jung

Well if I were scouting the Sox for some other team I would say, do not throw 0-0 meatballs to this team and throw as few FB's for strikes as you can get away with. Show it. Don't show it off unless you have a fantastic FB. We were feasting on a bunch of 0-0 garbage for awhile and we have a couple guys at least in this lineup that seem to struggle a bit more than the norm with breaking stuff.

Geez, somebody throttle the A's pitching coach before he tells everybody else what he appears to know.

Do we have a pitcher that can get Simien out? What did we do to this guy?

Honestly I thought it was a bad call. Thought the umps were intimidated by the situation. But stuff happens. In truth, I would rather a stinging liner to kill a no hitter. Don't really care much for dribblers to kill a no hitter no matter who is playing.

Johny Gomes...good grief. Like we now need a new rule regarding the first base lines. Love to see the rules you would write Johny

They are not going to change their approach. I am not all that impressed with the general quality of starting pitching around the league so far. I much prefer them feeling like they are going to see good pitches to hit early in counts. Usually that will pay off these days.

Kid pitched a great game.

This is a shot to break it up. Hanley loves stuff like this

The Sox have really been handled by the sequencing tonight as well. Just never caught on to what Manaea was doing

Not sure having all these LH bats in the lineup has helped tonight.

Big dif in hitting with a lead and the Sox have been ahead a good deal lately. Even a bigger dif when you start feeling like the pitcher has got your number. Getting some decent pitches to hit now and just not doing anything with them. Could have used a bit more from the Right hand side tonight. Devers and JBJ have just looked handled. Sandy has looked handled. Beni did not do much so far. Just calm down now and hit the darned thing.

Now Manaea has got us anxious and we can't do anything with decent pitches to hit. Devers was just out as he was walking up to the plate.

Simian is in Sales head. Seems to know exactly how Sale wants to pitch him.

JD got a decent 0-0 pitch to hit and just fouled it off. Don't know what nunez was swinging at for strike 2

Well like I said...I still like this approach much better than the "lets wait for 2 strikes and think we are going to do something approach". Not going to see many pitches you can hit out at 2 strikes. But we are going to see some games like this where a guy is handling us with only 83 pitches through 7 innings. Not going to get no hit often and hopefully won't tonight.

Pitchers were bound to start to adjust to the new aggressive hitting style. Sox not seeing get me over 0-0 pitches tonight. Red Sox had gotten such a league rep for being passive at the plate. But this is still a better hitting approach for this team.

I didn't think that was going to stay in the air long enough for JBJ to get to it

Geez Pom is always flexing that forearm...whether he is fine or not its like he is always trying to test it to see if he thinks its fine.

Pom is struggling with his release point and is not extending to the plate. Everything is up and to his arm side unless he actually aims it. So he needs the work. Heck if it were me, I would bring him in for the next inning. Not sure Cora will, but I would.

Jeez we are at what 15-2 for a record and this is Pom's first game back. Walks and a Curve up were always laying in the weeds for Pom. But if we are not going to give Pom some rope now, just trade him for God sake.

Pom struggling with keeping the ball down. Not a good place for him to be living with that curve.

Grrrrrrrrrrr....walks Grrrrrrrrrrrrr

Oh look....we are up a run in the first inning again.

We have obviously not seen everybody yet so this is a way premature comment. But I think the starting pitching relative to the teams we are facing is a huge difference. In fact it is likely the dif has been large the last couple of years and Farrell simply did not know how to take advantage of it. Our starting pitching is so good on a relative basis. Been seeing it over and over again. Maybe its the concentration on power pitching. But we see guys that either: - throw 0-0 meatballs because they are so afraid of getting behind in the count which is their general state of being on the mound. This is where the Farrell approach really became outdated - then we also see starters that either see their velo fall of a cliff edge at about the 50 pitch mark or loss command of their off speed stuff at about the 40 pitch mark Skaggs last night was a perfect example of the latter case. He started the game with a decent curve, fairly tight, deep. By 40 pitches the thing was already flattening out, was neither as tight nor as deep and it was getting tagged. A decent weapon at the start of the game had turned into a meatball inside of 50 pitches. If that is what the rest of the league calls starting pitching these days, I am not sure they can keep the Sox under 100 wins.

Two big differences between this team and last year's team at least from the first couple of weeks: 1) Good riddance to the Farrell led "lets take two strikes and then think about swinging at what is left" approach 2) Starting pitching. We are so fortunate to have the starting pitching we have compared to the teams we are facing Seen it over and over so far. Not sure if the focus on power pitching is the cause but most of these guys can't hack it as starters. Saw it again with Skaggs last night. Started the night with a decent, tight curve ball. 40 pitches in it had flattened out. Was not nearly as tight or as deep and it was getting tagged. A fearsome pitch turned into a meatball. Either their velo falls off a cliff or they simply cannot maintain command of their off speed stuff.