SoxFanForsyth

The guy that's killing us right now is Darnell McDonald. So rather than asking "If Ells is out for X amount of time, should we go get someone in a trade", it's more of a "Crawford will be back in 2-3 weeks, the schedule goes from extremely difficult to extremely manageable starting a week from today. Can we manage without Ells and Crawford for the next 2-3 weeks?" The answer, I think, is yes. Starting in 1 week from today, the next 22 games will look like this: 3 @ MIN (63-99 in 2011) 4 @ CHW (79-83 in 2011) 3 v OAK (74-88 in 2011) 3 v BAL (69-93 in 2011) 3 @ KC (71-91 in 2011) 4 v CLE (80-82 in 2011) 2 v SEA (67-95 in 2011) That gets us through May 15th. That will be 4.5 weeks from Ellsbury's injury, so he will need another 1.5-3.5 weeks to get back. But regardless, Crawford will be back in the middle of that stretch, and our OF will be Crawford, Ross, and Sweeney. That outfield will be able to get it done. Keep in mind, this team had the best offense in baseball last year, and the RF had a .652 OPS, and the LF had a .723 OPS. With the additions of Sweeney and Ross, and if Crawford can return to form, the Sox outfield offense as a whole, while not being as good as 2011, could easily get close to being as good as 2011. All that to say - there are other areas that need improvement more than the OF unless a situation arises where Ellsbury will miss significantly more time than anticipated right now.

Going to the Wednesday night game, but I'll be in Nashville for a wedding during the NYY series. Lame.:thumbdown

Couple things from today's game as well as this series: 1. I really liked the way Bard threw. He walked too many hitters (but as User Name pointed out, 3 walks in the 7th when he was gassed killed him). Either way, he did a great job limiting the damage and I'll take that outing from Bard all day. 6.2 IP, 1 ER in his 2nd MLB start is very, very good. 2. We have to remember, the Rays messed with their rotation in Detroit for the sole purpose of having Shields throw against the Sox. So they threw their #1-4 at us, and we threw our #2-5 at them and came away with 3/4. This is the team that has "the best pitching staff in the AL East, maybe in all of baseball" according to analysts. Well, our #5 starter just went toe to toe with their #1 starter. You have to feel very confident in the fact that Bard gave Shields and the Rays all they could handle. It was unfortunate, but they didn't earn the win, Valentine gave it away. You have to go with Thomas against Pena after it was extremely apparent that Bard lost his control. 3. Sox are playing very good baseball right now. Coming up this series, it's Lester vs Lewis (extreme advantage to Lester) and Beckett vs Holland. Sox should take game 1 pretty easily. Game 2 - We'll see if we can keep up what we started v Moore and keep hitting tough lefties. And we'll see if Beckett can keep throwing effectively with lower velocity. Get through this homestand 6-3 or 7-2, and then it's easy breezy for a few weeks. After the NYY series, the Sox go: 3 @ MIN 4 @ CHW 3 v OAK 3 v BAL 3 @ KC 4 v CLE 2 v SEA That's 22 games where the Sox can really rattle off a lot of wins. They could easily have a stretch of 16-6 or 17-5 during those games, especially because that spans through May 15 which means Crawford should be back for about of 1/2 of those games

http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfxVB/cache/location.php-pitchSel=407845&game=gid_2012_04_16_tbamlb_bosmlb_1&batterX=71&innings=yyyyyyyyy&sp_type=1&s_type=3.gif An absolute joke. Complete horseshit. If there is one thing I hate about baseball it's the lack of umpire accountability.

SFF At The Game Mojo Part III!!!

Aviles has hit .444 with a 1.667 OPS in the past 2 games from the leadoff slot. Definitely leave him there until he cools down.

BTR - Don't forget tomorrows game is at 11:05 for Patriots Day. As for Bay, that guy wore out the Monster. If we had him, Crawford, and Sweeney/Ross, I would throw Crawford in CF so that he could use his legs, and I think that would be a strong OF. Then you have Ellsbury coming back off the DL and you've got some guys who can take the pressure off of him if it takes him a week or two to regain his swing (which, by the way, really sucks he went down because he was starting to finally hit the ball).

I know this sounds crazy, but I wouldn't be opposed to trading for Jason Bay if the Mets eat some of the salary and the Sox don't have to give up too much. That guy had a swing made 110% for Fenway Park. He thrived here, and would be a great bat in the bottom of the order (7th?)

Got tickets to the game tomorrow as well. Sox are 2-0 when I'm there. Hopefully a clean sweep is in order. I hope Bard throws as well as he did in Toronto. If so, he's going to cruise to a W.

Hahahaha. Rays fans on The Rays Republic forum think that the Sox are stealing signs because they're blowing up the Rays. And the Rays actually think so too. Gimenez said it looked like they knew what was coming. Well Gimenez, welcome to the bigs.

Yikes. Andrew Miller today in Pawtucket: 0.1 IP, 3 BB, 4 ER. Yeesh!! Hurry up, Rich Hill!!!

SFF At The Game Mojo II worked again!! So I was in the RF Roof Box, and on the 3-1 pitch to Repko with the bases juiced, it looked like he swung at a ball that was a bit high, but I couldn't tell. Oh well, great win. Fantastic work from the bullpen, although it looked like Atchison was helped a lot by Gimenez trying to bunt at 3 pitches that weren't in the K zone. The ball that Pena hit that was reviewed and confirmed as a foul ball was right next to my seats. It was foul by 2-3 feet.

By the way - SFF At The Game Mojo Part II!!!

Moore is a LHP. Sweeney will likely be a bat off the bench if a RH relief pitcher comes in.

Moore had 5 walks against the Tigers in his first outing. If this team can keep grinding out at bats and work the pitch count, Moore could be out by the 4th or 5th.

As soon as Ellsbury went down, I thought Sweeney should have been the leadoff hitter. Not only is he the hot hand, but he's also consistently had a .345-.350 OBP, and now hitting at Fenway, his average should jump up by around .010-.015, which would push him to a .355-.365 OBP guy. I think Sweeney was a great "throw in" to the Bailey trade - Not going to hit a lot of homeruns but a line drive hitter with gap to gap power and a little speed.

Lin is heading back to Pawtucket.

@Pumpsie Green - Ellsbury has a Subluxation. He tweeted it earlier today, and it was confirmed by a Red Sox report, so it's a subluxation, not a dislocation (although from what I understand, a subluxation is just a dislocation that pops back into place rather than staying out of place). If there's not a lot of labrum and/or rotator cuff tears, then he could be back by around early to mid June.

This isn't necessarily true. In a lot of cases (including that of Ellsbury), surgery would knock them out of the season, so taking a "wait and see" approach at least gives them a chance to recover in the case that he doesn't need surgery

Nope - Bought these last minute because some of my wifes friends wanted to go. Sometimes I make rash, illogical, reactionary comments. But I always become more rational once I cool down.

SFF At The Game Mojo is good this year this far!

Well then. Clearly I'm blind.

He has since sat down, and he wasn't warming before the rally started. I wasn't paying attention while Morales was throwing though.