extra innings, you have nobody left.

The Red Sox asked Salty to be a much better catcher than he has been in the past. It looks like he is trying. It isn't clear if he will be successful. But my bet is they give up on him before he gets the chance. The mistake of putting all your eggs in one basket, Theo.

Beckett is pretty fragile--for such a big strapping guy:rolleyes: And the Red Sox like to stroke their pitchers with the pitch count machine. Read an article the other day quoting Halladay as saying absolute pitch counts aren't important--it's more how the pitcher feels. How tough the game has been. Sometimes, 90 pitches are tougher than 130 pitches. I'd like to see Tito try to figure that one out. Of course, Halladay can throw a strike in his sleep.