jung

Both starters are keeping their pitches out of the ugly zone and this park favors pitchers. It sure as hell does not favor hitters.

I have never seen as many lazy fly balls and pop-ups as this year. We have some innings where both teams combine for 6 outs worth of lazy fly balls and pop-ups.

Oakland never has enough good players and ends up with guys that should get limited playing time at best simply playing too often and in too many positions. They do have a park that is tough to play in for opposing teams as the foul ground is huge and there is no short OF. All three Ofer's have to cover a good bit of ground. Most teams are not set up for that. Ours isn't either. The A's usually have enough pitching to take advantage of the Coliseum not being a hitter's ballpark. At any rate whereas Fenway takes away from hitters as much as it gives, the Coliseum is all take and no give. The Oakland side of the Bay has lost so much with regard to pro sports teams and they might just lose the A's too. MLB is tired of the Coliseum and nobody seems to be stepping forward to build a new park for them.

Well they have won a series from us this season. Does not change the difference in talent on these two teams. The Sox have many more weapons with which to win a game. The A's have many more ways to blow their kneecaps off.

Sox should win tomorrow and take the series. The A's simply have to work too hard to overcome their deficiencies and get a win. They simply do not have enough good players.

So Cora is so reluctant to use him that he is down on the farm again. Makes sense.

Lets see how Kemp can screw this up. I don't know why Cora is so reluctant to use Valdez. I mean THIS is better than Valdez?

I can't imagine what it must be like to be an A's fan. Their building SUCKS. They don't ever have enough money to keep good players. They are perennially stuck in this situation where players get too much playing time out of necessity and foil themselves constantly. They have a pitcher friendly park and that is likely about all that saves them. They are a scrappy bunch though.

Kemp is about as useless as tits on a bull. The A's had Simien. I guess could not afford to pay him. Now the Jays have him and he is the starting all-star 2nd baseman. As a result Kemp has to play more than he deserves and it seems the A's have to score enough to overcome Kemp every night, never mind anything else. Sort of like the Yanks with Torres only worse.

Cora told Richards that he has Shawn Bieber potential. I don't think so.

And the Yankees Loooooose.....the Yankees Loooooooose.........AGAIN Thats all I got!

Both pitchers staying away from the ugly locations so far. Montas lost it when he hit Vaz and had to pitch from the stretch for the first time.

Doubt it. Wong is here due to injury to the Sox regular 2nd catcher. There are not enough spots for everyday players to carry three catchers with the number of pitchers on the Sox roster.

I would like to see Duran.

Notice where the Hernandez HR pitch was thrown? Keep throwing them there pitchers....good luck with that. Promptly plunks the next batter.

Yanks ownership released a statement today expressing confidence in management. Ah-huh. Not sure that is going to keep their natives from growing restless. That is one lousy looking team.

Unless they suffer a horrible stretch of injury I suspect the Sox have enough to get to the playoffs...likely enough to win the division. Virtually nobody can pitch this year. MLB masked the growing weakness in pitching by allowing all sorts of BS to be used on the mound for years and suddenly, out of the blue decide to stop that mid-year 2021 because Spydertac works that much better? Well OK, but they should have stopped it years ago, decades actually. What they have really done is exposed how bad the pitching has become. Why do you think these teams need 13-14 pitchers? I don't care what they throw, FB, Curve, Slider, Change or how hard they throw, if they keep throwing pitches from about the top of the thigh to 3-4" above the belt, the hitters will hit it. 3" outside to 3" inside, it does not matter. Keep throwing pitches in that vertical patch and the hitters will tag them and this generation of pitchers treat that patch like some sort of magnet to the baseball. It is a very good year to have hitters and we have them in abundance.

Geez you would think Mike Minor would want to put a little Grecian Formula or something in that beard of his. He is only 33 but he looks like 43.

At least the Perez HR is with nobody on.

The brilliant Joe Madden proves less than brilliant again. He has Ohtani bat lead off which Ohtani does to no effect. Ohtani promptly goes out to pitch and loads the bases on walks, give up two hits, hits a batter walks another. 41 pitches later the Angles are down 4-2 to the Yanks still no outs and Madden has to pull Ohtani. Now Madden will be stuck with pitchers batting lead off as he does not have enough bench players to pinch hit for them each time through the batting order. Its now 7-2 Yanks, they are still not out of the 1st inning. With all due respect to Madden, the Angels organization and the player Ohtani himself, this can't go on much longer. He is going to have to decide if he is an everyday player or a pitcher. Leave to the Angels to have agreed to this PR fiasco in the first place. Not that the player is not good enough to do this for awhile. But it is something of a gimmick.

It doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel worse!

Stronger on average for sure....not better. As for more studied, they should STUDY base running because none of them can do it any longer. Can't bunt either. Can't for the most part hit and run either.

A) the devices they had to measure velocity were crap. If you think Nolan Ryan only threw 95 for example, you are dreaming. these guys throw 95+ but for the most part can't throw more than 4-5 innings. Teams carry 13-14 pitchers so they can keep running in guys that can throw 95+. That skews these teams to carrying more pitchers than everyday players and there is no bench strength in everyday players any longer. Teams are hamstrung with three guys on their bench one that has to be the backup catcher. If the DH goes down you have to replace him with somebody on your bench so while the DH is certainly a better hitter than your average pitcher, even your DH leaves you with a short bench. Frankly, its a cluster, the quality of pitching only being part of it.

Not much of an arm on Lopez. He circled Santana's ground ball, got all his momentum going toward 1st base and threw a lollypop over there.

Neither of these guys could pitch their way out of a paper bag tonight. Location....SUCKS. I am beginning to wonder: If you just lopped off the top 5-10 starters in MLB's ERA's, what would the rest of MLB starter ERA's look like as an average across the group. I can probably sort it that way if I take the time.