jung

I am not surprised Beeks is still out there. If you are going to bring him up for a spot start you have to give him a chance to calm down. His pitches are likely not doing anything because he is a nervous wreck. I am sure he has talent or he would not be here. At least give him a chance to calm down. If he is still giving up hits, get him outta' there.

The great thing about this current Beni run is that he is not overswinging, not allowing his swing to get big and just as it should, the balls go.

Beeks is probably saying to himself "gee that HR ball did not seem like THAT BAD a pitch". But you just can't throw pitches that are doing nothing and get that much plate. Sure it was down but that was at it was ...down....almost center cut and doing nothing. A guy that is not even a HR hitter, barely gets the barrel on it and GONE. Serious rude awakening.

IMO the hardest thing for these guys to get used to is that in the bigs, real mistake pitches just get hit. Even if they are not crushed they get hit.

Was gonna ask if you could tell if Travis could have caught that Castillanos double or if it hit too high off the wall.

This is a public service announcement. I just searched preparing for tonight's game and while ESPN has tonight's Sox game (yuk) at least my channel guide is telling me that NESN has the game tonight as well. That was not the case the other night when ESPN had the game. So it appears that if you get NESN where you are, your senses do not have to be accosted by the ridiculously awful ESPN broadcast. Hope I am right. If not, apologies in advance.

I had about hypnotized myself into erasing ESPN for tonight's game out of my database. Now the remainder of my afternoon is RUINED!!! Thanks buddy!

JDM first, without question..even with my penchant to favor pitching.

I said at the time and I will repeat it now that I thought the cold weather effected JD maybe more than any other player on the roster. He was flat terrible in the OF at the start of the season not helped by the difficulties of playing in our own home OF positions. He looked like and played like a stick man. He is not great out there now. But he is not terrible now that we have more temperate weather particularly when ranked among the horrors that are filling ML unis these days. My biggest concern about JD in the OF is now and was then the same. His bat is just too important to this team and the Fenway Park OF is the physically most dangerous OF in baseball which we know from our own experiences. No matter what he does in the grass of the Fenway Park OF we will rue the day we put JD out there the very day he slams into something out there or turns an ankle out there or makes a physical mistake with the myriad of issues confronted in the Fenway Park OF. And I would not be patting myself on the back too hard for beating the Tigers either. They are a horrible team "competing" in a horrible division where the Guardians are eventually just going to run away and hide. Almost the entire Tigers rotation is convalescing and was not very good in the first place.

It is real hard to watch how these guys pitch and not just our guys. its enough to drive you crazy. Some of them actually have more ammo to attack hitters with and they just insist on backing themselves into these corners and then either work out of it or somebody bails them out or they get what is behind door number 3. Worse to watch in this league because even if they get out of it, there is no pitcher sitting at the bottom of the opposing order to work toward. So all they are doing is wasting pitches and bringing the top of the opposing order up sooner. Pretty widespread throughout baseball now though. Real hard for me to blame the individual pitchers for it.

Tough way to make a living. But good on Barnes for getting out of that.

I would love to jump all over Hembree for that walk. But I see that over and over again. Our team....every team. I have no idea what pitchers are doing these days. If you are not going to go after a hitter like that, who the heck are you going to go after?

Pitchers like this can't handle our 1-6 in the batting order. Its just not possible. Even with Mookie out its not possible.

Jeez no wonder this Detroit team is struggling to pitch. They are all hurt and even when healthy Liriano and Zimmerman are probably the best they have.

Still and all, the dif between our starting pitching and what opponents tend to toss out there against us is frankly ridiculous. I don't really know what has happened to starting pitchers. Its like they have disappeared off the face of the planet. Has David Copperfield hidden them all someplace?

That was not a particularly good job of pitching to Iggy. ERod having another of his lack of attack mentality experiences.

Not sure how long this guy Hardy can last. Not sure if the lack of everyday players is what plagues modern baseball or the lack of starting pitching of any merit. Teams just don't have jack for starters except for the premier teams that seem to have all the starters....like us.

Would love to see ERod have another good night on the mound.

If I were Swi I would want to go to a team with less financial flexibility and less ability to shove more players in my path. At the end of the day a player wants an opportunity to play at the highest level and generate the most income from his career. Swi would appear less well served staying in Boston. No matter how long Swi toils in Pawtucket, it would be more likely that he would get more MLB playing time and get it faster elsewhere.

Vaz did a very good job catching the knuckleball tonight. Wright did about as good a job throwing as a knuckleballer does. Expect lots of walks. It comes with the territory. Often they are followed by gopher balls and we saw none of that tonight. Solid hitting performance. As the pom story develops I am most concerned that they clearly told Pom that he had to return to his standard sequencing about the 3rd inning of his Houston start as he had to start to prove that he could do that. He tried...had some success but then goes to the DL after throwing his first 92 mph FB in weeks. I fear 10 days is not going to get it done. But that is not more than a guess on my part.

Hate to say it but the player that Iggy is now is the player that he portended to be. You could see it before he left the Sox and you could definitely see it from then on....terrible with teammates....carrying around a head as big as a building with a chip on his shoulder to match. Look at him now.

Good grief, not only do guys not know how to run bases. They don't know how to get back to bases. Whats that JBJ...worried about getting the front of your uni dirty? That was awful...just awful.

I like Eck alot. As Remy ages, I really have been leaning to Eck more and more. Nothing really against Remy. Hey I am the last guy to not understand aging. This is twice this week that somebody brought up something from the past that I remember that is from way back there and its starting to get to me! Wilbur Wood's doubleheader this time.

OB has the toughest time judging HR's in his home park. That thing was absolutely gone off the crack of JD's bat...just WAYYYYY outta' here and OB is calling "high fly ball".

Well it was stupid to make the first out of the inning that way. Looked like something we would do. But lets face it, if that were us somebody, no question, would be posting that it took a great play off the wall, two great throws and a really good tag to get him out.