jung

1. Mookie Betts ® CF 2. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 3. Steve Pearce ® 1B 4. J.D. Martinez ® RF 5. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 6. Eduardo Nunez ® 3B 7. Brock Holt (L) 2B 8. Christian Vazquez ® C 9. Eduardo Rodriguez (L) P

JBJ out of the lineup to start tonight's game. JD in RF, Mookie in CF, Beni in LF. Holt to 2nd. Nunez to 3rd.

I agree with us taking this series even if it means wining the final two games back here. We are terrible hitters against junkers, especially junkers that know what they are doing. We are the best FB hitters in baseball. Junkers tend to beat us up. I will be surprised if we have our way with Hill though I will certainly take it in a nanosecond. Also, Cora IMO did not cost us the series in game 3. You can't possibly lose a 7 game series in game 3. He simply insured this thing goes back to Boston IMO and I am OK with that.

Finally Kinsler got no jump at all on the tag up from 3rd. That is actually what cost him at the plate. Don't know if he just did not expect to be sent or not. But that was what really cost him any shot at getting to home plate as the play developed. His first move from the bag was slo-mo like while being in real time.

Just don't know. I expected Betts to be moved around and eventually see a few innings at 2nd last night. That is what I posted in the JD thread. If you are going to end up with Vaz at 1st, is Mookie at 2nd for a few innings that bad a deal? I was encouraged by the last base hit, JD went after last night in LF. I don't know if the adrenalin (strongest drug known to man) was so coursing through him by that time in the game that he just didn't feel anything in the ankle at that point. But it was the only ball he went after the way I would have expected him to go after it if healthy.

Based in Erod's recent experiences, he is in something of a spot. He has to find an emotional state somewhere between his tendency to just sort of go along on cruise control, get his 4.1 innings and call it a day and getting so out of his skin that he simply becomes a puddle on the mound. I have no idea who of the actual starters with actual starting responsibilities (now all of them) can give us anything tonight out of the pen. Be interested to see what Robert's line up looks like against a LH pitcher again. Be interested to see what our walking wounded lineup looks like.

OK its as expected, Erod starting. If we can stretch Erod out to 5 (that is a stretch for ERod under this pressure) we can get through this game with a shot to win it with the pen pieces we have.

OK its as expected, Erod starting. If we can stretch Erod out to 5 (that is a stretch for ERod under this pressure) we can get through this game with a shot to win it.

Correct...two wrongs don't make a right (unless you are in MLB Administration which uses two wrongs make a right as its guiding principle). Cora already crashed and burned going all out in a game that was tied. I expected to see the approach Cora used in game 3 if he had any sort of lead at all going into the end of the game. I have no idea what Cora was thinking using that approach down 1 run and then tied with a shrinking bench totally dependent on using guys as relief pitchers that had planned starts later in the series. The added wrong at this point would be to treat game 4 the same way...as a do or die. Whether we like it or not Cora treated game 3 like he was all in to win it when he did not have a lead. That started a slow fire burning that turned into a raging inferno as the innings slid by and Eo got burned up. Eo actually saved what remains of the pen so that we at least have some sort of shot at taking a game in LA.

Kinsler is getting lambasted because he had to make that play and he didn't. He was also numbingly bad on the base paths. But these guys are very proud and very talented. I am convinced that this series now goes 6 games at least if not 7. Cora set that up the way he handled last night. Frankly I expected that sort of approach from Cora if we had any lead at all going into the end of the game. Down by 1 or tied, I have no idea what he was thinking. But the hitting issue is much more disturbing. We simply lost our minds at the plate. That was as poorly executed an approach to a Buehler as we could have had and that does tend to have a residual effect now going into a game against the kind of pitcher we really do struggle against. Mookie had that thousand mile stare half way through 9 innings! All of them simply tried to guess along with Buehler when they should have just sat dead red. Tonight they can't sit dead red. I have no idea how they will be able to leave the Buehler game behind them going into the Hill game. They will end up questioning their ability to guess along with a pitcher that demands that of the hitter when in fact they mucked up a game by trying to guess along with a FB pitcher when they should have just sat dead red all night long against Buehler. They are the best FB hitting team in all baseball. I would like to know who of the players or who of the coaches (probably hitting coaches) was supposed to stop that nonsense from the team last night before it got completely out of control.

You are setting yourself up to be an anomaly. Check the 2017 v 2018 TV ratings for World Series if you don't think so. They are majorly down game by game at game start at game end, at game middle....you name it. That is even with the obvious big baseball market, Boston v LA matchup.

Not sure that makes sense. However, immediately after Cora would only comment that his Game 4 starter would be a LHer, effectively saying nothing, the Dodgers posted up that their Game 4 starter was TBD. I think we are just witnessing some gamesmanship from both sides here.

Just to sharpen the point even farther, ratings for games 1 and 2 of the 2018 WS are down significantly from the 2017 ratings for games 1 and 2 even with the expected large market draws of Boston v LA. Game 3, was down again from game 3 of the 2017 WS and promptly slid right of the cliff edge as the hours passed.

Sox already struggle with spin merchants. Now they come off a performance where they totally misread how to take on Beuhler, a FB pitcher and screwed themselves up mightily headed right into a game with a spin merchant. Not terribly optimistic about tonight's game.

The whole lineup failed with few exceptions. However it was clear as day why they were failing against Beuhler. They corkscrewed themselves right into that train wreck. If they took a professional approach to their AB's, I could simply chalk that mess up to Beuhler's dominance. Unfortunately that is not what happened.

Sorry but if you think people will sit around for hours to watch endless streams of HR's, K's and weak pop ups, I simply do not know what to say. That is where this game is going and its going there by MLB rule, mandate, action and acuquiecense. If you deny that is where it is and has been going, I would question your vision or your understanding of the year over year stats. I suppose you could call my concerns about the fanbase an opinion. I would buy that. But frankly, I suspect simple common sense says that given contemporary societal changes, the number of "fans" that will stand for what is outright nonsense will diminish. I did not say with specificity that there is a conspiracy afoot. There does not have to be a conspiracy afoot to push MLB one way or the other. Are the MLB players conspiring with MLB to push this launch angle nonsense? Of course they aren't. They are simply sticking their fingers in the air and recognizing which direction the wind is blowing. Does not change the momentum of what is actually happening though does it? This is headed to a place that is not baseball. This is becoming glorified Home Run Derby, which if you are old enough to remember it was an utterly boring, utterly disinteresting show that died a natural death within a couple seasons of inception and well it should have! We participants at Baseball forums don't make up a market. We are a pimple on a mosquito's ding dong as far as the market needed to support a multi-billion dollar enterprise goes. The days of baseball being "the National Pastime" are long gone. Pastimes that don't involve a keyboard or a game controller are for the most part long gone. Year by year baseball struggles to maintain its traditional fan base and keep attracting new fans. When the baby boomers die off, I simply have no clue what they will do given the direction of MLB administration coupled with the unwieldy structure of two leagues allowed to play under their own format all the way up to dividing up the WS format between them.

No, has nothing to do with compelling more hits in an individual game. It is clear as day that MLB is trying to force what is a multi-demensional game to be a one dimensional power game. The result is buckets of K's and weak pop ups. The circumstance is exacerbated in the NL where insistence on keeping a spot in the batting order for the Pitcher has had the exact opposite effect they claim it has. They are NOT playing a purer game in the NL. If anything EVERYBODY tries to fence crash ahead of the Pitcher's spot in the order. Did you watch the NLCS s*** show? So now while it is the NL that would have to decide to abandon its "Pitcher Hits" format, they are clearly today completely at odds with its own administration which is the MLB. Everything MLB has done in the last ten, maybe fifteen years pushes the game away from the NL format: - You can start with MLB's inability to deal sanely with DH v no DH. Either get NL to comply with the DH(which makes more sense given every other nonsensical direction MLB has been heading this game) or send the AL back to holding a spot open for the Pitcher to hit in the batting order - the juiced baseball, the Overload, the rules around the bases....all of it is the MLB intention to turn the multi-dimensional game of baseball into a one dimensional power game. The NL version of the game is simply heading for the cliff edge faster than the AL game. But both are headed for the cliff edge - the reality of the contemporary NL game because there is a spot in the batting order for the Pitcher. Its now utterly devoid of anything other than hitters trying to hit HR's and the incredible number of K's and weak pop ups that result. Holding a spot open in the order for a Pitcher is entirely contrary to the direction the MLB administrators are heading this game. The result is that it is a game fighting with itself and it is displayed on the field in every game where the NL is a participant whether an NL league game or even in the very championship of MLB. The NLCS was a complete s*** show this year - MLB's acquiescence to the Overload which MLB loves because it encourages hitters to hit over it was very much on display last night. Infielders no longer exhibit the agility that has described the baseball infielder for over 100 years! They are stationed in some spot by a computer geek. Just put a lawn chair out there with a basket on it. That is where that is going....its stupid - the stupid ignorant plastic bases which is how JD hurt his ankle. Why in Gods name does MLB, the pinnacle of the game insist on using plastic bases...stupid again - the very obvious issue of their stupid new rules around the bases that do not spare infielders injury. Just as Pedey claims, they simply give players a false sense of security when there in fact is none thus resulting in just as much injury. Combined with the Overload, infielders no longer exhibit the agility they should exhibit. They no longer exhibit good footwork. They are not even good infielders...They are "good" infielders within the context of a league full of overgrown players, football tight ends that simply do not exhibit agility.... Its stupid!!!! - Consequence....7 hour baseball games???? 7 hours. How many fans were lost last night. How many simply said, this is insanity. Anybody that thinks MLB broke even or gained fans last night needs his head examined. In the main fans that will remain interested in their showcase, the WS will be the actual fans of LA and Boston. People are not going to simply commit themselves to such nonsense without a serious rooting interest - to what extent was every financial influence on MLB desperately trying to push this to a longer series than the two teams warrant on the merits. Frankly, this LA team does not belong on the same field with this Red Sox team mainly because the AL is the last bastion of actual baseball in MLB (see comment above about the result of NL continuing to hold a spot in the batting order for the Pitcher). To what extent did the desire to lengthen out this series influence the umpiring and the entirety of Fox Network and MLB administration itself trying to will the Dodgers to win that game? That was an utter and complete s*** show and its high time Manfred realize it and whether covertly or overtly reverse the course of MLB before its too late. Its probably already too late! While anybody that has read my posts knows I have been warning about all of this crap, I never thought I would see every single issue of MLB and NL ignorance and administrative and marketing stupidity on display in one single WS series leading to 7 hours of pure nonsense.

Starting Erod makes the most sense in Game 4. That is actually not my biggest concern for Game 4. My biggest concern for Game 4 is that the hitters allowed Beuhler to totally f*** with their heads for no reason. They just screwed up and got porked for it. Think about how many times Mookie looked like a deer in the headlights at the plate last night. However, they are screwed up at this point because they decided to try to guess along with a FB pitcher instead of sitting dead red all night long as the best FB hitting team in baseball. Now, they are stuck with spin master Hill. I see buckets of Bugs Bunny swings coming. So I see every chance that the series ends up tied 2-2 after today. If that happens I hope the Sox recover to take game 5 and head back to Boston up 3-2. However I also very much believe we can win all the games in Fenway if we have to and win a series 4-3.

Now that this is very likely at least a 6 game series, Kinsler will without question have a chance to redeem itself. Might sound strange to hear that today, Saturday. But he will get his chance.

The umpiring was partially to blame for that s*** show last night. So don't expect me to have any sympathy for them.

The DH WAS the anomaly. As for wanting free substitution, I have already gone over that topic. This is baseball, not basketball. Free substitution would be idiotic. That said, MLB has done so many idiotic things in the last ten years that anything is now possible. The DH is no longer the anomaly because it conforms to the path MLB has been on and is on. As a consequence the NL is out of step with its own administrative body. It is at war with itself. Either MLB has to guide the ship back toward where the NL is or the NL has to get in step with where its own administrative body is. Either way. Frankly I no longer care which one. Anything that spares us that s*** show from last night would be acceptable to me. Any business or administrative exec that simply sits by and would allow this nonsense to continue needs to be summarily dismissed. Talking to you Manfred. As for the performance of our offensive weapons in game 3, they simply outsmarted themselves. There was never any reason to guess with a FB pitcher. The Red Sox are the best FB hitting team in all of baseball, both leagues. You don't guess with a FB pitcher under those circumstances because you know he has to come back to his bread and butter. Instead as soon as Buehler started to mix his secondary pitches in the 2nd inning, we fell apart and started trying to guess with him. You could see it in every Betts AB, every Mitch AB and virtually every JD AB and almost every X AB just for starters. There is utterly no reason to try to guess with a FB pitcher when you are the best FB hitting team in baseball. You sit dead red every pitch and focus on a location that you can handle. You try to adjust to the secondary pitch if forced to swing at one. If Buehler gets you to 2 strikes and drops a curve on you and you take it as a strike or miss it as a swinging strike, tip your cap and go take your seat! If they get Buehler in Fenway in game 7 and approach their AB's the same way they did in game 3, the clearly better team WILL NOT win this series.

Today is Saturday. I know its hard to keep track. Didn't the Friday game just end? Its actually Saturday???? Pitching Saturday and Wednesday is 3 days rest between starts. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday would be the rest days. Saturday and Wednesday would be the pitch days. Game 7 would be an all hands game anyway. Pitchers likely won't get more than one or two innings no matter who they are.

It would be 3 days rest, not 4 and its obvious Sale is already pitching under some duress. Start him in game 5. I don't even want to see Sale pitching in the Fenway cold for game 7.

Actually its not Grandal that would have been the hitter if Puig got the intentional pass. Barnes was in the game at that point, a far less dangerous hitter than Grandal.

With what arm for game 7. He is not getting the ball on Saturday on short rest and then again on next Wednesday on short rest. Cora needs to climb back out of last nights train wreck...not let last nights train wreck cost the far better team the WS.