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Cleveland was not good enough to make the injuries to Correa and Springer really cost the Astros. George Springer, Correa before our ALCS series with them began and then Gonzalez and Altuve himself early in our series. At the end they were all playing but just barely with Altuve unable to even take a field position. How many damaged Astros right out of the middle of their order do you think it takes to hobble that team? Still and all even with that as long as they found some way to work Altuve in, they would have crushed the Dodgers who are just that bad. The Yankees as immature as they were in the lineup and as old as they were in the rotation would have beaten but probably not crushed the Dodgers. Still would have beaten them IMO. Our lineup except for Nunez and Moreland was intact all the way up to the WS where I think X got hurt but played subpar. So that was it for us. Two platoon players and our full time Shortstop injured with one of the platoon guys, Moreland working back in by the end of the Dodgers series. Sale and Wright from the pitching staff with Sale still contributing at a pretty high level, just not mid-season form level. That said, even fully healthy, I don't think the Astros would have beaten the Red Sox. The gap between any of the NL teams and the top four, maybe five AL teams was enormous. I don't even think the Dodgers make the WC in the AL.

And the Astros would have crushed the Dodgers even as banged up as they were. The Astros would have given the Red Sox a much tougher fight had they not been so banged up in their lineup.

Nope....only in the last 15-20 years, a period within which the MLB as the administrative body for both leagues has gone and continues to go in an entirely different direction than the NL thus creating a dynamic whereby the NL is at odds with its own administrative body making for incomparably ugly baseball. Then on a secondary level is the utter stupidity of conducting MLB's championship using two different formats. Both the NL and MLB itself needs to fix their perspective houses as well as getting on the same page. Ratings by the way for the 2018 v 2017 WS were flat awful for the 2018 edition. So there is that as well.

From being the K and pop up fairies to not running out ground balls or fly balls or ANY balls to not posing any and I do mean ANY sort of base running threat, to not moving runners, to generally inferior defense to an utterly futile and horrid position regarding their pitching staff and putrid use of it by Roberts and hideous lineup construction you could just go on and on and on. Worse than that, the NLCS was simply a double whammy of the same garbage we saw in the WS only x2 because now you had two of these poorly constructed teams bashing away at each other with their idiot Pitcher has a spot in the order format. It is comical and I simply do not know what the f*** their owners are looking at over there. It ain't baseball. I can tell you that. However IT IS entirely contrary to the direction their own administrative body, MLB itself is directing the game. So I don't know who or what clues them in to that.....HELLOOOOOOOOOO, NL....what the f*** are you doing. Who clues MLB into the fact that one of the two major bodies within their administrative control is entirely OFF THE RANCH?????

I don't a crap about Interleague play. That is another abortion until NL ends this idiocy of keeping a spot in the batting order for the pitcher. Do I have to recite how much the the stupid NL format made a mess of the three games in the NL park? Please don't make me do that. While I have the stomach for longish posts when there is something worthy of discussion the number of ways the NL format f***ed up those games is simply not even worthy of the number of keystrokes it would take to go through it. That disaster of a team fielded by the Dodgers are as much about the failings of that team as a team and the failings of that league as a league.

Some of the earlier Sox Championship teams might have been better teams if you are talking about pitting one Sox team v another. However none of those teams were more dominant in their time in their year than the 2018 team was in its time and in its year. Actually the NL and the Dodgers have much to be concerned with. Their stupid Pitcher bats formate looks more idiotic by the minute and the Dodgers representing the NL as the best team from that league were putrid, gutless and mindless from upper management through to Roberts and into the team itself. Did not even belong on the same field with the Red Sox. Give me Turner, Freese if younger and Baez and Beuhler off that team, Jenson if healthy and you can have every single other one of them....every one. What a garbage team representing a garbage league.

IMO, other than necessarily an issue of "confidence" in Eo, Correctamento! Cora had no choice but to stay with Eo in Game 3 and hope. He could not bring Pom into that game as that would have left him with nobody to pitch if Eo or Pom crumbled somewhere along the way. Cora did not even have an Everyday player left to call on to pitch in that game. Everybody had been used to that point. So Pom was only an option if Eo crumbled somewhere along the way. Pom could not be brought in under any other circumstances. Saying Cora had confidence that Eo could carry that load is a bit of a stretch I think. Eo had not thrown 97 pitches since July 20th with his total pitch counts being reduced from July 20th through the rest of the season. His only other start of that duration was the Oct 8th ALDS game against the Yankees. Eo had started and thrown 92 in the ALCS and had made relief appearances of 19 and 16 pitches on the 23rd and 24th headed into Game 3. At some point a Manager is stuck hoping and certainly trying to cover 18 innings with everyday players and pitchers will leave them hoping a good bit of the time. Cora finished that game with Vaz at 1st base, Holt in the OF, one legged Nunez without any replacement at 3rd and one arm remaining in the pen away from nobody to pitch. That was certainly hoping in Cora's case. But 18 innings will do that for you.

Actually it did. The issue is not who was left in the pen. The issue is who could cover those 6 innings, those 17 outs. It took 90+ pitches to cover those outs. Unless you wanted them to just forfeit the game at the point when Eo comes into it, they had to cover those innings, those outs, those pitches. Lets say Eo gives you your typical BEST relief effort and two innings. That would be about 30 pitches and 6 outs leaving you 60 pitches/11 more outs to cover. The other option was to just throw up the surrender flag and have an everyday player pitch instead of Eo. That would not have been smart. Roberts covered them in a way that cost him enough pitches to whip out guys, as in can't pitch the next night. Roberts literally told us in the Game 3 post game how many pitchers were wiped out for Game 4. Cora didn't have to do that thanks to Eo. The only guy Cora lost for the next night was Eo himself. Never mind what Cora said about his pen or what Roberts said about his after Game 3, even the MLB analysts just counting pitches as soon as Game 3 ended said that Cora still could get innings and outs in Game 4 from what he had for a remaining pen including guys that had pitched in Game 3 and he could. But they went on to say that Roberts could not based on what they knew about the Dodgers. The pen workload in Game 3 was not at least for the Sox excessive outside of Eo who gave us 90 pitches and 17 outs. It was for the Dodgers who won the battle (Game 3) and ultimately lost the war (the series). Once the Dodgers lost Game 4 this series was done. It was so done that the Dodgers threw in the towel after Inning 5 of Game 5. Now Cora did almost screw it up because there was NO....repeat NO reason for Cora to try to get a 6th inning out of ERod in Game 4. He had the arms in his pen to cover 6-9. Cora was playing with house money once Erod got through the 5th inning. "Technically" really does not work here because you are talking about flesh and blood pitchers.

I only mentioned this one other time on the board and for the life of me now I cannot remember what thread I put it in (probably game 4 game thread) but not only was Eo's performance in Game 3 heroic within the confines of Game 3 but he totally spared the Sox pen in that game. Yes he was going to be unavailable until God knows when after that, but virtually everybody else WAS available because of what Eo did in Game 3. Look what happened to dingdong Dave Roberts (great base runner but no manager to my mind). He goes on to rule out some of his pitchers the very night of Game 3 in the post game presser! "He's out....He's....out....Oh yea and he's out too" AND he was not kidding! Cora after game 3: "Everybody is available for Game 4.....Eo is ready to go" Now Eo was likely not available having spared the Sox pen in Game 3. But virtually everybody else was. Off topic, on all scores Roberts was flat goofy. The way he used his pitchers was totally nuts in game. Who knows what his plan pre-game was but I can't put much stock in that. Looked totally goofy and he handled the press end of it and the edge he handed Cora in the process, AGAIN TOTALLY GOOFY!

Sox will likely make every reasonable effort to sign Eo. There are not many teams that will be able to afford him and Boston just happens to be one of them. So actually he probably is "priced out" of about 25 of the 30 markets.....but I don't think he is necessarily priced out of Boston.

Correct...he is not opting out. Why in the name of God would he?

Yup...Price's "I hold the cards" comment has nothing to do with contracts. It had everything to do with media abuse which he focuses on far too much. Just go out and pitch David. That is all anybody cares about. If you mouth off while NOT pitching to expectation in this town, thats on you dude. The Sox offered Price monster money over what anybody else offered to come here and he took the money to play in a town where that was going to have obvious consequences. I don't at all blame Price for taking the money. But don't tell me you had your eyes closed David. That would be rank BS. That is all water over the dam now unless................ While WS-MVP is not a really great award, Price will also have the support of fans in Boston that think he should have gotten that award over Pearce or that there should have been co-WS-MVP's.

Frankly the two greatest WS "performances" across the series came from Price and Eo. That is from a guy (me) that spent all of his time in baseball trying to beat pitchers, even dare I say completely consumed by the contest, the battle between pitcher and hitter at least within the game of baseball itself. I am simply realistic enough to understand that two "pitchers" would not be the recipients of so much heraldry given the direction MLB is trying to take this game. Price's effort and his contribution in this WS is almost beyond comprehension. He pitched so well and so much in this WS and to have been on the mound, the pitcher of record after all that in the very inning that the Dodgers threw up the surrender flag (after inning 5 of game 5) simply is all there is to say about that. Eo's effort was literally superhuman. As it turns out apparently, Porcello was not the only Boston player driven to tears by Eo's Game 3 effort. I would bet real money that Porcello was not the only current or retired player of any merit driven to tears by that effort. His effort was and is utterly unfathomable for its courageousness as much as anything and anybody who knows how this game works knows it. If you want go back to one video piece that is the living record of how actual baseball players felt about that effort, go back and watch what happens as Eo steps down into the dugout after coming out of Game 3 and watch how the Boston squad literally caresses him down the stairs to the clubhouse....no raucous chest pumping, fist pumping, elbow pumping, body slamming...none of that. They literally caress him down the stairs and into the clubhouse overcome by emotion and understanding for what that effort was and what it meant. Pearce had a great series...no question. I just cannot in good conscience and in full understanding of the game elevate it past Price's and if I am really honest with myself probably really can't elevate it past Eo's.

Well actually Home Field did have a telling impact on the WS. The Dodgers had no stomach for even attempting to take this series back to frigid Fenway Park. Pitching Coach Rich Honeycutt threw up the surrender flag as early as the first two games in Boston whining about the bullpens in Fenway as if his pitchers had been accosted by the Boston crowd. In fact, no Dodger pitcher had beer thrown at him or cans thrown at him or anything thrown at him nor were any of them body slammed out there by some fan. Whiny Honeycutt mused that he did not understand how MLB could "allow" such close fan proximity to the bullpens because his poor sensitive pitchers could HEAR the partisan crowd. Then the Dodgers literally caved in and surrendered en masse at the end of inning 5 in game 5 last night. They were done. Not a single focused AB from them after the 5th inning. They even stopped pitching with any intensity, utterly unwilling to even any longer make the attempt to get the series back to Fenway. That was a complete and utter collapse by the Dodgers after inning 5 of game 5 OF THE WORLD SERIES because they simply did not even have the intestinal fortitude to try to get the series back to Boston. If anything Home Field proved its worth in the WS more than in any series I have seen in a long long time.

Somebody mentioned the two trucks from Chevy and since the car companies have gotten into the act I have felt for the longest time that they are the major stumbling block to co-MVP. They are just not going to dig into their pockets for the second vehicle.....bastards. This year really really deserved to be a co-WS-MVP year. To be honest if it had to be one guy, IMO the one guy should have been Price. That said Price alone would have been my second choice to Price/Pearce and Pearce alone would have been my third choice.

Nobody in the post season could stand the test of crashing against the rock that was the Boston Red Sox. They never really changed their winning formula one bit other than dropping Starters into relief roles who had starts ahead of them in the actual series they were playing. Really the Yankees though too young were more of a challenge than the Dodgers. The Astros, a bit weakened by injury were more of a challenge than the Dodgers were. While the Yanks and Astros crashed into the stone wall of the Red Sox, the Dodgers just crumbled and succumbed to inevitability. Done by the 5th inning tonight.....5th inning of game 5.

This Dodger team never belonged on the same field with the Red Sox. Go ahead NL, keep your pitcher hits nonsense and your computer generated teams. Get your asses reamed a few more years in a row. I did think the Dodgers had a shot at 2 games here, the Hill game and the 2nd Kershaw game. They could not even muster that in their own park. Never thought the Dodgers would win even one game in Fenway. Dodgers have had the surrender flag up since the end of the 5th inning on top of everything else. Great season Talksox brothers and sisters. Game threads rule.

Told ya....surrender flag went up for Dodgers two innings ago. They have taken lousy AB's for two innings now and nobody is pitching for them at this point.

Reality starting to set in for Dodgers. They certainly do not look like a team that wants to travel 3,000 to frigid Fenway to be pounded out of the WS there.

Well its a controversy because the Sox could not hit him if they brought a front door to the plate to swing.

No wonder we tend to need to get to bullpens. Pearce crushes a first pitch FB outta' here and what do the rest of them do? Take first pitch FB's right down the pike.

Dialing the FB in now

Price can't even hit the mitt with a FB yet.

I have no real expectations for tonight. We are up 3-1. I was going to be content with going back to Boston down 3-2 confident that the Red Sox would not lose a game to this Dodger team in Fenway. Not to Dave Roberts and his utterly futile upper management totally devoted to computer geek baseball. So now, I am just going to watch the dynamics of this game 5. If the Dodgers get a little lead do they go into their festive ya' man mode or do they end up pensive and waiting for the ax to fall on their necks? Maybe, just maybe I can spare the liquor cabinet another depleting evening during a Sox post season game for once.

Cora seems to like this idea of not even letting the opponent breadth. He steps on your neck and stays there "are you dead yet.....OK....your dead". I think that is why Kimbrel unless Brasier really just did not feel right or the bullpen coach caught sight of something and said something to Cora.