jung

Appears that gone is the E-Rod that works 1-2 counts to 3-2 counts and ultimately a walk.

Eddies been eating his wheaties.

I guess I am not surprised at Cora's sentiment. Thought they would have a hard time seeing Devers as a post season 3rd baseman. But boy...this team is REALLY Right Handed from the batter's box now.

Vaz back. Surprised that he would start this game. I know I am not in line for starting a game thread. Game had started and there was not one yet. Thought folks would be interested in this game given the return of Vaz and E-Rod. Hope I haven't broken anybody's rice bowl.

Just a note to folks because I just found out myself. Tonight's Saturday game is starting at 7:10 Eastern. Whoever is doing it might want to put up a game thread.

For one, the MFY pen needs Chapman back desperately. I have never much believed in Betances if you have to depend on him to really carry the weight as a closer. While this is mainly a comment on pitching and recent posts on pitching I remain from Missouri on the return of Judge to full health and contribution this year.

I just don'e see Cora going back to Pom time and again in a post season environment which is what you look for in a post season relief arm. You don't have the luxury of this grab bag of guys that might work out in a given situation but might not. You have to be able to go back to the same guys over and over again. Pom should make it just to have a lefty....but he really does not make the grade in any other way nor do I expect he will by October.

I would have preferred that Thorny show good more than Pom. What role is there for Pom...a LHer to come in and get LH hitters out? We need Thorny worse and he is not getting it done. So far, Brasier, Barnes, Valazquez are in the post season pen. Workman has the best shot of getting there next. The rest whomever they may be are fill ins to that core group unless Thorny starts to show up and I mean NOW! Pom maybe just to have a lefty. But I don't really know why else.

Beni really needs to do something about his approach at the plate. He is going nowhere in a hurry like this.

We are going to invent a whole new set of standards for what is a pen at least if this nonsense keeps up after this season. I actually don't think it will keep up but it might be a couple years before we get past this hot mess. There is a hole in the talent pool. I really do think that for a few years, MLB was paying big money for relief pitchers and it convinced too many guys to left turn out of taking the time needed to develop as starters. They were just throwers that could throw heat and that was good enough to get a paycheck. However what happened to many of those hot young arms....they fell apart early in their careers. As such we don't have many good starters in the middle of their careers and many of those guys that turned to relief burned out their arms trying to throw so hard every time they came into a game. That leaves us with trash bullpens for the most part. I even wonder how many of those guys we never even saw because they blew their arms out in the minors. So if this gets back to the way things were, developing starters and relief arms mainly coming out of the guys that simply don't make it developing as starters instead of left turning out of developing as a starter early, we should get back to a more normal MLB pitching experience. But there are darned few good starters right now and the pens around MLB are just pure trash.

I actually enjoyed Rizzuto in those years when the MFY's were positively horrendous. Yankee Stadium was absolutely empty and Rizzuto would be doing promos for upcoming games. "Good seats still available for the Tigers series". Which was starting the very next day! Can't you just hear Phil doing them for those of us old enough. I get a warm feeling every time I think of it, like you get from a shot of good scotch.

OK ...so I guess I will make the obligatory comment. "Why don't we get young pitchers like this". There I said it.

That was such a good throw from the position JBJ was in. On another topic...when does the CWS bullpen show up for us?

I went back to look at this as mostly when I look at The God of Hitting's stats I am just going back to remind myself of his outrageous splits. But for example for the years before his military service, Ted was posting up oWAR numbers at 10+. Then he came back from military service and immediately posted up 10+ oWAR numbers again. Just crazy numbers....CRAZY. If you look at today's great hitters, good luck finding somebody posting up oWAR north of 7 just as an example. I imagine that if Ted had not gone off to military service he would have been posting 10+ oWAR for all those years as well which would have just been ridiculous! Again, just to repeat something from a previous post on the topic of Ted, he basically took a great RH hitters swing and implemented it from the LH side of the plate. That allowed him to use a great swing against RH pitchers which is mostly what you see for pitchers even today. Go look at Ted's outrageous splits. All that crap that people consider the "pretty" LH hitters swing really does not help the hitter all that much. In fact, you would like to get rid of most of it if your real interest is in producing outrageous hitting stats. Ted didn't have any of that crap in his swing. He did have a bit more length to his swing than the typical RH hitter. But his swing was so much a great RH hitters swing implemented from the LH side of the plate. I should also add that I do not think Ted just stumbled onto taking a great RH hitter's swing and using it from the Left side because it is just too darned hard to do. Anybody who has switch hit will tell you that swinging from the Left side is not hitting from the Right. IMO, Ted had to break himself of the standard LH hitter tendencies and train himself to hit like a RH hitter from the Left side in order to do what he did. A task I would think impossible to the degree that Ted pulled it off....just super-human. If there is proof of aliens living on Earth, its Ted Williams.

1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 3. J.D. Martinez ® DH 4. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 5. Eduardo Nunez ® 3B 6. Blake Swihart (S) 1B 7. Ian Kinsler ® 2B 8. Sandy Leon (S) C 9. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF

All the pitching in the AL is scattered between 5 clubs. Everybody else has a few young guys working their way up to starting roles and disastrous pens. We had the 29th rated pen in baseball in the Marlins from the NL and the 24th rated pen last night in Chicago. It used to be that if you were the 24-30th rated pens in MLB you could at least pitch some....just not much. Now they can't pitch at all. They are about a step above putting an everyday player out on the mound. Not sure exactly how this happened. You can see the younger guys trying to work their way into rotations. So they are there. But there is a gap in the talent pool. The only thing I can attribute it to is the vast amount of money that for a time was available for relief arms causing guys for a few years to left turn directly into relief roles instead of continuing to develop. So there are a bunch of guys pitching MLB now that never actually grew into starting roles. The old formula of relief arms coming out of your effort to develop starting pitching sort of went out the window for a period and the result is what we have now, teams that can't field enough starters and relief staffs that are flat awful. In our league, the result is that 5 teams really have all the pitching that matters. Things are a little better in the other league....but not much.

Brasier is going to make the post season pen tonight as either the 7th or possibly the 8th inning guy. Workman might be the next guy to earn his spot over the next week. Barnes will make it...Hembree likely won't go at all and Kelly if goes will only be used when Cora does not have a choice.

Ball is not carrying tonight.

I saw about one stretch last year when Kelly's FB had a tail and that is for a career! It has never had any movement. Where it leaves his hand is where it ends up which is why I would not touch Kelly with a ten foot pole post season if I were Cora.

MFY's crying crocodile tears.

Kelly with a bunch of hooks and still can't get 99 past the hitter.

If Giolito had not gotten the 1st out of the inning that inning would have gotten to JD and maybe X as a tie game.

Even getting the 1st out of the 7th is a real benefit to the relief pitcher coming in. But this is our shot .....now that we are into their pen.

CWS have tried to keep their pen sitting for as long as possible.

Good job Work. Cora will need to give him more opportunities though I still don't see a guy that solves our 8th inning problem.