jung

Come Rick. I could have hit that and you don't want to throw anything up there that I could hit.

He has got quick hands in the batter's box which you can't teach. But he is here Waaaaaaaaay to early and he is at least 2-3 years from being an actual ML hitter. Has actually improved more as a fielder this year than he has as a hitter. Has a long way to go. Might have actually regressed a bit as a hitter. Started the season swinging at pitches thrown at his body before two strikes and pitches in his eyes at two strikes. Now he is just swinging at everything.

I get the feeling that Rafi is going to turn into an auto-out against stiff post season pitching.

Talk about a study in contract. Rick clearly does not go to the plate looking to take three feeble swings and grab his glove...the typical pitcher's experience at the plate.

Get on it Rick...I suspect we need one of your gems tonight kid.

None of them can pitch and I just do not know what we will do when we face the few teams in short series in this league that can pitch. Remember the Yankee/Oriole post season of a few years ago? Absolute offensive juggernauts in the regular season, both teams with shoeboxes for parks playing each other in a seven game series and those two offenses got completely dominated by pitchers that knew their weaknesses and just exploited the pure-t s*** out of them. Plus for my money there has only been one David Ortiz in the post season and it took him what.....10-15 years to turn into post season David Ortiz???

I stuck Valasquez in there because he has a resilient arm. That is what we will need in the post season. How well he performs could be something else. But he has a resilient arm. Like I said, we will be running the same guys out there day after day after day and I don't think we have many guys, maybe two that have proven to have a resilient arm. Heck Hembree is the opposite of resilient. Kelly is as reliable as a hand grenade with the pin out. Workman is a mystery. I would work Barnes more often back to back and even back to back to back through this stretch late August and early Sept and see what he does. Kimbrel is a known, pluses and minuses. No sense doing it with him. We wouldn't learn anything. We already know what he can and can't do. I would work Brassier back to back to back and see what he does. I don't know what to do with Thornburg. Send him to a shrink.

In the post season we are going to be running the same pitchers out there over and over again. There won't be any of this "here, kid, give it a try" stuff unless everybody is totally gassed and totally used up in particular games. So the guys we have in our pen are going to have to perform in pressure situations back to back and probably back to back to back if we really do get anywhere in the post season. Hembree...NOPE Kelly....NOPE Workman....NOPE Barnes.....very doubtful but maybe Brassier....maybe but I doubt it Thornburg....NOOOOOOOOPE Pom....who the f--k knows Valazquez.....probably can do it at some level of performance Johnson.....maybe back to back but not more than back to back Kimbrel....back to back if its a one inning outing each time. Back to back to back....NOPE Am i missing anybody?

Apparently Lyons missed what the O's fans didn't miss on the Jones play in RF. That was about as disgusting an effort as I have seen in a long time. Anybody think we are going to see something like THAT in the post season?

I would also hope to get E-rod back too. Because then we can play e-rod off Price to our advantage.

Great, the Sox have been in 46 games since June 17th. If Barnes has to make consecutive late game appearances and has to do it more than once under post season pressure, would you bank you post on him? I wouldn't...not on a bet. But I might have more confidence in him if he is truly pressed going into the latter part of this season and performs.

Look at this mess...FOR EXAMPLE!

That said, with a 9.5 game lead playing in a league full of AAA+ teams, Cora would be nuts to go into the post season pulling names out of a bullpen hat. If he uses his head he will back off the rotation which is actually the most dependable part of this team most particularly for post season play. For one thing he will want his top three starters fit and strong going into the post season. He will also IMO STILL want to use Price where he can be most effective assuming he is one of those top 3. The most dependable part of this team post season will not be the hitters and I suspect we will find that out when we are facing the pitching metal of this league every game with them all knowing the specific weaknesses of each of our hitters and with the talent to exploit them. These guys are not gods. Every one of them has a weakness that can be exploited by pitchers who can get pitches to those spots consistently. If you as a team cannot exploit the weaknesses of the opponents hitters effectively in post season series, good luck to you. So if I were Cora I would protect my rotation going into the end of the season and I would give my pen guys chances to actually show something that can translate to post season performance. Not a single one of them has shown the sort of capability that can be an asset in the post season and that includes Kimbrel. He is likely the closest one to showing it with the rest way behind him.

Being 4th in THIS league is not going to help us very much in the post season when every game we play will be against a team pretty much like us. Those games will be between the only four teams in this league this year that are representative of MLB as we have known it.

That would mean something if anybody in this league could actually pitch!

I would not mind seeing Cora take it easy on the rotation from now till the end of the season because we have no pen. We are kidding ourselves. Its a jack in the box pen even more than pens are normally at least for a contending team. Cora has got to be able to depend on something...ANYTHING. What would you say he can depend on at this point? Has Brassier pitched enough so that you are just going to toss him into post season play. He is going to have to get more chances down the stretch and the rest of them are going to have to show some reason for Cora to have some expectations from them. If that costs us a few wins down the stretch FINE.....Setting some season record for regular season wins is not going to mean much if they get bounced out on their ears AGAIN.

We do know that Sale went out with shoulder stiffness and missed three starts right? What are we going to do if Sale goes down in August? Are we really that worried about an inning more of pitching against the O's in the face of the mess they are in if Sale does more to that shoulder at this point? They have to pitch out of that pen. They have to at least come in and try. Thornburg didn't even try! Is he drunk?

Who and how many guys does he actually have out there. These guys have got to come in and pitch. We are over 2/3 of the way through the season and other than some antics they really have not done a darn thing from that pen.

I just don't know how you have a stint like that. There are bad stints. That happens. But a careless stint. You're almost falling off the back of the mound, not finishing in some cases, just all over the place. What does he expect. Does he expect to just throw his glove out on the mound and pitches just magically happen.

He's not doing anything right. He almost fell off the back of the mound on one of those pitches.

I am OK with protecting Sale here. We have 8,000 wins for heaven sake and its about time this pen started to show something besides, sunflower seed contests and God only knows what else.

He's just throwing for God sake. Hes not pitching!

I have no idea what Thornburg is doing.

Mitch just can not pick up Cobb's pitches.

To me at least regular season, Cora has done a terrific job with this team. Once you realize that his tactics are dependent on KNOWING most of the teams we face can't pitch AT ALL, what he does in-game makes a good deal of sense. I really am interested to see how he handles post season play. But I really can't find fault with how he handles in-game strategy, how the team fielding and base running has improved and how well the team has handled injury. Still some screwy base running but nothing like what it was under Farrell.