Scottish Red Sox Fan

He who laughs last laughs best. Neil Lennon is a champion while Rangers are in administration. Karma is a bitch. :harhar:

This second wild card team thing is rubbish so I'm just going to ignore it. AL East - NY Yankees AL Central - Detroit Tigers AL West - LA Angels WC - Tampa Bay Rays NL East - Philadelphia Phillies NL Central - Cincinnati Reds NL West - Arizona Diamondbacks WC - Atlanta Braves I think this is the first time in over a decade I have not felt like the Red Sox would make the post-season.

Alex Gonzalez may not be the greatest hitter but when the Red Sox had so many other offensive weapons in their line-up I think that is a sacrifice we could have afforded to make. He is a supremely talented defensive SS and I think we have missed that at times in recent years. As for Cabrera, he wasn't in decline at the time the Red Sox let him go. In 2007, 3 years after leaving Boston, he led all AL short stops in fielding percentage and had the fewest errors in the league. So I think it's fair to say he still had plenty of mileage left in him. We have not been great at the SS position for a lot of the time since Cabrera left. He was a free agent after the 2004 World Series so maybe he was asking the Red Sox for too much money? I just thought it was a very strange decision to let a guy go when he had been playing lights out during the play-offs and World Series.

I have just come from MLB.com where I learned that the Red Sox will be interviewing Dale Sveum for the manager's job. OMG NO!! This is some sort of joke right? The guy couldn't even coach 3B, far less manage a team like the Red Sox. If Ben Cherington wants to endear himself to the Red Sox Nation I suggest he puts this idea out of his head now.

I find it odd that the Red Sox have chosen to pick up the option on Marco Scutaro when in recent years they have allowed Orlando Cabrera and Alex Gonzalez to walk away. Maybe there were financial reasons for the Red Sox making those choices but, from a purely baseball perspective, I thought Cabrera and Gonzalez were better players than Scutaro.

Theo Epstein and Terry Francona are two of the best things ever to happen to the Red Sox. To lose one of those two is a blow. To lose both of them would be nothing short of criminal. To say I will be disgruntled if Theo leaves the Red Sox is an understatement.

Losing a man who has led the Red Sox to 2 World Series wins is a bad move. Tito was the best manager the Red Sox have had in a loooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggg time and he will be a hard act to follow. If you had said to a Red Sox fan in 2003 'I know a man that could manage the Red Sox and win the World Series. TWICE.' The Red Sox fan would likely not have believed you. Winning 1 World Series seemed an impossibility back then - never mind two. I have been on and off this forum intermittently during the season and some of the things that have been said about Terry Francona have irritated me. Some people are just ungrateful I guess. Before Terry Francona, the Red Sox were a cursed team. Doomed to fail again and again. Forever to be cursed by fate and to suffer painful defeat after painful defeat at the hands of the Yankees. Francona snapped the curse and beat the Yankees. He put the Red Sox back on top. I will never forget that and will always be grateful to him. Thank you for everything Tito. Take a bow, you are a Red Sox legend.

Aargghhh!! What's going on? The baseballing gods seem to be conspiring against us. Injuries can sink even the most steadfast of baseballing ships. That is what appears to be happening to the Red Sox right now. It is almost like death by a thousand cuts. Our roster was deep and it was talented enough to withstand more injuries than most team's rosters could have handled but I feel as though even we are reaching breaking point now. Just look at the pitching.......... Beckett out Buccholz out Lackey been out Matsuzaka out Jenks out Hill out That's a hell of a lot of pitching for a team to lose. Hell, we even brought in another starting pitcher to help cover our injury crisis, Erik Bedard, and now he's out too! Even though the injuries have come at different times they can still de-rail a team and stuff momentum. The fact that all 6 of those guys are currently unavailable/questionable is a huge headache. Youk's inability to stay consistently healthy is also worrying. I feel so frustrated right now. All year long I've had a good feeling about this team and felt that we were going deep into the play-offs MINIMUM. Now my confidence is wavering. All is not lost - far from it - but I have to be honest and say this is the least optimistic I have felt all season long about the Red Sox chances of winning the WS.

If the Erik Bedard move works out for us then I don't see the Sox making any moves for starting pitching this winter. Our starting rotation for next year would be Beckett - Lester - Buccholz - Lackey - Bedard. We aren't going to be able to offload Lackey's contract and I don't think we'll be able to offload Dice-K either. So as long as we are lumbered with Lackey and Dice-K and we have Beckett, Lester, Buccholz and Bedard, I don't see us making any significant moves for more starting pitching.

Once again Theo Epstein has made me happy at a trade deadline. I really like the move for Erik Bedard. I think he is a good pitcher and will really help us through our injury crisis. Hopefully this won't just be a deal for this season and Bedard will do well enough to cement a place in next year's starting rotation as well.

Possibly. I'd say the 3 best teams in the AL are the Red Sox, Stinkees and Rangers. So it certainly wouldn't be a surprise if the ALCS was Red Sox - Stinkees again. Although it is very bad for my heart rate and blood pressure I would love another series like 2004. That was epic!! The most memorable series I have ever watched or am ever likely to watch.

YEAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! JACOBY! JACOBY! :thumbsup:

A bit of an inauspicious start by Lackey there. He was unlucky with the ground rule double though. Hopefully he can settle down in the 2nd inning.

Evening Red Sox Nation! Let's hope for a lot of runs and a Red Sox win tonight.

I think that's slightly unfair on Jacoby Ellsbury. The Red Sox as a ball club really don't believe in bunting men over so bunting is probably something Ellsbury spends very little time practising. Personally I'd like to see the Red Sox, as a team, bunt a few more men over when they get on base. Don't get me wrong, I don't want the Red Sox to become a team that plays 'small ball', but I definitely think there are occasions where we could be a bit more flexible in our approach to the game.

It is a bit of a dilemma what to do with Carl Crawford in the long term. It's obviously not really ideal to have him hitting 6th - 8th so what to do? I notice a few people suggesting putting Crawford 2nd in the line-up and moving Dustin Pedroia to 3rd. I quite like to have a power bat hitting 3rd so I wouldn't like to see Pedroia in the 3 hole. I think I would go for one of these two scenarios...................... Line-Up 1 Ellsbury Pedroia Gonzalez Youkilis Ortiz Lowrie Drew Saltalamacchia Crawford What I like about this line-up is that you keep Crawford and Ellsbury hitting one after the other with 3 good RBI hitters coming behind them. If we could regularly get Crawford and Ellsbury on base together with Pedroia, Gonzalez and Youk coming to the plate then I think we could cause all sorts of mayhem. It might look strange having Carl Crawford hitting 9th but he's effectively only the number 9 hitter for the first time through the line-up. Line-Up 2 Ellsbury Crawford Gonzalez Youkilis Ortiz Pedroia Lowrie Drew Saltalamacchia The controversial part of this line-up obviously is moving Dustin Pedroia down to 6th. Pedroia hits well for average so having him hitting behind guys like Gonzalez and Youkilis who get on base a lot could still work out well I think. This line-up also keeps the speed tandem at the top of the line-up which I really like. Whichever line-up we go with there is one thing I really want to see more of...............CARL CRAWFORD RUNNING. We have seriously under-utilised Crawford's base stealing abilities so far this year. It seems as though Tito is giving Jacoby Ellsbury the freedom to steal bases whenever he wants but he is keeping the shackles on Crawford. I don't know why? :dunno: It's clear we're not allowing Crawford to do what he does best though when he only has 8 stolen bases in 2.5 months. Come on Tito, let the man run!

Dale Sveum always sticks in my mind as being particularly bad. So I voted for him.

I do see the back end of the rotation as a problem area for the Red Sox. I have never been a fan of Dice-K, it was a total sin the amount of money we wasted to get that guy. One of Theo Epstein's worst moves as Red Sox GM. I also wasn't overly excited by the move to bring in John Lackey, I didn't think it represented good value for money, and unfortunately I would say my scepticism has been well founded so far. I really feel there was an element of 'We didn't get Johan Santana or Roy Halladay so we'll bring in another big name pitcher to appease the fans' about the Lackey deal. The problem with this is that Lackey is nowhere near the pitcher Halladay is and is nowhere near the pitcher Santana was at the time he was available for trade. Both Lackey and Dice-K are tied to huge contracts that no other team is going to take off our hands so we really have to get on with it and make the best of the situation unfortunately. We can only hope that John Lackey can get his act together and recapture some of his Angels form. As for Dice-K, I'd put him down to Pawtucket until such time as he can prove that he can stay healthy for a length of time and also that he can pitch well consistently. While he's at AAA we'd have to muddle through with some sort of platooning of Wakefield/Bowden/Doubront. That's the road I'd like to see us go down anyway.

I have to agree with the opening poster and say that I really enjoy Inter-League play. Baseball can occasionally get a little bit 'samey' because you play your divisional rivals so many times. Inter-League play allows us to see the Red Sox taking on some teams that we do not normally get to see the Red Sox playing. It's also quite interesting to see how the NL teams adapt to the DH rule and how the AL pitchers fare when they're forced to get the lumber out and have a few swings. My one slight criticism of the current set-up of the Inter-League play is that they don't alternate the match-ups enough. Instead of the Red Sox being lined up to play the Braves and Phillies each year I'd like to see a bit more variation in the opponents we're given. I'm sure this weekend in Boston is going to be a memorable one. I would give anything to have been able to be there. The Cubs and Red Sox are two of the most famous and storied franchises in the sport and I'm sure there will be people all over America, and round the world, taking an interest in this weekend's series. Let's Go Red Sox!

I voted for Josh Beckett but if I waited another few days to cast my vote it could easily have been Adrian Gonzalez. They've been the two star men so far this year.

Fire Francona? Are you nuts! Tito is a legend. Even if things don't go so well for a while he deserves to be cut plenty of slack and allowed time to turn it around. Which he always does. Before 2004 we'd have all cut our goolies off to have a manager who could lead us to 2 World Series wins. We now have one. Let's not go and fire him, especially when he's done nothing to deserve being fired for. I am totally behind Terry Francona. He's a great man and a great manager. There's nobody I'd rather see managing the Red Sox. Go Tito! :thumbsup:

Terry Francona is one of the best managers in the game and will always be a legend in my eyes for finally ending the curse and leading us to glory in 2004 and 2007. He's done a fantastic job with the Red Sox and I hope he sticks around for a long time to come.