SoxFanForsyth

That was a freaking BOMB. When is the last time the Sox had a walkoff HR?!?!

Still gagging?!? :D:D

f*** YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Punto is PH instead of Salty. I give upon Valentine.

Dude the guy has like a .475 OBP.

Salty at least can take him deep when he PH for Shoppach. Nava will be leading off. Drive one off the wall. We're due for a walk off.

I swear. This team is allergic to getting over .500. It's ridiculous.

Never seen anyone stick on in the corner of that roll up door on the fly.

By my count, this is at least the 2nd game where Byrd has missed a bunt and cost us a tie or lead.

God, I'm so incredibly sick of people calling Lester cutter happy this year. It's just the trendy thing to say so everyone says it. Lester is throwing 16.4% cutters this year, by far the least of his career. He threw 19.6% in 2009, and outside of that has been around 22% every other year. Last year he did get cutter happy (27.2%) but that's not the case here. What his problem is, I don't know. But I do know it's not cutter happy. He is nibbling a ton and not going after hitters when he has 2 strikes on them and his Ks have gone down, so that's a problem.

Beckett is elite against the Rays. Sox win this one. By the way. Remember how I said I respected Maddon? Well, screw that little bitch. and f*** all of the Rays right in the ******* with a nail studded baseball bat. I has every single one of them. P.S. - thanks for the spark, Rays. This is exactly what this team needed. The Sox are about to go on a freaking tear. Mark my words.

Come on man. I respect the hell out of Joe Maddon. There will be movies made about him, guaranteed. He's such an outside-of-the-box thinker (See: Pena hitting leadoff vs Lester tonight), but it works. He keeps the clubhouse loose, but preaches fundamentals. Does every single thing he can do to help the team win, whether it's looking at how SP approach LHP vs RHP and then compare that to his hitters strengths, or looking at a spray chart and determining whether or not to use the shift. It's an absolutely perfect situation for both him and for the Rays because you can't have a guy like Maddon go into a room full of overpaid, egotistical superstars and have them dress up like nerds on a road trip. But when you've got a young group of guys who are mostly homegrown, and the leaders in the clubhouse have really bought in to Maddon's theories, it's a perfect situation. And that's one of the big reasons that the Rays are successful.

Yeah. Makes you wonder - Is Byrd really that big of an upgrade over Lin offensively? Because if not, Lin is a huge upgrade over Byrd defensively, especially with his arm and speed. And by the way, Gonzo is lined up to play RF tomorrow, per BobbyV.

I really think that since Nava didn't get here in the traditional, drafted player way, you're always going to hold that over his head rather than actually judge his talent. If a 5th rounder had a career .415 OBP in the minor leagues, you would be screaming at the FO to get him up here.

And yes, I realize that last night I argued that he was a backup OF, but after looking at some more stats, and looking at them a bit deeper than I did last night, I think he would be a good fit for a team like the O's. I'm not saying trade him to the O's. It's strictly for discussion on his value.

Are we serious here?? It's been 44 games and we're already determining the outcome of the trade?? How about we hang tight until Bailey makes some appearances. Oye.

Does that mean you agree?

We are in agreement that he is not a starter, but a backup. To be clear, I wasn't trying to dispute that fact. I was just saying he's not a crappy player. He's a league average, or slightly better than league average LF. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/split/83 Here are the stats, separated by team, for production from LF in 2012. The league average AL LF is hitting .243/.319/.416 right now. Last year, the league average AL LF hit .250/.310/.392 for a whopping .702 OPS. Now - These numbers are for all players who played LF, and include back ups as well as regulars (however, you would expect the ratio of playing time that a backup LF gets compared to a starting LF to be small enough that it wouldn't manipulate the data by a huge margin. Not nearly enough to bump it to a .800+). If you look at qualified LF with 100 PA as a LF, the median OPS is .717, ranging from .535 to 1.015. They don't display the average of the candidates at the bottom, and I really don't feel like calculating it myself, so the median is the best you're going to get out of me tonight. It's strange, and it's something I noticed during my fantasy baseball draft. Outfield has really gone from a position that seemed to have a magnitude of depth to a very shallow position.

Just thought about something - I wonder if the Red Sox will be tempted to go after Greinke, either in a trade or as a FA, since they have McClure as the pitching coach. That could be very beneficial to Greinke, having that comfort level.

I'm not sure how suggesting that Lester and Beckett turning it around is not realistic? Lester has thrown to a 2.45 ERA over his last 4 starts. Beckett had a stinker vs CLE, and even with that bad outing, he's got a 3.43 ERA over his last 7 starts. Projecting them to continue pitching like they have been over the past 5-7 starts is absolutely realistic. Not sure how that wouldn't translate. As for the bullpen, no they're not going to post a 1.98 ERA this year. They have a team 3.80 ERA. As bad as the 1st month was, and as good as May has been, I think they will be right around the average of the two, which is a 3.80. And it's not as though the Sox RP are just getting lucky. They've got a 3.80 ERA, a 3.90 FIP, and a 3.67 xFIP, a 76.1% Strand Rate, and a .290 BABIP. None of those numbers are outside of a normal range. So expecting a 3.80 ERA (which is basically what UN said) is very valid. And that would be a good bullpen (Sox had a 3.67 ERA in their pen last year, which included Pap and Bard). And again, as UN said, Melancon, Bailey, and Bard will all be in the pen by the end of the season which will be upgrades.