jung

This is a tough assignment for Porcello. Hitters are so focused and there is so much adrenaline pumping through their systems during a championship contest that they see pitches just that much better. Rick's pitches will tend to look like they are coming to the plate in slow motion. If you are a Rick Porcello, your location has to go from regular season very good to post season perfect. Anything that catches too much plate stands a very good chance of being turned into a ........PORCELLO. The hitters will see it and they won't miss it. Hitters will tend to recognize the pitch early enough to stay back on the secondaries or a poorly located FB and Kablaam. Hill is similar when he gets his start but he has more break on his secondaries. So he has that going for him. Porcello is a tremendously gutty pitcher IMO. He is sort of the Pitching version of our offense. We complain about both too often and too soon when they are not performing in short stretches to our expectations. But they just keep soldering on pretty much oblivious to everything but the task at hand.

I think JD plays myself. The one caveat being that Buehler will pose a tough challenge for JD and if he is gimping around, is it worth it to start him v PHing later in that game and playing him in Game 4. There is no such thing as a hitter with no holes in his swing and Buehler is the one starter the Dodgers have that can get to the hole in JD's swing. If I were Buehler I would not let JD get anywhere near a pitch that would allow him to hurt me.

I think the whole weather in Boston v LA thing is hysterical. Yes the Dodgers will likely play better in their home park and yes it is warmer in LA. But its not like Boston will fizzle in the heat. Game 3 likely offers LA the best chance to win a game that they have had based mainly on Buehler at home, their LH lineup against a RH pitcher, Porcello plus JD gimpy. LA is learning a lesson the hard way. There is no hierarchy that I can define on that team. Just a bunch a' guys that are all about the same age that all think they are the cats meow plus some vets that are over the hill plus Turner. I don't count Machado in this bunch as he is not part of the hierarchy for anybody. He has come in for a cup of coffee. The great Yankee teams from the 30's through the 50's had a hierarchy. They had great players just sitting on the bench waiting their turn. So coming up on the end of that run for example, Joe DiMaggio was the man no matter who came up and was great, Joe was at the top of the pyramid. You did what Joe told you to do and you played when Casey told you to play and that was that. Other than that, shut up and learn your craft. Our modern equivalent in Boston was David Ortiz who gave up the role at the top of the pyramid to Mookie Betts. Pedey was never going to be that guy. Pedey was always going to be second fiddle as that is the role he is comfortable playing. You don't get the impression that any of the young Dodgers are comfortable with anything. Media is part of the problem as they and we as fans anoint these guys as the second coming when they are still in diapers. I see the Dodgers winning Game 3 and maybe one other and that IMO will be it. Message to LA upper management. A so-called super team is not a team of young equals fighting for playing time. A super team is a mixed bag of mature and maturing vets and young guys all knowing their roles and happy and productive in them.

Don't think it will boil down to more than how mobile JD is on game day and what the prognosis is for Game 4 if he sits for game 3 other than a PH appearance.

Another thing that might favor sitting JD for Game 3 is the same thing I have said since we knew we would face Buehler in LA. Buehler is the only Starter they have that can get to the hole in JD's swing. If the ankle is too tender for him to go, Game 3 might just be the spot to keep him out until he can PH against one of their relief pitchers later in the game.

Put him back and 3rd and he is. Short, not so much at his current size and with the current condition of his knees. He is out of position at Short now.

What is MLB in it for. Somebody needs to explain to me again why we have to have plastic bases in MLB. Thats what caused JD to turn his ankle. He slipped off that stupid plastic base which has to be roughed up by hand just to be useable at all.

I am convinced of two things: 1) this Dodgers team has no clue how to play us....no clue whatsoever 2) they are not a good defensive team, not by a long shot. This whole play everybody everywhere crap is being exposed for what it is...crap. They have all of two solid defenders, Bellinger and Turner and that is it. Where the heck was Puig on the JD hit that got us back the lead. I knew Puig was too deep in RF for JD. But they just said today that he was at 319'. 319'!!! What defense is that? That is 15' past anything I have ever seen in Fenway. Probably 15' past where anybody ever played Ted Williams.

One thing I have not seen discussed which reared its ugly head here is those stupid plastic bases which are treachery themselves. The reason JD turned his ankle in the first place is because his foot slipped off that stupid plastic base. Why do we have to have plastic bases at the highest level in baseball? Plastic bases that have to be roughed up just to be used at all! What ....for those idiot cameras that are in those little holes cut in the plastic base. Those cameras we never get a shot from...thats why we need plastic bases. STUPID. Once again, MLB doing something utterly STUPID....Plastic bases for the sake of camera's we never get to see a camera shot from. I don't even know if they actually load the stupid things with cameras. Anyway, we won't know anything and Cora won't make any decisions until he sees how JD is moving on Friday IMO.

Does not have to rain in LA for that outfield to be a bit wet in that outfield at night. Just checked though. Game time for the games out there, 8:00 Eastern. Should be early enough WCT to not be an issue. At any rate, if he can't hurt it worse and its not getting better anytime soon, I would say its likely he plays as long as he has reasonable footing out there. If he is improving with the time off of it (today) then it is probably a tougher choice for game 3. He did not look good on his feet last night. That was pretty obvious. So signs of improvement could push them to decide to give it one more day. If I had to guess, they will not see signs that two days off it yields that much in the way of improvement as opposed to one day. Hence he will end up playing IMO.

The reason this is a game day decision is to determine if JD is actually healing or not. Not healing probably gets him into game 3 as much as anything. If he is healing and you let him run around that RF in LA, then you probably condemn him to never getting enough healing time to run better than he was running Wednesday night. If he is not running any better on Friday morning then you might as well let him play and let him heal after Nov 1st because he is not healing fast enough to make a dif. If he is healing fast enough to make a dif, I would probably be inclined to hold him out of playing significant time in the field in game 3. Think of it like Altuve's hammy. Was his hammy actually going to get better over the course of time left in the post season even if he rested? NOPE. So he played. The speed of the track for Friday will have an impact as well. If it is a wet field, you are not likely to let JD run around that OF on a gimpy ankle because he will turn doubles into triples if not in the park HR's gimping around out there on a wet track with a bum ankle.

Insisting that sliding runners must hit the ground before the bag is the one clarification to the rules that should in certain instances save some injury. Even the clarification about sliding past the bag won't save anything. Think about it. If the runner slides past the bag, he has missed hitting the infielder. That particular infielder is standing there tagging him out as he goes past. The rest was a consequence of umpires not enforcing the existing rules. Umpires would not enforce the rules about a base runner's path to the bag. They simply would not do it. The result of that was runners chasing 2nd basemen almost to the infield grass and chasing Shortstops almost to the OF grass the other way. This filtered all the way down to high level organized scholastic and other ball where either me or my Shortstop got chased one way or the other by runners constantly. There is nothing out there away from the bag but flesh and blood infielders. So where were these baserunners going? Its not like baseball lined up two extra, auxiliary bags left and right of 2nd base for runners. So instead of enforcing the rules they had, we got the phantom out at 2nd. Baseball logic at its best (ie. two wrongs make a right): A) We won't enforce the rules we have and make calls We will screw up another rule because of the call we won't make and thus make another call in error Slo-mo replay forced the umpires to their knees on this one. They were forced to pay attention to the fielder's position as he took the ball to turn the DP. Slo-mo meant the umps would be caught not paying attention to the fielder's positioning as he attempted to turn the DP and that made a huge dif at the ML level and frankly has meant a marked improvement at all levels which of course supports the idea that the umps could actually see if the fielder had the bag and the ball at the same time a very high percentage of the time. Its not every class of baseball that has slo-mo. So forcing runners to hit the ground before they hit the bag is really the only change of all of those made that might save infielders. The rest is all clap trap that has had the effect of making fielders "feel" safer when in fact they are not. Pedey is right about the effect on infield play. It has encouraged infielders to sloppy footwork around 2nd base with fielders feeling like they are protected by a rule. FAT CHANCE! Frankly, the only thing that has actually changed the number of injuries around the bag is the head first slide. Now its runners getting injured at a higher rate than they used to be injured. But looking at foot first slides around the bag, frankly I don't see a difference. I see at least a spiked infielder about once in 20 games and given how many head first slides there are, that seems about right to me. A spiked infielder is really about one inch from an infielder with a broken ankle or damaged knee. So I am not convinced much of anything has changed that would not be attributed to the head first slide.

I think JD's ankle will be a factor. It has to be given how he was moving on Wednesday night. Probably a decision for Friday morning.

To some extent might depend on JD's ankle. He was not moving that good last night.

Just in case the Yankees forget it.

The Sox must be such a demoralizing team to play. Up 2-0 going back to LA. Dodgers fly tonight...probably have a plane waiting on Jersey St to get outta' here. Sox fly tomorrow.

Geez that almost ice cream coned right outta' Devers glove. That would have been embarrassing.

I am betting Kelly has sold his soul to the devil...probably bought a book on satanic ritual...the whole 9 yards. He will deal with the consequences later he rationalizes.

There is such a small margin for error that it does not take much and things look terrible. Price did all of one thing wrong for 6 innings. He was simply throwing too many get me over 0-0 pitches and the middle of their order caught onto that in the 4th. Take that one error compounded over about 4 hitters in the 4th away and he has a night for the ages going. Does not take much at this level and in the Championship at this level. Every out is a razors edge experience.

Great fielding team....ah-huh

Just a terrific effort to come back by Price. Got himself right back on track. Stopped throwing a get me over 0-0 pitch and has had two terrific innings.

Change outside here and Kemp is gone

Sometimes the pitcher just wins the battle. Anyplace in the strike zone that Change landed and X was out. Just the way it is. A bit surprised he did not try to take the 2-1 pitch to RF.

Grandal would have let about 5 balls go to the backstop by now

Don't swing at just anything here Pearce.