jung

They don't look confident right now. They don't look like they are having any fun.

Hey you have to be better than me. The few times I take on a game thread, everybody else has to be asleep at the switch at game time and I put up a game thread at that time. Usually the forum is screaming for my head half way through the game and rightfully so!

Why by the way are we expecting pitching to carry this team? That was not the plan. The pitchers have performed above expectation. We should not be shocked if they turn into pumpkins.

They are not playing like a team. I know baseball is a sport of mainly individual matchups. But they are all trying to carry the team on their backs individually and then getting down in the mouth when it does not happen. Everything in the batting order after Hernandez is pure s*** right now.

Maybe if Eck actually watched the game instead of offering his usual ra-ra BS, he would have seen how the flow of this game had turned decidedly against the Sox innings ago.

Schwarber likes swinging like my Beagle likes talkin'. For those that have never owned a Beagle, they feel quite justified in discussing the situation with you like all the time. They have quite the vocabulary of howls and barks and grumbles and mumbles all different expressions of "What is this ********". In other words, Schwarber likes swinging' lots!

The day Cora said he wanted to get more guys on base in front of JD I said Uh-ohh. Rafi has not been Rafi of late. X man has the wrist. JD always has the potential to go flat as a pancake IMO and Renfro is not doing anything either.

Middle of the order has picked a bad time to go flat.

2-0 pitch to Renfroe was pure garbage and he had to know he was not going to get a FB. Should have been ready for that location and hit it to the moon.

Renfroe should have been on that 2-0 pitch

Got too much weight outside of his knee. I have done that myself. Feels like your knee exploded for a few minutes and then real sore for days after.

As I remember it we want Franco batting from the left side. Didn't work out this time.

These Rays just don't go away. We have more games with them coming up. Either we will break them or they will break us.

Geez we got nuthin' outta' that! Holy crap.

I fail to understand why Eck is so enamored with Sox hitters "just missing" a pitch. Missing it is "didn't get it" right Eck.

Except that now we have 14 pitcher pitching staffs leaving 11 everyday players, 9 of which at least in the AL have to be in the lineup just to start a game. One of which has to be your backup Catcher. It is a massive mutation. We want to "think' they are better at pitching because they throw so hard ....but for 20 pitches or so and then they are done. Its not like they suddenly developed the bionic arm that can throw that hard for even 50-60 pitches. Guys that can throw hard for multiple 10x of pitches are called STARTERS. They used to pitch every fourth day for anywhere from 4-9 innings unless they drank too much the night before and threw up on themselves in the dugout after a half inning on the mound. They would roundly criticize 4 inning stints and would spit on 5 inning stints instead of rewarding them. They always were called STARTERS. There are only so many of them to go around and in a 30+ team enterprise with multiple layers of minor leagues below them there are just not enough of them to go around. The simple solution of expanding rosters won't work because everybody acknowledges that if they expanded rosters teams would universally.......just bring in more pitchers. MLB has obviously now recognized the mess it has made via over-expansion and is trying feebly to correct in some sense. That is why we now have a rule requiring that a relief pitcher face at least three batters. THAT rule has nothing to do with length of game. That is a dodge. Its a feeble effort to keep teams from running amok filling their roster with even more pitchers. fHowever, unless MLB suffers a massive contraction of teams, I don't see a solution. I will be long in the grave before there is a massive contraction in the number of teams. NOTHING they do is a real effort at dealing with length of game and until they deal with hitters picking their asses, scratching their balls, fixing their gloves and consulting with their dead relatives before actually standing in the box to hit, length of games will continue to evade them.

The only saving grace is that like lemmings they all do the same s***...every manager, every game. Have not seen any divergence from the mighty database though I have not seen every game, obviously. They simply refuse to let pitchers work out of their own jams 3rd time through unless they literally do not have an option to go to. Doesn't matter how good the guy is pitching, he is outta' there.

Great win!!! Terrific game too.

That was a better throw by Allen than the lollypop he threw from RF yesterday. But that needed to get to home on the fly. Not better than a decent throw. Just not a lollypop. Sox have been a little snake bit in that X has the bad wrist, Arroyo is out and Rafi needs to take a chill pill at the plate. He has been uber-Rafi lately and normal Rafi is just right.

Funny what a difference a day makes. THAT'S BASEBALL.

I would like to see this team with one more good bat and one more good arm to make a run. The Rays are not going away for one thing.

Rafi gets Cole!

Tie game. Not much of a throw from short RF. Your mistakes or your shortcomings are all very hard to cover up on the baseball field.

Can't believe that just didn't bang around in the triangle for a triple.

Nope.... just informed.