jung

46 pitches and not out of the 2nd yet

3-2 again. Just way to many 3-2 counts

The high number of balls Chris is throwing caused that HR. Kemp was looking for that pitch and got it on a place he could drive it. Too many 3-2 counts so far.

I don't think Chris has thrown a FB strike yet. There is his first in the strike zone and his second.

If Sale starts to command his FB he is going to whip through this lineup like a hot knife through butter.

Sox trying to push Barnes weak throwing wing.

Clayton Kircrunch so far.

Panic stricken Dodger 1st baseman.

Come on Roberts. Give me a break. That was a waste of time.

I think Beni missed a sign on the Mookie steal. He did not swing until Mookie looked back at home plate which told Beni it was a hit and run sign that he had missed.

Kershaw is not going to have a good night if the Sox see all his pitches early on.

Nice 1st inning Chris. One trait that has been a bit of a bother of late has been his tendency to try to muscle up the FB. Would rather see him just command that pitch even if it costs him a couple mph. Not sure he can get it to 96-97 without trying to muscle it up there.

Now that i think about it, Bellinger and Pederson both take Bugs Bunny swings at Curves. Pederson tends to be overanxious. But if its Pom v Bellinger even though he actually looks worse swinging at Curves I will be viewing that AB through the bottom of a glass of bourbon. At any rate, maybe Cora has specific LH batters in mind if anybody for Pom.

The only rational I have for this one is that: - Wright is not after all ready or Cora does not think so - Pom must have impressed somebody in these BP sessions he has been throwing. Something like that big breaking Curveball has come around a bit and Cora is hoping that against another wall bashing, fence crashing team he can get some Bugs Bunny swings out of them. God help him if he hangs that thing though.

Pom..yuk. They already have their mop up lefty and his name is Erod.

If Cora ever thought seriously about Mookie at 2nd, he had a zillion opportunities to put him there during the season and actually get him in game MLB experience again or I should qualify that as the most in game MLB experience at 2nd of his career. Cora didn't do that which leads me to believe he will not test the fates now. I would also suggest and have suggested that if he did put Mookie there now, it would be under conditions of extreme duress in the WS, as in lost both games here and maybe even the 1st game in LA. Its a panic move and Cora has resisted panic in this post season. In fact, he has been a rock as to his lineups and his team has been a rock on the field. The Sox force other teams to panic moves or to change aspects of their game that they probably should not try to change.

To my memory, the biggest issue with the way both the Red Sox and Pedey handled the Machado/ Pedey incident is that the Sox kept missing Machado in an obvious effort to plunk him and just kept trying to the point of absurdity. If memory serves, Sale missed him once and Kelly missed him either once or Barnes maybe even twice. Either execute the damn plunking or give it up...you failed....THE END! That led to Pedey and his caught on camera "Its not me, its them". I think were Machado might someday find himself really dealing with an ugly payback situation is if they keep him playing Shortstop in his career and he keeps pulling this crap. Even if his pegs were still solid (knees) he is simply too big to play Shortstop. He is gangly and top-heavy and awkward around 2nd base. His true asset at Short is that howitzer of an arm. Everything else he has at Short is sort of Meh and his footwork around 2nd is not even Meh. Somebody is finally going to have had all of Machado they can take and come in spikes high trying to break up the DP right into one of the those knees of his and do to Machado exactly what he did to Pedey and that will be that. The only dif will likely be that Machado will likely be facing the sliding player as opposed to Pedey who could not even see Machado coming. But it won't matter if the player is really going for Machado's knees because Machado no longer even has what you could call solid footwork around the bag. Its not even average and if this were twenty years ago, he would be laughed off the diamond by other Shortstops based on his footwork around 2nd base. It is a good time to point out that Pedey's real complaint all along has been that all of these MLB rules changes protect nobody. The only thing that has arisen out of the new rules according to Pedey is that infielders are encouraged toward poor footwork because it is not as necessary as a means to protect themselves. They had rules that were sufficient to the task and simply refused to enforce them. Look at the plays where automatic DP's have been called because of the slide at 2nd base. You tell me how proper enforcement of the previous rule if enforced would not have had the same effect. I only have one example of merit. The only one of those rule changes that has had or can have a beneficial impact is sliding totally beyond the bag which was not spelled out with enough specificity in the previous rule. Beyond that rule change or rule clarification, players were NEVER supposed to "chase" the infielder off the bag to left or right in an effort to break up the DP effort anyway. But umps simply refused to enforce the previous rule properly.

We all know what "power hitting baseball" means in today's context. It means HR's. The Sox have hit all of 9 HR's over 9 games and held their opponents to 10 HR's over those same 9 games including the HR Happy Yankees. Those are not HR stats that blow anybodies dress up. Conversely, the Sox have 79 hits to their opponents 65 and 18 doubles to their opponents 12. Opponents have tallied 40 Walks to the Sox 38. Walks are the only other offensive category besides HR's opponents have to show for their efforts. Oh by the way, runs.......56 for the Sox, 35 for the post season opponents. No matter what blather MLB tries to sell, including its juiced baseball, if fence crashing, wall bashing, parking lot threatening HR's is all your offense can muster you will lose in the post season because good pitching does not just beat good hitting. It pulverizes fence crashing one dimensional baseball. No matter how much MLB tries to bend this game to its wishes and promote HR's as "critical" to outcomes the game is simply designed not to allow that to happen. And...thus it should be because no matter how much silly nonsense they throw at this "power" addiction they have decided is the future of MLB, no matter how many rules they change and how much they encourage the Overload, no matter how many HR Derby's they hold, they simply cannot change what sits right at the core of the game. Everything in baseball starts with a pitch thrown by a Pitcher who is part of a Battery that has a plan that they know and that the Batter does not know and can only guess at. All their silly Machiavellian efforts do is weaken the game's most attractive element, its multi-demensionality. As HR totals and K totals rise all it brings to my mind is a game that will ultimately bore us to tears!!!

Footwork around 2nd base is not something that you leave off of for months or years and then just pick up where you left it. That Mookie takes ground balls at 2nd during infield practice "for fun" and to keep his hand in does nothing to recover his footwork around that bag. Even if he takes a few throws there in practice is just does not get it done. For example it took X two years of MLB play and constant attention to one position to finally have good footwork around 2nd base. It also does not help Mookie deal with the intricacies of the God Damn Overload shift which is now almost as complicated as audibles in football. Its just a bad idea for three games or one game in the WS. It would be the panic move of panic moves. This is particularly true given that there is already an infield weakness to X's right at 3rd base no matter who is playing over there which means X already has more ground to cover to his arm side than to his glove side. That at least makes sense as X is far better going right than he is going left. When you really look at it, the logic of moving Mookie to 2nd base for WS games falls apart pretty quickly. This post season has so far turned on pitching and defense in spite of every possible PR outlet and baseball talking heads desperately trying to sell the MLB party line of power hitting baseball as the key element. Listening to these people on MLB Network spew their silly blather is just sad, pitiful really. They will pay homage to the great defensive plays and run prevention that have just dominated the post season as they always do and then go off and explain why its all going to change for "the next series". That has been their MO for the whole post season. Ah-huh

Possible wild card entry.....Wright to the WS roster. Says he feels great...pitched a simulated game. Knuckler could be a monkey wrench for the Dodgers.

Machado has a short-circuited brain. If that were not the case, we would not be talking about this at all. So the argument is that Machado was "thinking" about his future and consequences when he ran over the Brewer 1st baseman's Achilles in the NLCS? What he figured nobody would notice that? He doesn't care. He has never cared and he is not about to start caring a few days after running over the Brewer 1st baseman's Achilles in front of the whole world!

I don't buy that JBJ is suddenly such an offensive monster that he sends either Beni or JD to the bench for games in LA. You might be less inclined to play JD out there if Buehler is pitching. Buehler is the one Starter they have that can get to the hole in JD's swing. We probably clear Buehler here in game 2 making that a mute argument. But do you really want to see JBJ instead of Beni against a LH pitcher if forced to make a choice in LA? Mookie to 2nd would be a panic move which Cora has resisted in his lineups regardless of anything. So I don't see it unless a panic move is called for.

Frankly I have a hard time fearing either the Dodger hitting or the Dodger pitching. Their pen is better than our pen. No question about that. But Kershaw is not the Kershaw of old and Sale is not mid-season form Sale. A wash IMO. I am somewhat concerned about Price in the cold up here. One reason I wanted Price pitching under the roof in Houston. But I am just going to have an open mind that Price, who says he found something that night in the pen, has actually found something by taking the edge off his arm before his Start day. Do they try to duplicate that in some fashion or not before the Price start here? Their pen is a good deal better and their Rotation gets a slight edge from me until I get some idea what is actually going on with Price. I do not "fear" their hitting. I respect it. But I don't fear it. Have we not already proven we can pitch to wall bangers? How many wall bangers do we have to shut down before we prove the age old adage that the battery has the advantage and if wall banging is all you do, pitching can shut you down? Couple that with 4 games in Fenway Park which is NOT a HR hitter's park but is a Doubles park and I am not sure there is much to fear in the Dodger's hitting. If you keep them in the yard where are they going? Their defense is very good but not great IMO. Not sure if Grandal will get any starts at Catcher. He has been a panic behind the plate. If they are equally adapt at all these positions then they are not optimal at any of them (see Brock Holt). Turner is great at 3rd. Machado has that howitzer at Short. Other than that, I don't really see a whole lot to get excited about. As for playing in LA, Betts gets CF, Beni gets LF and JD gets RF unless something strange happens in Game 1 or 2. That is subject to change based on what actually happens in the actual games. I don't buy the idea that JBJ has turned into some monster in the post season that sends Betts to 2nd or sends Beni or JD to the bench in LA. Beni is the guy that will have to justify that decision. No "Hero" swings Beni. No "I am going to be a hero and pull the ball over the RF wall swings Beni. Just keep doing what you do best...go oppo, take walks. If Buehler is held out by Roberts till going back to LA, that might put JD on the bench there for the start of a game. Buehler is the only Starter they have that can get to the hole in JD's swing. No matter how we slice it, games in Dodger Stadium are not going to be walk overs for this Sox team. But this is not an easy pick and Sox in 5 is just as valid as Sox in 6 and Dodgers in 7 is almost as valid for that matter. Mine is Sox in 6.

Manny is a monster talent attached to a short-circuited head. I think the crotch grab garbage is just funny. None of that stuff actually effects play on the field, not the Bregman tweet and not the Judge boom-box thing and not the Machado crotch grab. Its baseball TV talking head fodder but not more than that. All of that stuff is just funny. However, sidelining Pedey for a season if not ending his career is not funny. Banging off the Brewers Aguiler's Achilles at 1st is not funny. Grabbing the Shortstop's leg on the DP is not funny. The way he treats players on the field with utter distain which I think feeds into his willingness to injure them is not funny and all that stuff does impact play on the field. I don't care about the enormous talent when its attached to a short-circuited head. I would not give him the time of day and I sincerely hope his nonsense costs him millions of $ in the free agent market. There will be teams that will just pass especially after the Aguiler play. Too many fans got an eyeful of that. Too many owners got an eyeful of that. Machado can't protect his teammates from retaliation from other teams for the real damage he does on the field and the payroll is the highest valued asset a MLB franchise has. MLB needs to get control of this mess. Ticky tack fines for doing real physical damage on the field ain't getting it done.

I wonder if the Dodgers have learned their lesson about Grandal behind the plate. Barnes had an immediate settling influence on the whole team for Game 7 which is exactly what a competent defensive Catcher will do for a team. Defense starts up the middle and most particularly behind the plate. If that is the hole in the wall, the whole wall is weaker by a significant degree. Dodgers played their only decent game of the 7 games in game 7. If I were a Dodger fan I would not be all that encouraged about that. Red Sox played post season baseball the way it is supposed to be played. Every out was precious, every out used and every out made. But they did not make that the reason to disintegrate into a bowl of jello. They made it the rational for doing what they know they do best. The Yankees did what they do best this year. That was never going to be enough. They were always going to be too young up and down their lineup to be able to stand up in the post season and their starting pitching was always suspect. Let that be a lesson to fans too impressed with a bombs away offense that actually can't do anything but bomb away. Good luck with that in post season play. Their years are ahead of them if Management can keep them together and if they can replace the old man rotation. They were never going anywhere in the post season. Even the damaged Astros would have taken them apart. The Astros were taken entirely out of their game by the Red Sox. Yes they were injured and the Altuve injury was finally the last straw. But they were well on their way to destruction at the hands of the Red Sox even before the Altuve injury. So the question really is one of whether or not the Dodgers can stand up to the enormous pressure the Red Sox exert by simply being an immovable rock. The Sox so far have not changed a thing. Cora for his part has only been a novelty in using Starters with scheduled starts in relief roles before those scheduled starts. Other than that, he has been as predictable as could be. No surprises, no panic moves...no need even after losing game 1 and not knowing what he really has in Sale.