lasitter

Yeah. It would be near impossible for hitters to get their rhythm back ...

Wake can't catch for Jackson either, on a ball that Jennings would have caught. The runner that shouldn't have been at second wouldn't have advance to third on Salty's passed ball, and wouldn't have scored on a sack fly (in spite of a lousy throw by Darnell). So Wake gets charged with an earned run.

Lester, Lacky and Beckett have hit more batters than Wake, and none of them are throwing pitches harder to control than the knuckler. Aside from that, if Wake throws it and the batter swings and misses, I don't know what else you could ask for. He can't throw it and catch it too.

The sad bit is that Scutaro is outhitting most of the rest of the team in September.

A two walk gift, and nothing. Price can't find the plate, so we swing. But when Price is wild Shoppach makes stabbing CATCHES.

What's Darnell's excuse? Can't hit, field or throw. He's not in a wheelchair yet.

If you don't throw it in the stands and the batter swings at it ... is it really a wild pitch??

Perfect example of the difference between the Rays and the Sox. Rays catcher knocks down / stays in front of tow pitches, and Salty gets a glove on two and chases them to the backstop.

On a team averaging over four ERA, why would you expect your knuckle ball pitcher to be doing any more than he is right now? I'd love to have a pitcher better than Wake ready to take the mound today, but we don't. I don't know when we will. I don't know how much that better pitcher will cost when we find him. I don't know how many sLackeys and Dice-Ks we can afford to burn thru in search of him. ERA for any Sox pitcher having started a game ... 2.50 Beckett 2.82 Aceves 3.15 Lester 3.50 Bedard 5.13 Wake 5.43 Miller 6.19 Lackey 7.58 Weiland 3.48 Buch 5.30 Dice-K We could start Aceves, but I hate to think of the bullpen without him. Wake needs to be where he is, and we need to be playing better baseball behind him. We need to be playing better ball behind ALL our pitchers.

I blame the management for us being in the position of twisting in the wind on a knuckleball for us to have any chance of splitting the series with the Rays. We are playing absolute knucklehead ball right now, giving away runs we can't afford and that we apparently cannot match back. With his speed, Jennings easily reaches third on an infield ground ball, and then Lester can't even walk Longoria without giving up a run in the process. Jennings ran the bases perfectly, Lester doesn't execute an ill-conceived pitch, and Salty can't keep the ball in front of him. Salty's come a long way, but this is the bigs, and we obviously need an agile catcher that can keep the ball in front of him, and Tek's legs are shot. And Crawford's almost out at the plate because we can't administer / read a sign to slide? And Ells gives away a gift of what could have been a golden opportunity getting caught at third? So Lester didn't get his customary seven runs in support last night and we lost, significantly because management doesn't want to take the time to drill the fundamentals of the game like the Rays. Where do you go to look up pitcher run support? I'd love to know. If we had a team better at fundamentals behind Lester we might have won last night, and we'd have a better chance of winning today. Why does having the achingly slow combo of Ortiz and Gonzalez mean that the rest of the team can't play smart ball? When I see these two teams on the field and their managers at work, I think I know where to lay the blame.

In spite of our historic swoon of late, I could be optimistic about making the playoffs with just a little bit of smart baseball in our last 10 games. The Yankees have to play the Rays seven times and us three times in their final 10 outings, and the Rays aren't playing like goats. We play the birds seven times, and while they've been better of late, they're still carrying one of the worst records in baseball. The Rays control a lot of destiny vs the Yankees, and have three games with Toronto, who they've dominated as they have Boston this season. That all said, I'd feel so much better about our chances if we had the management or small-ball smarts of either the Yankees or the Rays ... ---- Last night's game and our inability to pull off "small ball" or even smart ball demonstrates why we're so vulnerable when batting slumps hit and pitching is less than stellar. Bottom of the 2nd and bottom of the order, Shields, who doesn't walk a lot, hands us consecutive walks with no one out on a silver platter. We suck at small ball, but rather than having Aviles swing away we try bunting anyway and that ends in a GIDP disaster. Even if we'd hit into a conventional DP, we would at least have had the chance to see the ball sailing out of the park, as it did later. Maybe he hits it to the left side of the infield and we get 1st and 3rd with one out, and a chance for a sac fly / hit. Having Aviles stand in the batter's box and just look mean would have been better. We'll never know now, but Shields could have loaded the bases with yet another walk. Even if he had been out looking you'd have Ells and the top of the order up with a chance to do something. But we get nothing. The Rays, by comparison get seven steals in the game. Jennings had Tek beat in the 3rd but Tek puts a pointless throw into center field and Jennings on 3rd, where he later scored. We suck at a lot of the basics, and that's not how you go deep in October. Our corner outfielders suck at throwing. No accuracy. How many assists have they racked up this year? Scooty has such a noodle that I'm beginning to think he does the (sometimes disastrous) soft toss to 2nd because he has to. I don't think he's getting a golden glove this year either. If this team could really play the game they could slump their way into the playoffs and look good doing it!

a700 couldn't make 27,000 posts if he took the time to think anything thru or compose a thoughtful post. And: "lasitter" is the only identity I have on the web. It should be pretty easy for you to put me on your global ignore list -- my present to you!

Which pitchers THAT WE HAVE? I'm happy we got Bedard, but that trade was so late it was announced after deadline. WHO ELSE did we leave on the table for a couple million dollars? It doesn't help to say that we should have been luckier in the draft or that other teams have better pitchers. We're playing the hand we were dealt in terms of injuries and I think we tried everybody in the minors that had a snowball's chance in hell of helping us. I wish he was 15 years younger, but other than that I know he's helped the team and I don't know who you would have started in his place this season.

Guys: Give him the four blown saves and he's 11-6. sLackey has a higher ERA and we're sinking $16 million a year into him. Except for starting the year in the bullpen, he'd have as many innings as almost any starter. If he doesn't throw another pitch this year, who do you think is going to pick up those 145 innings for $1 million and do it better? Are we really expecting Dice-K to come back and blow us away next year? If Beckett holds true to form and fails to put a second good year together with this season next year, what are your plans? I heard all this same stuff about Wake at the beginning of this season. Few offered any hope that we'd get so much as one quality start out of him in the rotation for the season. I don't care if he only has wind for one half of a season. I'd bet you anything that he's got another useful half-season of service in him, and it costs us nothing to find out. Add to this the fact that Theo doesn't have enough money coming off the books to pull multiple rabbits out of the hat at Hot Stove this year, and I think we have to come up with some ways to get value wherever we find it in the organization. Wake is just such a resource.

The embarrassing truth is that given the current state of the starting rotation and the relief, we still need him. I'm not sure you could argue that Weiland, Miller, sLackey, Albers, Dubront are doing better, and none of them are approaching senior citizenship. Dice-K, and Jenks are sidelined $$$ down a rathole. Beckett has been day-to-day four times, and Bucholtz has missed a huge chunk of the season. Lester and Lackey have both had stints on the DL. He tires too easily, but Wake may be one of the healthiest pitchers on staff. With a spot of luck, a smarter manager and some better fielding (passed balls), he might have had a much better record this year. I couldn't find a page listing the stats for a pitcher inning-by-inning, so I had to create this the hard way. I know someone here could do it better (probably already a web site for this stat), but it attempts to show earned runs allowed by Wake per each inning per appearance this season. -------0- @ Texas ----01--- @ Texas ------01- @ Cleveland ------00- @ NYY ---202--- v Tampa Bay (Scutaro E 5th, Salty PB 6th ??) --------1 v Toronto ------0-- @ Baltimore 000001--- v Seattle (Jenks BS) --------0> v Angels 13002---- v Minnesota Balk, Lowrie 2x error ------00- @ Toronto 0000000-- v Cubs 0000000-- @ Detroit 000121--- v ChiSox 000131--- @ NYY 0000100-- @ Tampa Bay (No run support) (1WP, 2PB, just 1 ER) 02000010- v Milwaukee 000400--- @ Pittsburgh 120011--- @ Houston 1020000-- v Toronto 20003---- @ Baltimore (2x unearned) 2000104-- v Seattle (slam in 7th) 00000120- @ ChiSox (2x runs in 7th) 0002001-- v Cleveland (Pap wins 4-3) 0101100-- @ Minnesota (Aceves BS, win) 00201100- @ Seattle (errors, run support) 001003--- @ Kansas City (Albers BS) 0202----- v Oakland -----0000 v Texas 12100---- @ Toronto (Albers BS, loss) 032000--- v Toronto I think that somewhere in this there's probably an indication that if Wake gets left out there too long he gets beat up. He's cheap, sturdy, available, and does whatever you ask without an attitude. I don't know how you DON'T resign him given our present options.

I'd like to get a link to a good page that gives the most complete roster rundown on player contract status, remaining options and the like.

Will he just be kept on the DL the rest of the season to avoid taking up a roster spot? Do the Sox have to remove him from the 40-man roster to be able to protect someone else that would be Rule 5 eligible? When? What are the factors that dictate if / when the FO just writes him a check for the rest of his contract and sends him along? If that happens before the playoffs / Sept 1 / other magic date, does that cut him out of the playoff money? Thanks.

Aside from Ed Reulbach pitching two complete games back-to-back in 1908 (winning both), or Spahn going 16(ish) at the age of 42, I think it's pretty well accepted that starting pitchers going long into an outing has pretty much evaporated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_game In the '60s (decade of pitching) it was not uncommon for starters to pitch three times a week, and of course now we have the five-man rotation as a standard. Even so, starters are coming out after six or seven innings more and more frequently. I would think that with all the above and the super-advanced modern sports medicine we have, the latest in equipment, all the player development programs, coaching specialists, trainers, etc., etc., that pitchers would be staying healthy like nobody's business. For some reason it doesn't seem that way. And I don't buy the argument that today's hurlers are just blowing away the great fireballers of yesteryear. I need help sorting this out. With all the advantages they have today, why do players / pitchers SEEM so brittle?

Absolutely. I don't have to guess how Wake would have felt coming out before the Grand Slam versus after. It really puts his ERA in the toilet (even more ...). I'd rather put almost any of our relievers in there rather than set him up for a needlessly humbling experience. Unless you were thinking he was a sure thing to set 'em down after six ...

I was so grateful when Wake got thru six with only three runs. What was the point in sending him out there in the 7th? He couldn't have taken the first three off the board, and chances were excellent he'd blow up. I was begging for relief pitching after the sixth (would have been grateful for long relief after five!), but no -- we had to wait for the grand tater, when just about any of our relievers would have had a better chance of shutting them down. The 72 mph fast ball is no more of an out pitch than Tito is a tactical manager.

Given that all the trading teams seem to be asking for the moon for anyone we'd like, I'm more convinced than ever that our present strategy should simply be to WAIT. And, while waiting, participate in every possible rumor that makes the Yankees and every other potential deep pocket team shoot their wad and overpay / overtrade to get what they want. When the dust settles at the trade deadline, or perhaps in August, there's no telling what might be left and at how affordable a price. If you don't need much, simply bidding up the price and not trading can be a huge win.

I was wondering if this couldn't be seen as a way of deflating the interest in Beltran. If Reddick demonstrates that we can largely satisfy the RF need internally, fewer people should expect us to lose our heads over Beltran, and it can also serve to push Reddick's stock higher, depending on his performance there.