jung

Very disappointing loss. I stopped posting during the game because you just knew when we could not move off 2 runs even if somebody put a stick of dynamite under the dugout bench that this was not going to end well. I just did not want to have anouther of my "Oh s***, here we go again" posting nights. They just go inning after inning without getting anything done. Each inning is grindingly similar to the last. They don't hit enough HR's and they don't bunch hits. You have to do one or the other. This team doesn't do enough of either. And then what...we are stuck relying on the pen to actually win games. Well they don't bat for one thing and they are a bunch of journeyman pitchers for another.

Talk about a stupid running play. Does anybody teach baseball anymore. My God was that dumb on Santana's part.

IMO the Kuraly line and Kuraly himself had a huge part in that win. They barely got a mention but they played more minutes by far than any other line and it was really Kuraly that saved Chara's bacon. The Blues again tried to throw the puck over to Chara's side of the ice in the Bruins end and simply skate around him to recover the puck leaving him chasing the play. But instead of playing below the goal line and outside the circles (the dots really) where he has been getting abused, Chara stayed above the line and inside the dots. Kuraly repeatedly drove right past Chara (the stationary telephone pole) took on the Blues Forward and passed the puck out to Chara where his size actually allowed him to be effective mitigating his slowness at the same time. After the 1st period the Blues did not get much of a shot at abusing Chara. Rask was huge in that 1st period. Also and maybe even more important, the Blues had been forcing the Bruins so deep in their own end that they could stand up at their Blue Line and could see the Bruins coming up ice from a mile away. Just accosted them at their Blue Line, denying the Bruins entry in their previous wins especially. Instead of adopting a more traditional approach to end to end play the Bruins attacked the Blues at Center Ice as Blues came out of their own end with the Bruin Forwards back-checking and selected defenders banging the Blues off the puck from the front side. Suddenly the Blues no longer could stand the Bruins up at their Blue Line and the Bruins could gain entry. Heck the Blues could not get past Center Ice when they had the puck! That was a risky way for the Bruins to play and its exhausting because the Forwards have to hustle to catch up and back-check through Center Ice and if the Defenseman double teaming misses his play.....WHOOPS. But they just wore the Blues out. I will be interested to see if the Bruins can repeat that in Game 7. Its exhausting work. But I actually think the Blues are not that fast other than O'Rielly. They are quick and very dangerous once they get in your end. But they are not that fast IMO. Anyway, I am sure the Blues have something planned for Game 7. But if the Bruins are willing to put in the work again other than the Blues successfully mugging the Bruins all over the ice, not sure the Blues can do much about it.

Myself I will truly be surprised if we do not make it into the top 5 by record and in so doing miss the 2019 post season entirely. I suppose it could happen. I would still be surprised if not shocked if it does happen. As to what happens after that I really don't care who you put out on the mound, a one game play-in is as much a crap shoot as you are ever going to see in MLB baseball. Beyond that, the winner is at least in a series albeit a short series. Even if the winner has used its best rotation arm to win the play-in game, they are still at that point in a series.

Gotta' check the lunar calendar and try to overlay with a pack of Tarot cards to figure it out. But if I had to guess, he is in the cool down phase but not in the polar phase......YET!!!!!!

There is literally nothing MLB or the Sox can do to stop me watching. MLB has been trying to do it on a progressive basis for a few years now. The Sox are trying to do it this year.

He was hitting off speed stuff pretty much in his zone. Even mundane FB's from the waist up eat his lunch and on the rare occasion when he is so focused on the FB to look like he might just hit one, the pitcher drops something breaking low on the outer edge and that is the end of that. If it were me pitching I would never EVER even throw him a slider or curve trying to throw a strike with it ever again. As we have discussed, needs more tutoring and more time in the minors to work this out. Won't work it out up here IMO and at some point being pounded out by ML pitchers on a regular basis will get to him. Its no fun just walking back to the dugout time and time again at any level in baseball. Eventually nobody will throw him what he needs to hit worth snot up here.

I have just about all of Nunny that I can take thank you very much.

Notice that having played very sparingly for a few weeks now, Mitch STILL leads the team with 13 HR's while being stuck there. I am not sure a team playing MLB with everything leaning toward more HR's and probably the all time most rocketing rocket ship baseball we have ever seen can truly be successful like this. We were 13th in the AL in HR's in April, 2nd in May but would have been 7th without the Chavis phenomenon. We are 7th now but would be 11th without the Chavis HR totals. Needless to say, Chavis has cooled to polar. Who did not see that coming?

IMO. Mookie is letting the count get to 2 strikes too often in spite of the rather public efforts by Cora to stop him from doing that. Mookie is not X in that specific regard.

I remember a game last year. The camera's panned up to Henry and DD in the owner's suite together alone. If it did not look like JH was laying down the law regarding how often he would be willing to cross the Lux Tax threshold and by how much I don't know what would. Henry gesticulating, DD looking stiff and somber. I was actually surprised that they got caught in a discussion on camera where the body language looked so suspect. I suspect DD blew out the budget as much as JH is willing to swallow. Hard to question JH with 4 titles in 14 years. I would likely be inclined to try to throttle DD's worst instincts if I were JH as well. I don't think DD knows a boundary unless the owner compels it. If left to his own devices DD will blow out the owner's budget and blow out the franchise farm system.

I would stay away from that cutter to the RH hitters Sandy. Erod is just grooving that thing.

Really nice pitch ERod. Really nice selection there Sandy. Sandy is not the guy I like catching ERod.

Must have been an exciting half inning in the bottom of the 1st for somebody. I doubt it even got the pulse to move a notch for the GT crowd.

Cora obviously REAL interested in seeing Beni face Snell today....NOT! Apparently Cora thinks Marco has a better shot at hitting him or even JBJ ....Mother of God!

1. Yandy Diaz ® DH 2. Tommy Pham ® LF 3. Brandon Lowe (L) 1B 4. Avisail Garcia ® RF 5. Travis d'Arnaud ® C 6. Willy Adames ® SS 7. Christian Arroyo ® 3B 8. Guillermo Heredia ® CF 9. Daniel Robertson ® 2B 1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Christian Vazquez ® DH 3. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 4. Michael Chavis ® 1B 5. Eduardo Nunez ® 3B 6. Sam Travis ® LF 7. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 8. Sandy Leon (S) C 9. Marco Hernandez (L) 2B

OB suffers by comparison to our most recent past play by play guys. But he is really handicapped by Eck more than anything else. Eck cannot carry Jerry's microphone sock. Lately Eck sounds more like a drunk at a bar watching the game than he does an analyst.

A Marco sighting!!

Eck sounds so surprised to see infield shifts that are now so common there must be dozens of these every Sunday in MLB

Throwing way wayyyy too many Change ups to LH hitters. Any mistake at all and that would have looked dumb as dirt. Price knew it and tried to be too fine with the Change. The mistake is putting your head on the chopping block throwing so many of them to LH hitters in the first place. He has gotten away with it tonight but just barely. Great performance while not really much willing to throw his cutter.

Atta boy David

Price is pitching a terrific game. But look at how much effort we are having to put in to beat this team one game of three and who pitches tomorrow for the Rays????

Dangerous pitch to Meadows but Price pulls it off.

Hitters will adapt to an ump giving up inches off one side of the plate or the other though Laz's strike zone to RH hitters is patently absurd tonight. Hitters are willing to reach out there and swing at that pitch just as X did there. But in doing that the hitter is literally sticking his nose just at the inside edge of the plate. If the ump gives up ANYTHING to the pitcher inside, the hitters are just dead. That is why Garcia was so mad. I am sure he was telling Laz "You can't expect me to stick my nose right at the inside edge to reach your crap strike zone outside and then give up the inside to the pitcher as well. Why don't you just kill me now."

How can they overturn that? That has got to be inconclusive at best.