jung

Didn't help now did it! Did Bregs look comfortable batting from lead off? NOPE Not saying the Astros "lost" the series...a popular theme from our many trolls. We won the series. Point is, we are not a head and shoulder better team than the Astros. We are not 4 straight wins better if the Astros are not banged up. These two teams will battle for the next few years. In addition, since this is the Dodgers or Brewers thread, I just don't care. They are not even playing baseball, neither of them. Funny how NL enthusiasts include so many whiny purists and the game they are playing over there is much farther away from baseball than the game the Astros and Red Sox play.

Honest to God, I don't care which one. They are playing such crap baseball in the NL. "Oh I didn't hit a HR...well I guess I must have struck out. Thats all there is right, home runs or strike outs?" RIDICULOUS Houston would have put up more of a fight if they were not so banged up. They WERE NOT the most diverse, best offense this season even when healthy. We were. But at least they would have tried to play their game if they could have and they were the 2nd most diverse, best offense of the regular season. Nobody is even trying to play "baseball" in the NL. They are playing glorified HR Derby. I actually think Correa had a visit from Dr Needle sometime after game 2 or possibly before the series even started (Dr Needle is not a magician). I refuse to believe he suddenly found his "timing" from his back injury and started at least hitting some. Once Altuve turned into Mr Gimpy that was just too many pieces nursing injuries and the Sox just never let up. Gonzalez back probably won't start feeling right for another week after his run in with the Monster unless Dr Needle paid him a visit as well. The Sox pressured the Astros right into their graves...the last straw being AJ's panic move. How did that work out AJ? Bregman went from taking walks to walking back to the dugout from lead off. I think he went 0-9 from lead off. AJ was totally out-managed by Cora. Great performance by Price in game 5. Terrific performance by Eo the entire series. Gutty performance by Porcello, an outfield defense that was just off the charts and an offense that never stopped doing what it does best. Too much pressure for the Astros and they were toppled. If these two teams can hold onto their core players and keep them healthy, they will be beating each others brains in for at least the next couple years.

JBJ had to be pushed to a career changing moment to recover his season. He was not a hitter all the way up to when he started going opposite field as a means to tame his demons. I really don't know if this is a real career corner for him. It is without question a career recovery as he was well on the way to defensive specialistville.

The thing that does stand out in this series is the amount of fortitude the Sox brought to bear to pressure the Astros right where they were vulnerable. The Astros are a great ball club. So its not like the Astros went from 2017 Champs to 2018 horse dung. The Sox never lost sight of what they needed to do to win this series. Never changed a thing offensively. Made line up changes but the guys playing never took their eyes off the prize, never changed their approach and forced the Astros to succumb to that pressure and flip out in the process.....Just a fabulous performance and a well deserved ALCS win....just outstanding.

The Sox pressured the Astros to such an extent that the obvious shortfalls in this years Astros v last year's team were exposed. But the Sox pushed them there. It took everything the Sox had early in the series to put the Astros down. I will grant those that want to claim the Astros lost this series that once pushed there, the Astros did not respond and then AJ got to a panic. But a champion does not just fold his tent. You have to pull up his tent pegs, roll it up with him inside, stuff him in the bag and zip it up. That is exactly what the Sox did to the Astros.

Quick John Henry, build a roof over Fenway. We can call it The Price Shingle.

Lotta demons expunged tonight. Unbelievable start from Price. Kimbrel finally gets a close without giving up a run. Sox never changed their approach at the plate. Astros changed too much and never got on track. WS here we come!!! Simply could not post during the game. Too nervous. Almost forgot, Cora managed AJ right into the ground.

Don't know how or where Price found his Change. Has not had that pitch for about a month.

Sox should not change a thing for tonight other than how they need to attack Verlander. But I don't want to see them change their offensive approach. Look what its gotten the Astros.

Verlander is as tough minded a pitcher as I have see since Bob Gibson and that guy was a rock. There are some other notable tough minded pitchers that fit that mold including Pedro, Shill, Steve Carlton (Now he was tough minded). He was a mad man. Bumgarner sort of fits in there. Gibson sits atop the list. Anyway, you can literally see Verander get his back up if a team dares to challenge him in the 1st inning. I think its a thing with him. But he has given more up as he has aged. He is getting up there in age.

Actually, I forgot about Barnes for tonight. My bad. He should be available for an inning as he hardly threw at all last night. I would not let him have more than an inning...but he should be able to do that. I would use him if we actually have a shot at winning this game.

There is some truth to that. The Astros are not playing the offensive game from last year or even what they were playing earlier this year. Just not healthy enough to play that way. What they are doing is not working.

That makes some sense. But remember, what is behind Price for this game is likely some combination of Erod, Workman, Hembree, Kelly. Heck that bunch is going to strike more fear into our hearts than the heart of anybody batting in the Astro's order.

Lineups in folks. Moreland at 1st, Kinsler at 2nd, Devers at 3rd, Vaz catching for us. AJ using his Bregs at the top lineup. But he has moved Correa to 4th in the order moving Gurriel behind Correa. 1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 3. J.D. Martinez ® DH 4. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 5. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B 6. Ian Kinsler ® 2B 7. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 8. Christian Vazquez ® C 9. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 1. Alex Bregman ® 3B 2. George Springer ® RF 3. Jose Altuve ® DH 4. Carlos Correa ® SS 5. Yuli Gurriel ® 1B 6. Marwin Gonzalez (S) 2B 7. Tony Kemp (L) LF 8. Martin Maldonado ® C 9. Jake Marisnick ® CF

Yea I posted early on that I thought AJ had to do something to protect Bregs but really thought AJ's move to Bregs at the top was a panic move. Bregs led off all of 12 of the regular season 162. So if that was their best lineup they would have used it more than that. I thought moving Gonzalez up or possibly both Gonzalez and Correa up and Gurriel down was the move and posted exactly that before they even announced the lineups for Game 4.

You will knock me over with a feather if we get 5 innings and 2 IR's out of a guy starting in the ALCS on three days rest who was throwing in earnest in the pen 18 hours before game 5 time. I don't care where he is in the rotation, how much money we are paying him....that would be an amazing start for a LH pitcher pitching in this park to the Astros RH lineup. That one that would have me asking where he has been hiding that lamp with the genie inside and how many wishes he has left.

Price does have a pretty low bar to meet in this game. If he matches Porcello's gritty, got nuthin' performance, that will be enough. Might not be enough to win the game. But its the most we can expect. So that is like a run an inning for 4, 5 innings tops. If he gives up more than that we really won't have much of a chance. Price is a LH pitcher pitching to a mainly RH lineup in a park with a short LF porch. As I said a few weeks ago, outs in the post season are like innings in the regular season. In game, managers manage every out counting them down the whole way. I don't believe Cora will shoot every bullet he has to win this game. He will shoot what he thinks he can shoot with the travel day ahead of him. These games are not won on momentum. Its not football. These games are won on pitching and defense mainly and then great AB's. Great AB's are why mistake pitches are hit so hard in the post season. Its why pitchers missing location is such a big deal in the post season. But if pitchers make their pitches basically you get a few scattered hits out of your offense and that is that. Honestly, the style of play we are playing vs what the Astros are doing suits this grind through games style better. They have reverted to big inning, long ball baseball and we have not been giving them enough of the kinds of pitches they need to generate winning offense that way. If the Astros were healthy I suspect they would play more like us and more like they did last year. But, they are not healthy enough to play that way. We have had more big HR's than they have had. But you would not say we have hit a bunch of HR's in this series. This is of course not a great time of year to be depending on long balls to win baseball games. Been cold even in Houston and up here in New England........burrrrrrrrr

Catcher is never going to put the target up that early for anybody. Catchers hide the target for as long as they can and MLB pitchers have to pitch knowing that. Pedro is peddling BS with the target nonsense. But I still love him.

Machado represents the worst aspects of the modern professional athlete. He only has one angel on one shoulder and I will leave it to you folks to figure out which angel on which shoulder. Ended Pedey's career (didn't mean to do it). Could have damaged Aguilar's Achilles on the cement headed play at 1st base (didn't mean to do it). Tried to pull the Brewer's shortstop over and got the dreaded automatic DP for it (didn't mean to do it). Some team of players is going to pay the bill this jackass is running up. Either that or somebody is actually going to simply take Machado out and I mean out. I would love the performance but I have lost faith that the extra baggage is ever going to go away. Best scenario, his nonsense costs him a few million bucks in market value....a highly likely scenario in today's baseball economics.

Pedro is not much of an "analyst" in this post season. TBS/FX1 is likely to kick his butt back to NESN after this performance. Even David Ortiz has been more of an analyst than Pedro has been. Not picking up his target in time does not explain Kimbrel's mechanics being shot to hell. Once he starts trying to overthrow the FB (every appearance lately) everything goes to hell. His arm angle drops, his head comes up, his body is too upright, he doesn't finish and nobody including Kimbrel has any idea where the ball is going.

I wonder if Cora is going to plan to sink or swim with Price as he did for the most part with Porcello or if he will plan on having erod sub in. I have as little if not less faith in erod at the moment than I have in Price. I would sink or swim with Price if he is gutting it out the way Porcello gutted out his start. But does anybody think Price has those kinds of guts and can at least hold the Astros RH hitting lineup down to a dull roar in their own park? Porcello had nothing and very likely knew he had nothing as he walked in from the bullpen for the 1st inning. But he did hang in their as long as he could with his butt hung out there in the breeze for everybody to see. Not sure Price can do that. The whole pen and rotation is scrambled eggs except for Eo. Since most of these games have been pen games, Cora now probably ends up with Sale+ almost everybody in 6 and Eo in 7 on a full 4 days rest with everybody in support again. I expect Verlander tonight to be much tougher than Morton was last night. Hard to call what either of these managers is doing with his pitching "working". Its working as long as the ball is hit in the general vicinity of fielders capable of making great plays. Other than that, not working worth s***! Even with that, for my money Cora has been the better Manager so far.

Kimbrel is an absolute mess. Fortunately, so is Osuna. I think its just hysterical that AJ tried Osuna for a 6 out close, an obvious mistake by AJ. What does Cora do? He does the same damn thing with Kimbrel. Both managers clearly left themselves 3 outs short of a full picnic in very similar circumstances. A great play by Beni in LF is the only thing that saved Cora's butt end for him.

Beat me to it. The Sox pitchers have been trying to avoid Bregman's hot zones the whole series and the guy that has just missed entirely has been KIMBREL.

To pitch to Springer????? I just think they burned up too much of Price to no real purpose. Would have made more sense to get him loose. He was throwing in earnest down there. I agree with the comments that ultimately, Cora decided he was going to live or die with Kimbrel. That 3rd run we scored that eventually the Astros recovered may have actually put Cora in an odd spot. We gave that run back but Cora was left on the fence of "do we have enough of a lead that I can get the remaining outs before the Astros score enough to tie it or not". It was not obvious at that point that bringing Price in to pitch to what is an all RH top half of the order (Gonzalez is a SH) made any sense. Would Price have had any more luck pitching to Springer just coming into the game than Kimbrel had pitching to Bregman? Doubt it. As the 9th slid closer and closer to ending, it became less and less likely that Price was coming into the game and more and more obvious that Cora was going to live or die with Kimbrel. What i meant by the Astros "don't give a rats ass about being down 3-1" is don't expect them to be choking on a big apple in the throat because they are down 3-1. I don't see that happening.

I don't really know why they had Price warming hard in the pen. It as much as guaranteed he won't be able to do much today or may not be able to pitch at all effectively or for very long. Erod has totally evaporated in this post season. So I don't know who pitches this thing for us today. Is Sale going to go after all? Plus Correa has stirred and Bregman has finally started to zero in. Springer is on fire. Even Altuve appears capable of hitting though he can't run. I suspect that after today we are headed back to Boston up 3-2 and forcing the Astros to win 3 in a row, 2 in our house. Very difficult but not impossible. We just did it. But I still think this Astros team is too reliant on guys that are not terrible fit physically to win 3 games in a row against the Sox. I don't think the Astros give a rats behind about being down 3-1 in this series. They will come out and play with everything they have and so will we. I just do not see how we bridge the gap from innings 1 through 9 pitching today while the Astros have an obvious path through the early and middle innings through to the 7th, 8th and 9th innings. Verlander is obviously capable of giving the Astros the innings Morton/James gave them last night. Price is already effectively toast for today and Erod is hopelessly lost. Sale is apparently not ready to go. Seems to me the Sox have no choice but to start Erod or Price in spite of the obvious issue of Price having thrown so hard in the pen last night. You have to weigh Erod's hopelessness v the amount of gas in the tank Price used in the pen last night. It is were me I would go Price supported by Erod early and try to gut it out.