jung

Not real sure if we fit in the exceptional category. Bottom half of our lineup is basically a black hole. If Thornberg and Smith come through and Pedey comes back making a real contribution, then....yes but not before those issues get figured out and all of them have to fall our way. That said, the Sox should win over 93 games sleepwalking mainly based on our rotation which says where the league is at. Baseball has always had teams sprinkled with a couple of legitimate star players and the dregs of the league still do. The difference is that there is so much emphasis on power hitting that the other guys on these teams can barely play at all and if they can do anything guess what it is? You guessed it, generally its contribute with the bat. Nobody fields, nobody runs the bases. Nobody is a bat handler, they can just hit for some power if they can do anything. Nobody knows how to play the game and the rest of a team's players knowing how to play the game is how MLB existed all these years. Add to that the emphasis on power pitching and the number of pitchers each team carries now, nobody has any bench strength at all. So we keep wondering why our manager does not switch this guy for that guy and pinch hit this guy for that guy and its because there is nobody there. Two guys and your backup catcher is about it.

Good enough from Price.

A tough division!! There is one other team in this division worth a darn and that is the Evil Empire. There are not more than Six "good teams out of the whole 15. Maybe three exceptional teams and three good teams. The rest....are glorified AAA teams. The gap is definitely growing from the best to the rest in baseball in spite of all their efforts to try to force parity. MLB has to do some serous soul searching about what it is doing.

Have they made Swihart a bullpen catcher now. God they must hate this kid.

They have to do again with JBJ what they did in 2014 and I am not really sure it is worth the time or effort this time around.

This is what frustrates me about wasting Sales start last night. Your average ML starter now struggles to get to or even through the 6th inning. The worst stat ever laid on baseball is the "quality start". Just a disgusting stat that we all should have spit out of our mouths.

Martin playing 3rd for his 32 time in his career. Alford just up and basically inserted right into the lineup. Shortstops from hell. Donaldson's best days are behind him. I like Hernandez though and I like Maile and Pillar and Osuna. You can have the rest. Plus, no team can overcome the awfulness of Gibby in the dugout. I think you could hand him an All-star team and he would get them to the bottom half of their division. I simply do not know what the first 20 games of any season mean other than that they all count for the season. Once you get to about 30 games, you team is probably playing on average about how its going to play from there on.

The way beni turned for that I thought it was going out

Maile is not going to like having missed that

God this jays team is awful. We can't lose two games in a row to this team.

Price is getting cracked now. These are not bloopers.

Jackie....Jackie.....Jackie.....If you are going to tilt your head as you start your swing you are never going to see the ball unless you catch it way out in front of the plate. Just going to struggle and struggle to try to get your head back on the ball.

"Sigh....I felt great till that 3rd inning....Sigh.....and then my corpal started tunneling again.....Sigh. That happens to everybody right......Sigh"

Good AB beni.....nice shot Hanley

Beni with a screamer to LF. I will take any hit he gives me lately

Probably would prefer Holt against the RH pitcher.

Boone won't make Manager of the Year unless his team totally runs over the league...actually possible considering the trash that is being called a ML team this year and Cora won't stand a chance unless he can keep his team abreast of Boone's team. I suspect your Manager of the Year this year will come from some team of trash players that truly distinguishes itself.

Yes I agree with that. But that also suggests more thought should have been put into those two investments. Smith was close to given away to us and we should have considered that. Thornburg has not pitched a day for us yet...well maybe a day but not more.

I think part of Beni's problem is that he is intimidated by the size of our RF and he takes that on the road with him as well. He wants to hit HR's and thinks he has to crush the ball to do it. That is why he takes these ridiculous behemoth swings only to pop the ball up. Once he gets his hands back inside the baseball all the time as opposed to only on occasion, he will be whatever hitter he is going to be. He should just trust that the ball will go if it should go, especially this juiced baseball. This year's might be even more juiced up than the ball from 2017. I saw Harper hit a broken bat HR the other day, A BROKEN BAT HR and it was not a little doink shot either. It screamed out of the park with a broken bat. We should be noticing how much more often the ball gets stung with a broken bat these days.....tells you something about the ball itself.

There is some logic to starters that did not cut it as starters becoming relief pitchers. What usually cuts guys out of rotations is the inability to get through a batting order more than one time. Well if you can't get through the order more than once without getting tagged, doesn't that suggest that you have a career as a relief pitcher? So its not illogical. Honestly I don't know how much thought we put into the 2018 pen though. It just looks like the 2017 pen to me with various ailing bodies and rehab guys being rotated in. I very much hope that Smith can put another 1 inning stint like the one he had last night in Toronto together. That will immediately move some of these other stiffs (yes stiffs, there I said it) into a more appropriate spot in the pen sequencing.

What a waste of a terrific effort by Sale. We are wasting the efforts we are getting from our starters with an abysmal bullpen, spotty hitting and some managerial work that seems like it needed to stay on the vine just a bit longer.

Absolutely right io. I have no idea myself

Thanks SoxHop..I enjoyed that!

I guess I have had my one relief arm without a walk for the night. More than that appears to be too much to ask at the moment...followed by the bomb. Nice pen we have...nice pen

Again with the hands around the baseball instead of inside the baseball. Beni does get into grooves when he keeps his hands in but I think he is home run happy and thinks he has to crush the ball. Just hit it beni. It will go...TRUST ME