jung

Nunny standing there like a statue and letting a ground ball play him last night probably did not thrill Cora. Nunny picked the ball up after it banged off his glove and made the play. But it was just a horrible effort on his part. Nobody but nobody playing infield just stands there and lets the ball come to them.

He is a very competent catcher. Its the work load that will be an issue for him. He was not getting half the load to this point in the season and won't stand up to a big increase in playing time. But in truth the league is such a mess, that as long as the pitchers don't revolt this is likely a period the Sox can get through. But that actually brings into question this opinion that "this" is why they hung onto Swihart. They could have found somebody to do this job and Swi has on more than one occasion this season caused Cora to have to juggle players because he did not have a player to slot into a spot where he needed him. Either they had to go with one less pitcher or have somebody more capable as the 25th man on the bench. You could make the argument either way and it still takes you back to the same place. The Sox can get away with this because the league is a mess. Actually the entirety of MLB is a mess. "Parity" or at least MLB's insane efforts to compel parity have been a complete failure and has contributed mightily to what is now an utter s*** show of guys that are too broken down but still playing, guys that are too young but forced up in an effort to create some sizzle where none actually is and players that are just flat not MLB quality no matter how young or old they are surrounding a core of stars that is as good as the league's core stars ever were. But the bulk of players playing MLB is not and never were stars and it is everything outside the stars of baseball that has gone to utter s*** most evidenced by the pitching which is now abysmal. So the Sox themselves are the only thing that might prevent them from getting away with this. Outside of themselves, who in baseball is to stop them, the other 3-4 teams in the league that are actually worth a darn???? I don't think so. The Red Sox pitchers are the whole story regarding this situation.

Its clear that the Sox are almost treating this as an emergency catcher. Does it at all appear that they are working Swi into some sort of rotation behind the plate? NO Does it look like they are confident that he would pull off even a light rotation? NO However, do we think Sandy can suddenly jump in and handle what Vaz was handling? NO The Sox are going to get by with this unless the league suddenly turns into a league chock full of sold teams... That is not going to happen. The real beneficiary here could be Swi himself though I doubt it. He is going to be tossed into a circumstance not much different than the one he has faced all year with the Sox only now with more visibility. Swi's LH swing has fallen into complete disrepair for one thing and his RH swing has never been a thing of beauty. I have one qualifier. the Sox will get away with this as long as the pitchers don't throw up on their shoelaces, a distinct possibility.

If you guys are talking about a position player moving to DH the answer is no. You can only replace your DH with a player off your bench.

I actually think Cora knows these pens we face are awful. His basic in-game decision approach is that none of the opponents we face have even decent pens and he is in fact right. Last decent pen we saw was what...Yankees I would bet. We go a couple weeks at a time without seeing a decent opponent pen. Having watched so many of these games this year, we have to admit that Cora is banking on scoring more runs late in game and he is right virtually every time.

When Alex says you have the day off, you would do just as well to not even show up.

That hit nunny in the worst possible spot...right in his glove. Nice play by Devers though.

Just cannot use Hembree as much as you think you want to. He needs more time between stints. Start using him everyday for even two days running and body parts start falling off. Then he also sometimes comes out of the pen short arming the ball and he is just awful when he does that.

Nunny running for cover. "You take it XB. Atta' boy...nice play"

When you think about it, when Holt does not play the infield is XB and pray that all the balls go his way. He has taken that burden completely in stride. That is a heck of a burden when he gets to look right and sees the kid and looks left and sees nunny.

Something has gotten to XB these last few days. He has absolutely sparkled and has in many ways carried the team. He might have decided that he was going to drive to the ASB as we have certainly seen players do that before.

Mookie is such an incredible baseball player.

Wish we had gotten one run out of that inning where JD flied out with runners on. 3-0 lead gets out of bloop and a blast range at least.

Lets not work this to 3-2 please

That is just a crummy pitch eddy

If we saw Odor as much as we see Gardner I would be just as happy seeing him abused as Gardner.

E-rod not finishing his pitches so far. Odd...that has not been one of his maladies.

That got out in a hurry.

I suspect Cora is getting frustrated with JBJ. He has not paid attention to the one instruction Cora gave him. But in all honesty, JBJ is incapable of following that particular instruction.

A confident E-rod can be a wonderful thing. Vaz called a near perfect game last time out for E-rod. Hopefully Sandy was taking notes.

Actually no...you could have more teams packed around 500 as opposed to so many well above 500 with others well below 500. The teams below 500 this year are in the main way below 500 and the teams above are way above. The spectrum top to bottom is alarming to say the least. An even more telling number is the range of difference between the best ERA team pitching stats and the worst ERA team pitching stats in the league. The team ERA pitching stat range is both an indicator of how good the pitching is or how bad the pitching is in the league AND how good or bad the hitting is in the league. The range is greater than it has been in the 21st Century. Usually it is packed in a tighter range of about 1 run or less, top to bottom. This year..... its closer to 1.5 runs...just a monster range top to bottom which tells you that not only is there a big difference between the teams with the best pitching and the worst pitching but a bid difference between the teams with the best hitting and the worst hitting. We see this expressed almost every night as unless we are playing one of the 3-4 other AL teams that are truly competitive with the Sox these games are laughable absurdities for the most part.

At 40-51 its not like the Rangers are lighting it up either. They are one of the 7 teams in the AL playing sub-500 ball. Just Godawful baseball.

Sandy and Vaz have split the load, 60 to Vaz and 40 to Sandy. Anybody that thinks that Sandy will suddenly be able to play some giant number of games with Swi as an adequate backup for very long is dreaming and forgetting vaz for swi is a pipe dream. Fortunately the entire league is crap but for 4 teams. If the sox get by with this for anything longer than a nanosecond, that will be the reason why. In any event, they will need vaz back in time to be ready for the end of the season and post season. You swi lovers remind me of the crowd that keeps waiting for JBJ to hit for a whole season or even half even or even half a half of season....another pipe dream. If Swi can recover in real terms, he will need an off season of solid work and a new team to boot.

Wow that was a curve ball? Remy must have seen the grip. I have a hard time recognizing a pitch that only goes 5 feet.

Jesus look at the size of that outfield. If the MFY's had to play here they would be crying in the beer. "This is just unfair. Its too big." Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!