jung

Go ahead Ryan...just toss it up there and get it over with. SHOCKING!!!!

Carpenter practicing for the next Chavis AB.

Which is exactly what happens when opposing pitchers just let Rafi dive across the batter's box like that. I have yet to see a single pitcher drive Rafi back when he dives across which he does every swing. They are letting him cover the entire plate and then some which is something no pitcher would ever allow all the way up through the 1990's. I am not convinced baseball survives the rocket ship and the lack of even middling pitching. Time for a new name for whatever this game is they are playing now. Manfred-ball.

I am just amazed. Everybody in baseball has got to know by now that the literal only pitch Chavis can hit is a meatball slider and this LH goon tests himself by throwing.......sliders. Just throw any old above the belt FB IDIOT! They simply can't throw worth s***. Its like they can't help but eventually give him something he is going to tag.

Perhaps if you were not yukking it up in the dugout before your start with a guy that is not even playing tonight Erod, you might have been focused enough to get your tail to 1st base in time. Unbelievable.

Pitchers simply do not have the talent to drive Rafi back when he dives across the batter's box as he does. One of the better examples of crap MLB pitching.

Let Mookie work his way back all the way in the count and throws him a lollypop.

Carpenter...another outstanding example of what passes for MLB pitching these days.

What they are asking him to do is necessary and obvious. They want him to shorten his stride to begin with. But just looking at him struggling with that task in actual game competition is painful to watch. Yes that big stride of his is a killer....has to go. But watching him pick that front leg up and sort of put it down like its some broken appendage that he is dragging along behind him is just painful. The result for now is that he is just lost in the batter's box, a jumble of disconnected parts. I am sure they have him in the cage which is the right place for him to be to work back. In truth, sending him down would not be a terrible idea. But that is not going to happen. Sox PR would have an aneurysm.

Beni out of the lineup again. No shocker there. 1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 3. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 4. J.D. Martinez ® LF 5. Christian Vazquez ® DH 6. Michael Chavis ® 1B 7. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 8. Eduardo Nunez ® 2B 9. Sandy Leon (S) C 1. Victor Reyes (S) CF 2. Nicholas Castellanos ® RF 3. Miguel Cabrera ® DH 4. Brandon Dixon ® 1B 5. Jeimer Candelario (S) 3B 6. Harold Castro (L) LF 7. Niko Goodrum (S) 2B 8. John Hicks ® C 9. Jordy Mercer ® SS

Well I think I know what happened to hitting....agents and MLB PR happened to hitting and is IMO driving this car into the ditch. As for what happened to pitching I would not really have a worthwhile opinion on what has happened in the early development of pitchers and pitching because I never fancied myself as even caring to go in that direction. I never had the physical make up for it nor the mental image of myself as a pitcher. I was a hitter....Period. Play me in the field where you want to....I am a hitter. That was before I got to see and play with truly talented hitters that had physical skills that I could never duplicate nor even approach no matter how hard I worked at it. The guys who can hit a pitched baseball at a ML level well might just as soon be aliens from another planet. So just to narrow our own focus I am not talking now about MLB pitchers and the reduced seems and what that might be doing to grip and spin/rotation. We are talking about early days for pitchers now. If I had to guess, looking at how pitching careers have gone, maybe it looks like too much of a crap shoot to too many guys and the only guys willing to take it are the guys that are pitchers down to their bones. In my time, the guys who were young kids willing to take the ball to the mound as young developing ballplayers at some point became sharply focused on pitching. They had a mental picture of themselves on the mound early and success begat more focus and more focus begat more success and by the time they got to college or directly out of HS into minor league ball while they "might" be willing to still play in the field, they were pretty energetically directed toward pitching. There was the support there in coaching and other assets to help them progress as well. I honestly wish the metal bat had never come along in amateur and most specifically scholastic baseball because I suspect it made it "easier" to be a hitter of note early in a budding amateur career. Before I go a step further I should say for the record that I am so frigging old that our scholastic leagues all used wooden bats. That is how frigging old i am. Unfortunately, metal bat hitting was not and probably still is not wooden bat hitting and often success with a metal bat is just that, success with a metal bat. But I don't wonder if those guys that could have been directed toward what can be a harder road, the road of the pitcher simply took a hard left turn toward hitting and a position in the field outside of the "1" at that point and never looked back. Thus maybe the pool of potential pitching talent was narrowed earlier than it should have been and maybe we never turned that dial back the other way. The Cap Cod League ( a wooden bat league) was a big eye opening for a whole bunch of big shot hitters that were suddenly quite tame. Plus now they are throwing too hard too early. They are throwing all sorts of stuff they probably should not be throwing too early. They seem to be getting TJ's as early and as often as soccer players are getting their knee cartilage worked on very very early in their careers. I am sure TJ is a wonderful thing for pitchers and ballplayers generally. I am concerned that it is a crutch that everybody, parents, coaches, the kids themselves have grown to depend upon too much. "Well he will be OK. He can have TJ if he gets in trouble". As I said earlier though, I am guessing at what happened to the pitching part of the equation. I know its not what it should be. But I never had a mental picture of myself as a pitcher and that is a big hole in my understanding of what the f*** happened from the mound end of things.

There is certainly an argument for that. Myself I would start Nate in the pen so he can get his bearings. I would then move him to the rotation and I would get a closer, ANY closer that has proven experience in that role. We have nobody that can close and there is NOTHING to suggest that Nate is the answer to that problem. However he should be able to work his way back into the rotation.

Well into counts nobody is throwing get me over sliders. The get me over slider is just the slider version of the get me over FB. Both are thrown early in counts if at all to get ahead in the counts. In addition a slider that just rolls up to the middle of the plate is not a get me over slider. It is just a bad slider, a poorly thrown baseball....

When does Henry push the panic button....when the ferris wheel and the arcade games out front start breaking down....maybe if the grills and the beer taps stop working.

Not infielders...they are categorically LESS athletic and LESS agile. Agile is what they should be. OFer's maybe by a little bit more athletic as a category of player. As for success hitting the crap they are throwing up there. They want to hit HR's and NOBODY has been stopping them from hitting HR's. In addition this is a game that revolves around pitching and that from a former hitter, not a former pitcher. Every single thing that happens on a baseball diamond starts with the ball in the hands of the pitcher. If the ball is radically different than what it was with said changes occurring over a very short period of years and the pitchers are crap, the game is fundamentally changed in a way that actually deserves a new name. Whatever this is that they are playing out there, it ain't baseball.

Another thing they can't do anymore is throw inside effectively, pointed out by Pedro BEFORE the onset of the rocket ship. One of the recipients of that benefit is Rafi. I have not pointed this out in the past but since he is now taking full advantage, its about time. Look at where Rafi sets up in the batters box. His back foot is barely in the box its so close to the plate and his first move is to dive across the plate with his front side. Do you have any idea how often Rafi would be picking himself up off the ground even as late as the 1990's? He would be picking himself up off the ground more than once an AB against certain pitchers and often as not at least once a game against EVERYBODY. If he decided to glare out at the mound all he would have gotten for his trouble would be a glare back that said "Get up dummy. Get back in the box. Maybe I will buzz you again. Maybe I won't. Take your chances. Lets see if you want to continue to dive across like that." Seen anybody buzz Rafi this year? He is ripping the cover off the ball diving across....anybody stopped him yet. NO!!!! Because they can't. They are not good enough! No command of pitches.

And how many innings does the starter pitch pitching this way? Pitchers went deeper into games in the past because they induced swing and miss on pitches IN THE ZONE and/or induced weak contact. Do your really think the "give me all you can for as long as you can" mentality of pitching coaches to pitchers is because pitching coaches think this is some wonderful innovation to pitching a baseball? The quality of pitching is nominally just not what it used to be. Too many guys that likely would not have even made it out of AA in the past, much less AAA now pitching MLB in today's game. Again, want to look at a really good breaking pitch. Go find video of a Sandy Curve. Many of those started above the letters and finished at the bottom of the strike zone inducing a swing and miss at a pitch that would actually be a called strike if the hitter did not swing at it and Sandy's is just the Curve from the past you will most easily find on YouTube. Most Curves of that day were at least in that ballpark. Want to see a really good FB, go find a video of the FB's they used to throw. No they were not often anywhere near triple digits, but the good ones all had tails. They would come up to the plate literally thrown right at the heart and would zip and dart left or right or left/up or right/up, still in the zone for a swing and miss at a pitch that would have been a called strike if the hitter did not swing at it. Throwing 98 flat as a pancake is a nothing ball. Its just a high velo nothing ball....A Joe Kelly special for example. These pitchers today know they can't throw in the zone and get away with it. They can't do it. They are doing what they can do.

All true...however the number of good Slider's you see now are coming from a mere handful of pitchers. Most of these chumps are either rolling them up to the plate, right down main st and the lack of late break on what used to be considered a good slider is simply not there. I am officially naming these chump Sliders a Chavis BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY PITCH HE CAN HIT! The norm now is too many Sliders that are just rolling up to the plate right down main st (A CHAVIS) or thrown so far off the plate that they don't induce a swing of any kind. In other words pitchers are throwing them wild in the strike zone or wild off the plate more often than not now. Don't know if they can no longer grip them to throw them because of the lowered seams or if what was a late breaking pitch at its best is not late breaking any longer because of the lowered seems or if this generation of pitchers just performs nominally worse than in the past. My guess is all three. I am guessing all three because the nominal performance of MLB pitching has been in decline for longer than the 2016 rocket ship baseballs started making their appearance. But surely now going through at least three editions of the rocket ship, 2016, 2018 and now the rocket ship of rocket ships, the 2019 ball has exacerbated the situation to an absurd extreme.

Sure there are. Swing on a plane trying to lift the ball and swing out of your shoelaces and you are going to swing and miss more often. There are no longer swing and miss pitches being thrown in the strike zone and there is very little weak contact being induced. Most of the swing and miss now is at pitches thrown out of the zone and thrown out of the zone on purpose. Pitchers are all too often now trying to induce a swing at a pitch that does not finish in the zone. Swing and miss at pitches IN THE ZONE and weak contact is how pitchers USED to get hitters out. This is also why pitchers went deeper into games and also why pitchers actually pitched complete games with far more regularity than they do today. Pitchers will try to throw a pitch in the zone and most specifically a get me over FB at 0-0 in order to get ahead in the count and THAT IS IT. From there are on they throwing pitches specifically intended to finish out of the zone. This is also why I tend to bring this up when we as fans are screaming for some chump pitcher to throw a pitch that will be a called strike. He is not trying to throw a pitch that will be a called strike. HE IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO THROW IN THE ZONE AND NOT have the ball go screaming past his ear coming the other way or more likely rocket over the fence and he knows it!

They seem to be getting enough grip, spin/rotation to throw a "decent" Curve. But if you really want an eye opener, go back and find video on any of the good and great 60's pitchers and take a look at those Curveballs. If you really really want a shocker, view some video of Sandy's Curve. Yes, Sandy was one of the greatest pitchers certainly of his era, but many of the Curves of that era were much like Sandy's. Its just that it will be easy to find video of Sandy throwing a Curve and if you are going to see something relevant to the question, you would do just as well to let yourself get hit over the head with it. I think the Slider is likely to go away for awhile with the exception of Pitchers that can throw one that breaks across the plate and down like Sale's Slider. For most pitchers the pitch just does not break enough even when thrown decent and they are just rolling up to the plate now either right over the heart or entirely off the plate. Many of the pitchers throwing it now are either wild in the strike zone or wild out of it. One is instant death. The other is death by a thousand cuts.

The pitching is not better, its worse evidenced by how few pitchers there are that can throw swing and miss in the strike zone. This has been a trend that has been on the march now for at least 5 years if not ten, exacerbated by the juiced baseball. Velo is up but for shorter stints pitcher by pitcher and most of these high velo FB's are flat as a pancake. They don't move and pitching is about movement more than it is about velo. There are simply fewer and fewer pitchers that can throw with movement, finish in the Strike Zone and either get swing and miss on a pitch or weak contact. This actually used to be the way pitchers got hitters out, when pitchers actually could pitch. They did it with regularity. This is also in large part why starters could go deep into games and or throw complete games. Pitching is BETTER? Are you blind? Openers starting games, masses of bullpen games, Quality Starts as a meaningful stat. Innings per start for Starters sliding off a cliff edge. PLEASE!

I actually do not know who they should get because in truth none of this trash masquerading as MLB pitchers can throw other than a very select few. I actually don't know where this game is going. ALL PITCHING SUCKS in MLB at present. Starting pitching, relief pitching ANY PITCHING. There is virtually nothing more than a handful of pitchers in MLB left that can actually throw in or near the strike zone without seeing any ole' flick of a bat send a pitch over the fence. The combination of bad pitching and the rocket ship baseball is turning this game into a farce. And that handful of pitchers if they happen to be relief pitchers are being worn threadbare. See Giles last night forced to three straight stints in a row, failing last night to keep Marco from doinking a rocket ship aided, HR over the fence for the win. - FB's now generally thrown up and out of the zone enticing hitters to chase. - Curves thrown to finish off the plate down and out of the zone, enticing hitters to chase. - Cutters thrown to just barely leak off or leak onto the plate based on the handedness of the pitcher and the hitter - Changes thrown just off the plate hoping to entice the hitter to think it is something off speed and breaking that will leak back to the plate - Sliders getting crushed because the pitch does not feature enough break, rolling up to the plate, pitchers throwing the pitch wild in the strike zone where it is sent into orbit (see rocket ship baseball) OR nowhere near the plate for a ball The only pitch this crappy generation of MLB pitchers (virtually any MLB team now has a bunch of these so called ML pitchers) will throw over the plate is a get me over FB thrown at 0-0 in an effort to get ahead in the count. Virtually everything else this generation of pitchers is throwing is designed to finish off the plate because they are simply not good enough to throw swing and miss pitches that are actually in the strike zone....none of them, virtually none of them. They can't do it for 1 inning or 5 or 6 and certainly not a complete game now more rare than hen's teeth. They generally feature weak cheese that just gets crushed (see most of the pitches JD hits) or flat, rolling sliders that finish right over the heart (see virtually everything Chavis actually hits). The few pitchers in MLB that can throw at all are just being worn through by excess work BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE CAN THROW! Probably the next pitch to come on line in a big way if they can throw it will be the split finger with the Slider going the way of the dinosaurs at least for some period of time. I actually wonder if pitchers can even grip the rocket ship baseball any longer as i have never seen so many flat, doing nothing, going nowhere, weak cheese FB's in my life. I would give up 10 guys including anybody that can walk and certainly beni to get Giles here. Though there are so few guys in MLB that can actually throw, made more apparent as we are now in summer hitting season. We likely simply don't have the farm and even MLB material to get anybody really worth a damn once the auction bidding starts.

I actually don't know where this game is going. ALL PITCHING SUCKS in MLB at present. Starting pitching, relief pitching ANY PITCHING. There is virtually nothing more than a handful of pitchers in MLB left that can actually throw in the strike zone without seeing any ole' flick of a bat send a pitch over the fence. The combination of bad pitching and the rocket ship baseball is turning this game into a farce. And that handful of pitchers that happen to be relief pitchers are being worn threadbare. See Giles last night forced to three straight stints in a row, failing last night to keep Marco from doinking a rocket ship aided, HR over the fence for the win. - FB's now generally thrown up and out of the zone enticing hitters to chase. - Curves thrown to finish off the plate down and out of the zone, enticing hitters to chase. - Cutters thrown to just barely leak off or leak onto the plate based on the handedness of the pitcher and the hitter - Changes thrown just off the plate hoping to entice the hitter to think it is something off speed that will leak back to the plate - Sliders getting crushed because the pitch does not feature enough break, rolling up to the plate, pitchers throwing the pitch wild in the strike zone where it is sent into orbit (see rocket ship baseball) The only pitch this crappy generation of MLB pitchers (virtually any MLB team now has a bunch of these so called ML pitchers) will throw over the plate is a get me over FB thrown at 0-0 in an effort to get ahead in the count. Virtually everything else this generation of pitchers is throwing is designed to finish off the plate because they are simply not good enough to throw swing and miss pitches that are actually in the strike zone....none of them, virtually none of them. They can't do it for 1 inning or 5 or 6 and certainly not a complete game now more rare than hen's teeth. They generally feature weak cheese that just gets crushed (see most of the pitches JD hits) or flat, rolling sliders that finish right over the heart (see virtually everything Chavis actually hits). The few pitchers in MLB that can throw at all are just being worn through by excess work BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE CAN THROW! Probably the next pitch to come on line an a big way if they can throw it will be the split finger with the Slider going the way of the dinosaurs at least for some period of time. I actually wonder if pitchers can even grip the rocket ship baseball any longer as i have never seen so many flat, doing nothing, going nowhere, weak cheese FB's in my life.

Won the series...who would have thunk it.

This could be interesting.