SoxFanForsyth

How was that? :thumbsup:

Crawford just looks so incredibly uncomfortable up at the plate. Like he's guessing on every single pitch rather than looking for one pitch and reacting to it.

ELLS BABY ELLS!!!!!!!!!!! f*** YOU SHIELDS!!!!!!

Not even f***ing close blue. Not even f***ing close.

Good God. Can we hit this guy any harder and have no results to show for it??

Hosed by the umpires over and over and over.

f*** I hate the Rays. How do we hit 3 balls to the track and get nothing for it.

How does that ball not get off the monster?

Time to absolutely destroy Shields. Overrated.

remember when BJ Upton hit like 14 homeruns in the 2008 ALCS? God the Rays were bombing in that series.

Damn. Almost came out unscathed.

I'm sure that has a lot to do with the amount of wild pitches/passed balls that come with the knuckler, not to mention that the ball comes off the bat differently from a knuckleball than a regular pitch, which results in miscues defensively. Personally, I hate the knuckleball, so I'm not a huge Wakefield fan at this point. You can't argue how much he has done for this team in the past, so it's not like I don't like him as a person and don't appreciate him, because I do. Wakefield is just out of shape, old, can't field his position well, and throws a pitch that is incredibly inconsistent. I'd rather see Weiland out there than Wakefield personally. Again, nothing against Wakefield as a person at all, I just don't think he's effective, especially as his innings continue to climb.

Didn't Josh Bell send out an email to all of the MLB teams telling them not to draft him because he was committed to Texas? I guess a $5mm signing bonus can change your mind. Kind of wish we would have taken a chance with him.

Most of it is reactionary to be fair. Regardless, I'm sure Varitek, Scutaro, Lowrie, and McDonald will be playing in place of Salty, Aviles, Youk, and Reddick next game.

The fact that we're pressing the luxury tax makes it even more important to go after any offseason moves via trade. I don't think Theo will make any significant moves for position players this offseason, but I would be surprised if he didn't trade for a high caliber SP. Maybe not elite, but high caliber. It's going to be interesting to see if the Cardinals exercise Wainwright's option after his injury as well. That could sway the FA market big time.

Yet the Red Sox have been in first place since July 7th.

We got savaged by the rainout in New York, or else we would be facing Niemman and Davis today, and Shields could have beaten the Yankees, he was going up against Burnett. What freaking dumb luck for the Yankees. Game 2 is going to be very interesting. Bedard got torched by the Rays in his first start back from the DL, but that almost certainly was due to it being his first start back with no rehab appearances. I really feel like in both of Bedard's starts, he really got screwed. Against CLE, he had 2 bitch hits that went a total of 140 feet that scored two runs, and then in MIN, he was squeezed as bad or worse than I've ever seen in my life. And even through those two starts, he really threw pretty well. He's kept us in each game. We'll see how he does tonight, but I expect him to be good.

Reyes is a FA this offseason.

I'm not brushing it off at all. Here's how I look at it: Player, First FA Year Lester, 2015 Pedroia, 2016 Buchholz, 2018 Ellsbury, 2014 Those are the 4 players which we will be trying to lock up. That doesn't even begin until 2014, so saying that we're going to be in a financial pinch is ridiculous considering we have no idea who most of our farm system will operate between now and 2014. Between now and 2015, when the majority of this starts, the following contracts will come off the books: Name, Amount, Potential replacement Beckett (16mm), Ranaudo Lackey (17mm), Free Agent, Barnes, Pimental, Britton Ortiz (13mm), Lavarnway Drew (14mm), Kalish, Brentz, Jacobs Matsuzaka ($10mm), FA, Doubront, Weiland Scutaro (5.5mm), Iglesias, Bogaerts Youkilis (12mm), Middlebrooks Given, not all of those guys are going to be replaced by the farm system, but what I'm getting at is that while we are going to be signing some guys like Pedroia, Lester, Buchholz, Ellsbury to big deals, that's not even going to begin for 3-4 years, and by then our farm system, which is very young right now, will be in line to graduate to the MLB level, which means we won't be replacing the players we lose with high costing FA, but instead with young, cheap players. It's the same as when we were bringing up Youk, Pedroia, Lester, Buchholz, Papelbon, Bard, Ellsbury, Lowrie, etc.

This is all why it's so important to build your farm. Jacko is acting like we aren't going to have anyone in our farm system take over, and that we're not going to have any expiring contracts. Lavarnway could very well DH/C/1B, which gives us a much more flexible DH. Middlebrooks could become our new 3B. Kalish could be our new RF. Ranaudo and Barnes could be the next Lester and Buchholz, with Lester and Buch becoming the next Lackey/Beckett. It's all a cycle. It happens all the time.

Breslow is a LH reliever who is getting beyond shelled by LHH. 1.005 OPS vs LH Hitters. Yikes.