jung

I will trade all of Salty's audio for the rest of this game for another 10 second camera shot out at the hot tub! In fact I will trade OB to Siberia for another 10 second camera shot out at the hot tub.

I get the feeling Jones just mistimed his jump on that....thank God. Its like Showalter poured his hatred of Boston into an actual athletic body in the form of Jones who is just always out there lurking.

Hum....walks the LH hitter to get to LH hitting Peralta???

No hard-on for the double switch huh? I don't blame you.

Salty desperately trying to jinx this escape.

F-ing Jones As good as that play was...it was even better than it looked. That was a tough ball to get.

Gotta' save Vel I guess.

1. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 2. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 3. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B 4. J.D. Martinez ® RF 5. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 6. Blake Swihart (S) C 7. Eduardo Nunez ® 2B 8. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 9. Hector Velazquez ® P 1. Jarrod Dyson (L) CF 2. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B 3. David Peralta (L) LF 4. Adam Jones ® RF 5. Christian Walker ® 1B 6. Ketel Marte (S) 2B 7. Nick Ahmed ® SS 8. John Ryan Murphy ® C 9. Merrill Kelly ® P

Posted this in in the tread from ERod's Oakland start. Its gives a pretty good idea of what I mean: A catcher cannot delve all the way into the head of his pitcher and the knowledge of which pitch the pitcher wants to throw against which batter and in what situation. Really that only resides inside the pitcher's head. The Pitcher really knows how his arm feels that day. The Pitcher is the guy who actually KNOWS or should know what pitch he has confidence in throwing to this batter in this situation and on this day. The Catcher can be a great help but that is all he can be. The Catcher does not reside inside the pitcher's head. Now with ERod, has he EVER shown that he has any idea which pitches he wants to throw to which batter in what situation? Is there a particular pitch he has any real confidence in or are there only pitches he has no confidence in at all vs pitches he is sort of neutral about? The glass appears to always be half empty for Erod and that is a rotten way to pitch. Take the Sale start in Oakland were a poster and I started talking about Sale beginning to land his Slider. Sale had nothing going for him at that point. But he found 1 pitch that he could land. A Pitcher starts landing a pitch while he is struggling and you know what the Catcher does? The Catcher starts calling for it more and in more places. What the frigg else is the Catcher supposed to do. Too many times, ERod just leaves the Catcher, regardless of which one it is, just groping for something that ERod himself appears confident he can throw and sure enough, they get to the end of 5 innings at best, ERod has thrown a million pitches and the catcher still does not know what the heck ERod wants to throw! I have never seen a Starting Pitcher head out to the mound with no earthly idea what he wants to throw and no apparent idea how to figure it out more often than ERod. No wonder he ends up eventually throwing this lame duck up to the plate that just gets hit to Mars. I ask you to search your memory banks Sox fans or watch for it next time ERod starts. As a Starter, how often does he look like he is just lost and then nurses some lame duck of a pitch up to home plate totally lacking in any confidence in what he is doing out there? Said lame duck gets hit to Mars usually after giving up the customary BB.

Given the Sox history with Contract mandated physicals for pitchers you could knock me over with a feather if that was not a very thorough physical.

Rumor has it that Sale passed his contract mandated physical taken late in March. The Sox would surely have seen him pitch by then.

Utterly no reason for the Sox to have done that. You are claiming that the Sox know its injury related and extended Sales contract anyway to the tune of $28M+ per through 2024. But of course it suits your argument to claim Sox management is dumb as dirt. So you go with that. The extension is too costly and too short if Sale is actually injured and the Sox know it. If he has to hit the operating table, he loses 1 year of the 5 at least if not more than 1 year. Any pitcher can be forced to surgery. But if they know he is injured it would have made more sense to not extend him at this point or extend him at fewer dollars over more years to make up for the time he will lose in surgery and rehab. That said, neither a 5 year or a 7 year extension makes sense if they know he is injured or even suspect that he is injured.

So you want to claim what....that the Sox were STUPID enough to extend Sale $145M over 4 added years into an injury issue?

Hembree does not lose velo when he shortarms. You can get velo. You just can't get the velo you are used to with control. This is especially true for a guy that is not a hard thrower in the first place. The last and only time Rick averaged 93 on his 4 seam was 2012. You don't pitch a baseball with your arm alone. You mainly direct a pitch with your arm but you throw it from your toes through your forearms. Rick is finishing far too upright for one thing. So he cannot possibly be extending toward the plate as he should as we are used to seeing. In fact one of the surest ways you can tell Hembree short arms is that he finishes too upright. Price finishes upright. But he finishes upright for a difference reason. He rebounds at the end of his motion.

Not sure the Sale comment makes sense since the Sox just and I do mean just signed him to a contract extension that gives him $145M over 4 years from 2020-2024. You are not going to give Sale that kind of money to soft toss his way through 2024. IMO there is zero chance of Sale making the kind of conversion in later years that C.C. made. Sale's motion is too long and contains too many long moving parts for that to be a plan. ERod is not healthy in the head. He never has been and looks more and more like he never will be. ERod has not really lost velo....down about 1 mph and that is nothing. He just does not know how to pitch. May never know at the rate he is going. ERod represents the best case there is for Starters working and building through ST. Nat is the second best reason for Starters getting work and building through ST. It is painfully obvious that Porcello is short arming the baseball. He is not a short armer. He looks to be another example of just not getting nearly enough work in ST as he looks physically unprepared to throw.

Leon can't hit either and his problems are simply that he has no hitting talent whatsoever. Vaz can hit if he is smart about what he is doing. He will never be able to pull anything but a pitch that is so far inside that he is forced to pull his hands inside the baseball just to hit it at all. Every other kind of pitch he sees, he needs to take to the opposite field. Its the only way he will ever hit anything because his hands are never ever anywhere near inside the baseball. Even his practice swings with no pitch coming at him are swings that will never result in swinging inside the baseball. He literally practices swinging around the baseball. So unless he goes the opposite way, he is doomed to roll over everything over and over again. He will occasionally pop the ball in the air and will make solid contact as often as if he swings with his eyes closed. Solid contact for Vaz unless he goes the other way is not even luck. Its an accident! In some ways it would be better for the team if he just missed the ball entirely when he swings at it unless he resigns himself to going the opposite way.

Seems pretty clear that Sox Management figures that no matter what they do early, there is not enough depth of team talent in the AL or anywhere else to prevent them from getting to the post season. They might be right about that. Not convinced that sort of thinking translates to getting to and through another WS run though.

The biggest issue with not using the 30 games and what is it for pitchers, 5 weeks of ST to ramp up is that now they are stuck doing the job of a ST while playing baseball games that count. Price to me STILL looks like he was/is closer than the other starters and its not even close between him and the other guys. If he could get that Change to land consistently he would be in very good shape IMO. He really can't get good RH hitters out in current MLB the way the game is played today without a decent Change. He has thrown some Godawful Changes so far this season. The rest of them look like they are in "mid-winter" form. Porcello is short arming the ball. Nat is throwing hard but can't find the plate (common for a hard thrower until he gets into the groove of throwing again). ERod is just being ERod, meaning he is useless. If ever there was an example of a Starter that needs work just to actually be a rotation guy, its ERod and Sale is trying to throw at 5 mph less velo on everything until.....until.....until when? So tell me again why you avoid the work of ST for Starters? I am a bit confused because there is no real way to avoid the prep work to actually pitch real MLB games and if you have not done it in ST then you are stuck doing it in live baseball games that count on your record. More convinced than ever that the everyday players will work through their woes before the Starters work through theirs.

I have no idea what Vaz thinks he is doing lately. He either goes oppo with that swing or he does not go anywhere at all.

Somebody want to tell Salty that JBJ is still batting 7th even with JD out of the lineup. That is not exactly the middle of the order Salty.

Yup...the problem with Price not throwing the Change is that Jones was the one batter in this lineup he needed it for and would not pull the trigger on it.

Price may not throw that Change again for a bit after that abortion.

That was a lousy change from Price. That pitch has completely eluded him so far this early season.

15 hours a day Salty? There isn't a hitter playing anywhere looking at film or video 15 hours a day. He has got to be kidding.

1. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 2. Mookie Betts ® RF 3. Steve Pearce ® 1B 4. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 5. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 6. Eduardo Nunez ® 2B 7. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 8. Christian Vazquez ® C 9. David Price (L) P 1. Adam Jones ® RF 2. Ketel Marte (S) CF 3. Wilmer Flores ® 2B 4. David Peralta (L) LF 5. Christian Walker ® 1B 6. Eduardo Escobar (S) 3B 7. Nick Ahmed ® SS 8. Carson Kelly ® C 9. Luke Weaver ® P