jung

Terrific play both ends. Great throws and tag of the year so far by Vaz on a team that always seems to have trouble with tags.

Hoping for another big night from the Sox LH hitting corp this night minus Sandy.

That does make sense and frankly I am somewhat more interested to see how Vaz handles Wright than I would be in Swi handling Wright.

Wow Cora changed his earlier decision if the reporting was right. The Baseball Show is I believe the guys that had Swi catching this game and they were not offering an opinion at the time they offered it. They said they got it from the Sox. I think NESN had it that way too. I actually don't know what I think about that. There are times when I have thought nobody could do worse than Vaz handling Wright's knuckleball. Just never saw Sandy do much better with it. I am at a loss on this one and if anything am just surprised that this is a changed assignment that as of Sunday night's reporting was going to be Swi's. I guess management puts its heads together and just changed what they were going to do.

This should be a fun game to watch (I was about to say catch). Wright starts and if Cora sticks to plan, Swi catches. Neither Leon or Vaz have distinguished themselves catching the knuckleball. So for all I know, Swi could be better at it given his experience with Wright. Nobody is really good at it because the pitch just does not act the same way pitch to pitch. I don't think I can remember a guy throwing the knuckle that gets as much late movement on it as Wright gets. Its almost like the lack of rotation catches up to it late much like for some guys throwing breaking pitches, the excess rotation seems to catch up to the pitch late. Wright's knuckleball seems at times to almost stop dead in midair and it does it late. Altuve got one of those in Wright's last stint and literally had a bugs bunny baseball moment swinging at it. Altuve knew it and smiled at his own effort after the swing.

Now you are talking about the general tendencies of the Red Sox fan and the Red Sox team building mentality since the beginning of time that hampered this team for decades. Our teams were heavy hitting or tried to be heavy hitting, pitching light teams FOREVER. The actual ONLY difference is that since this ownership group came on board, we will at least BUY pitching. Do we develop pitching here....STILL after all these years? We do occasionally at best. I don't think anybody would actually want to make the case that no ML teams develop pitching? That would be a hard case to make. Tom Yawkey would have sooner died (and finally did) before becoming a franchise that would develop pitching or even treat it like more than an afterthought. A starter of merit and A relief pitcher of merit was about all Tom would tolerate. Mrs Yawkey's group, the Harrington group, everyone of them up until this Henry group treated the assets about the same way, only grudgingly moving closer and closer to an acknowledgement of pitching as an asset a team just had to have if it truly wanted to win championships. It was a matter of some local pride that we could compete at a ML level with mainly sluggers though in fact we couldn't. At least now we will buy pitching. Pitchers and black players were for other teams....not the Boston Red Sox. But those Yawkey teams had guys that could handle the bat and that could field the baseball. They coudn't run worth crap. But then again, Yawkey was just the standard bearer for an American League that was late to developing any players that were not lily white. We went through a stretch when the All Star game actually meant something where the NL won something like fourteen All star games in a row mainly because AL all star teams could not match up athletically. The stretch from the end of the 50's to 1982 the NL compiled an All star game record of 23-1-1! They had mercy on the AL in 1971 only. They literally ran AL teams off the field which is hard to do. It is baseball after all. Its not a track meet. Stubborn those AL owners were about that whole deal of accepting black players.

The question really is where would our 2018 backups and even some guys getting everyday playing time be on a 1978 Roster. Would Swihart be on any 40 man 1978 Roster? I would say no and the only reason he is on this one or even considered to have a possible MLB future is because of his perceived power hitting potential. Would Nunez be getting any playing time at all on a 1978 Roster. Doubt it....he would be recovering somewhere which is where he should be now. Oh by the way the only reason he is getting time on this roster is because of his power hitting potential. He can have a hustle mentality all day long. Nunny does not have a hustle body at this point. Holt conversely would be getting more playing time on a 1978 Roster than he gets here or now. Why? Because his lack of power hitting potential would not be the hindrance to his career in 1978 than it is today. Health allowing, Holt would be playing 120 MLB games a year in 1978. But we don't build Holt's anymore. He is a massive throwback. We build Swiharts and Devers. We bring them up almost entirely based on their power hitting ability and hope they somehow get through games without killing you everywhere else. We build guys that can't bunt, are not good bat handlers, are not good base runners and some that can barely field a position and throw them into a ML uni because they might be power hitters and those are the guys that get the playing time on 2018 rosters, that is if an organization even has them. Those are they guys that even get the opportunities in the modern MLB. Guys like Lin languish away in the minor leagues. No ML team worth its salt in 1978 would do that and if they did, said potential power hitting player would not be getting 100+ games of ML playing time almost immediately. I was discussing base stealing with somebody and they brought up Billy Hamilton. Billy Hamilton would not be considered spit as a base stealer in the days of actual basestealers. Billy Hamilton is a uni filler for one of the worst teams in an MLB we all know is full of hideous teams. But MLB needs 30 teams or close to it and each team needs 25 players at least. So Billy Hamilton, who is not a power hitter but who is not a bat handler or really even a base stealer has a spot on a ML roster.

I don't think its a medical staff issue either. The med staff guys are not magicians. This is a hard game to play if you are not young and perfect from the hips down. It just is. Yet, if we start throwing players out of the league because they are not what they once were, I got news for you people. In very short order you would not have enough actual baseball players that can play at the expected level to fill even ten rosters. We don't have enough of them now! Look at the Jays. Half of their everyday players are farther over the hill than Pedey is today. The other half should not be playing on any ML roster. They have three actual fit and prime everyday baseball players.....THREE!

I don't care what they do with it re-constructively, you are never going to have the same knee again once it starts to go. The cartilage starts to wear and chip away, the tendons stretch and as elastic as they are if they keep getting stretched time and again they just do not come back to what they were once. Tennis and baseball are murder on the lower body, hips, ankles, knees, feet, the achilles, whatever. If the moving parts are healthy down there you are likely to be as fit to play either sport as you are ever going to be. Once you are nursing stuff, you are not and you might not ever be again depending on when you start to wear that stuff out. Its the development end of MLB that seems to be struggling IMO. Major league clubs have fewer legitimate stars to go around and there is a big fall off from the top guys to the guys that are maybe the 5th through 12 best everyday players on the everyday rosters. The back ends of ML rosters are now pretty pitiful. So, we don't have a valid fill-in for Pedey. As I have said in other posts, Brock Holt is the epitome of the type of professional ballplayer that used to occupy the back end of rosters. Now, teams would die to have a Brock Holt. The guys that are playing everyday for many of these teams are not even a Brock Holt day in and day out. I still think MLB's focus on trying to turn their game into a one-dimensional power game, power hitting and power pitching is simply corrupting the developmental process to such a degree that the utility and other backup players a team now has are in the main uniform fillers. This is a multi-dimensional game. The step into DH territory was not IMO a significant mutation of the game. But the stuff MLB has fostered in unison the the Saber demons represent significant mutations of the game at its core. NFL, for all of the screwing around it has done with its game is still a game of blocking and tackling at its core. For all of the Patriot Coaching Staff's estimable talents, why did the Pats lose the last Super Bowl game? Because they did not have a single guy playing in their secondary that could tackle a ballerina in her tutu. One single component of that defense, could not tackle in a game of blocking and tackling and that cost them the biggest prize the NFL has to offer. Turn baseball into a one dimensional game and its not baseball any longer just as the NFL would not still be football if it were not still a game of blocking and tackling. In baseball it is damaging the developmental process for players intending to make a MLB club IMO. Hence, no good backup everyday players that can actually play the game...actually not enough good everyday players even playing every day on many MLB clubs.

Indoors is fine. The ridiculously short porch in left is fine. Those silly right angles in LCF and CF turn the place into baseball pinball. All they need to do is make those angles more obtuse and they have an actual baseball game instead of a pinball game. They could even have dead space behind the remade angles. Who would care? There are so many ridiculous aspects of modern MLB that this park is not even close to the worst example. I guess we should be thrilled that the Hill and the flagpole on the field of play are gone. Its not worse than The Trop which is both ridiculous AND a dungeon.

He is sort of caught in between on that score. I don't think he can execute the shorter, less violent leg kick without reigniting that corkscrew from 2014 as that has been getting more prominent day by day since he has abandoned the more violent leg kick. There is just really nothing to be done with him at this point IMO. He would have to completely rebuild his swing to a much quieter swing and it is probably just too late for that. Certainly can't do it mid-season and he may just not be prepared to do that at all at any time. His swing is like mercury. He gains some control over one aspect and another squeezes out of control. It is just too busy a swing and too many elements of it are counterproductive. He is what he is.

What a terrific way to end the weekend assuming JD is actually OK. A split in a park that is a graveyard for LH pitchers with a rotation that is just about as heavily loaded to LH starters as it gets. Frankly given where the rotation is right now there were no real heart attack moments. Pom is still working his way back or whatever the heck he is doing. But he didn't fall apart. Sale was not dominant Sale but there was nothing there that had you clutching your heart. Price puts in a very solid LH performance in this place against this team and then tonight our LH hitting corp I think has its best game of the season while Porcello and the entire pitching effort just kept the Astros off balance mainly with timely use of their secondary pitches. Every one of them from Porcello through Barnes to Hembree just threw a terrific and very well thought out game.

Barnes has turned a very nice stint into a relief gem. You have no idea how grateful I am for not having to hear those three ESPN knuckleheads even having to look at a camera shot over their backs. WEEI just announced that Wright is getting a "spot" start on Tuesday saying that Cora wants to move the entire rotation back one day for purposes of rest.

Worse actually because now one of his old problems is colliding with one of his new problems. They appear to be additive as opposed to being nullifying. Still and all, I don't believe he will sink farther than his career numbers by year end and he might exceed them. Just no reason to any longer expect a season somewhere around .275 BA with a .800 OPS. Not gonna' happen. Personally I would be beside myself happy with .250 for a BA and just anything for an OPS. Nicely done Brock Holt!

That is a nice job by Barnes...a bit dicey. But we don't expect Barnes to go out there and blow guys away. Porcello deserves to be rewarded here tonight.

Good grief, Nunny will end up removed from this game due to assault by baseball.

Yup

That was the last straw. Since they just can't seem to shut A-rod up, gone to WEEI for the radio feed and muting ESPN audio.

Our NESN guys are the best of what is left of a dying art...the local baseball broadcast team. But all of them are leaning too heavy toward the disgusting YES Network school of baseball broadcasting. Even our guys lean that way more than I would like. But then there is the Orioles crew which is flat disgusting just as an example.

Out-dwelled him, out-dialed him, out-dualed him, out-dealt him. Geez that is what I get for paying attention to the stupid hyphen. Good catch somebody!

If a pitcher can't make pitches to opposite hand hitters on a given night, by rights they should eat his lunch and we certainly have. Holt probably had the most impressive hit of the bunch followed by the Mitch HR and then the Mitch oppo base hit, Swi's hit and then Beni's HR. Beni's HR ball was probably the worst of the pitches Morton threw that got hammered by our LH hitters.

Get him JBJ

Rick is certainly out-dualing Morton who is giving it up like a (fill in the blank) to our LH hitters which of course makes XB's base running mistake doubly frustrating.

Of course if ESPN actually cared about broadcasting the game, they wouldn't be sitting out there under the Crawford Box sign. Unbelievable.

I mean about the team generally. No manager is going to go after a specific player in that case. Heck even Billy Martin would not do that and if he wouldn't nobody would particularly since its rampant on this team. Aren't we running into more outs than anybody else AGAIN!