jung

They have to have given Vaz a hit on his, right? Not that ESPN will tell us one way or the other EVER.

Beni is in the throes of losing a career before he ever had one.

Correction....JD can get in trouble in Yankee Stadium RF.

Gotta' see how he looks on swings and misses. Then again, maybe he won't swing and miss tonight.

At least its not Fenway RF. He might have made more progress on the back. Lets see if he looks more comfortable at the plate. How much trouble can JD get into in Yankee Stadium RF. If its over your head its in the stands.

They are playing for a WC now IMO. They are likely to get it since there is so much dead wood in the AL. I certainly can't predict if they will win a play in game or even if they would play it at home. But they show no signs of being able to make up as much ground as they will need to in an effort to actually compete for the division again. They would have to go off on massive runs and have other teams fold to make that happen. IMO they will be lucky to make up 2 to 3 games games a month on first place out the season.

Interesting thought SC30. Price literally said earlier this year that if the Sox did not get it turned around, Management would blow it up. Now I actually think Price was trying to talk to his team through the media. But still and all, he might be right or at least partially right. There are a number of players on this team that are carryovers from a Championship season. They made sense in an effort to win that Championship but don't make much sense past that at least IMO.

Do we really know how much work the Rotation was getting in the Spring? They came into the regular season not just looking like they had not pitched enough from the mound in ST but had not pitched enough period. I agree, I think the intentions were good. But I have never seen a Rotation so utterly unprepared to start the season. Then what really hurt them IMO is that the team as a team really needed the Rotation to pitch well early because the everyday players were not exactly lighting things up either. The schedulers have not been a help either. Playing in London....WHY. As a team we get very little rest till ASB and then our big days off month is August. Well I will trade days off even in the dog days for getting off to a good start. By August it could be a who cares. It almost makes me wonder if Cora did not explain it to the team of if he did and they just didn't respond. If you are going to strategize around saving the best asset you have (the rotation) for the last half of the season and post-season then you better be telling your team what you are doing....THE WHOLE TEAM, not just the pitching staff. As it was we started out with a Rotation that was not ready and everyday players that were simply not into their game at all. Result, a hole I doubt they can work out of for anything but a Wild Card. They will struggle to make that IMO, only helped by the sludge at the bottom of the AL.

Too many fat heads from 2018. They are carrying around too much hardware and a bunch of the young guys are obviously all consumed by when they are going to get their first really big paydays. Beni is going to lose a career before he ever had one. JBJ is laughably numb at the plate even while in his seasonal "hot streak". Mookie is just plain lost it appears. Still a great player. But you can tell that he is distracted. JD is hurt. At least we should now clearly know his days in the OF except in an emergency are done. Then you look at the back end of our bench and its really a joke compared to the competition. Pearce, Nunez, Holt. Spare me. Holt is the only one worth a darn. Really good job working their way to WS win in 2018. But they shot their wad. Out of the division race 60 games into the season. I had a feeling they were headed for this when they resigned Pearce....as what....for what.....so they could allocate a tidy $12M to 1st base?

So at this point it looks like we are playing for a wild card and will be tickled to get one. Maybe when we get a 2020 reset Cora will be cured of over-managing which he has been doing since ST. Maybe the players will gain back some compete by then as well.

That was a rocket ship baseball HR. i don't care how big or how strong Sanchez is, that swing on that pitch should not leave anywhere,,,,even Yankee Stadium.

Sandy is doing nothing for me two nights running calling these games.

Well at least we are 1 Porcello up in this game.

The scenery in women's golf is a heck of a lot better...at least to me it is

Chavis at 1st batting 7th. Holt at 2nd. I have resisted the opportunity to point out Mookie at the top again as i figured somebody would beat me to it if I just gave the opportunity SPLINTER.....but NOOOOOO!!! 1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 3. J.D. Martinez ® DH 4. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 5. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 6. Brock Holt (L) 2B 7. Michael Chavis ® 1B 8. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 9. Sandy Leon (S) C 1. DJ LeMahieu ® 2B 2. Luke Voit ® 1B 3. Aaron Hicks (S) CF 4. Gary Sanchez ® C 5. Gleyber Torres ® SS 6. Kendrys Morales (S) DH 7. Clint Frazier ® RF 8. Gio Urshela ® 3B 9. Brett Gardner (L) LF

We will run over the weaker teams in the AL and there are STILL plenty of those. Maybe not as many as last year....but still plenty. Don't think we will beat many good teams until: - We have the 5 rotation arms back - Cora starts to configure lineups to bunch hits - JD and Cora confine JD to DH duties (that is after he comes back from what should be an IL stint) - Cora does a better job of sifting through the Pen for guys he can plug into slots

The stats are impressive. But the fact is we don't bunch hits and we won't win on solo HR's. You have to hit buckets of them to win games on solo HR's. IMO, Cora is going to have to work harder at stacking his Lineups to bunch hits. If that means some odd configurations at the top and some guys moving down that will not please the vaunted Sox PR department....TOO BAD for the Sox PR Dept. This issue is probably exacerbated by JD needing a break. He is obviously hurting (back at least....maybe more). They likely need to get him to a short IL stint and when he comes back KEEP HIM OUT OF THE OF ALEX! We have a depth problem across this team. Chavis has to play which is an indictment in itself. When a guy that was not anticipated to come up at all in a given year comes up and you can't even get him out of the lineup, that is a problem. Past Holt, the rest of the bench IMO is a joke. Look at what the Astros can run out there when they have injuries. Look at what the Yankmees are doing.

Watch...here comes a doink into the RF stands and that will be that

Our crack NESN broadcast team must have missed Cora getting Brasier up. They are just soooooooo bad.

Who is warming in the pen for us. Any idea?

I don't think Sale threw a change till the 3rd inning. By then they were actually hitting his slider. Not hard, but still, that IS his wipeout pitch. When they are hitting it, he is in trouble. At one point, Sandy was not calling for the FB at all and when he did, Sale was missing by a foot or up in the middle of the plate. That stretch were Sandy kept calling Slider after Slider killed Sale. Don't care how good a pitch is, let ML hitters see it enough, they will lay off the pitches off the plate and hit the pitches on.

Once JD gets right just keep him out of the OF PLEASE Alex..I am begging you man.

Seems worth mentioning again. JD's back went after playing two straight games in the OF, one in RF and one in LF. Tripped on the grass both days and didn't look good out there. Out with back issues the next day after. Not the same since.

Funny...we must have been keying at the same time.

I think JD's back might still be an issue. He does not look comfortable at all.