jung

The way Farrell commented regarding Felix leads me to believe that Farrell is really intending to use him in situations where he can give Felix plenty of time to warm up....like the rain delay situation he referred to. Ya' Farrell said he told Felix he needed to e ready for any situation but what would you expect him to say.

Ells seems to be running fine though and Vic's thumb seems of less concern than is recurring hammy and back. But Vic has gone many games this year without being bitten by the hammy or back. If he had just injured either again just at the end of the regular season it might be different. Since he didn't, I can see not bringing JBJ.

Webster is going to do the kid a favor and take MYers out to dinner tonight so that they can practice their "a building just fell on my head" looks.

That was a very timely hook by Farrell. Came to get Jon exactly when he should have. Terrific game 1 performance by Jon. Tampa Rays...second most frustrating team in baseball to play.

Like when he kissed that tiny little bicep of his?

Priceless shot of Maddon there. Whatza' matta' Joe? Didn't bring in enough penguins or Cuban Salsa musicians before the series.

I could not stomach paying a guy that kind of money and seeing him make those nonchalant "I could give a s***" plays. Cano is a great player but there is no excuse for making the kinds of lazy errors he makes. It is not like Cano has to extend himself as much as he just has to make the plays that are right in front of him to be made. Pedey may miss a play now and again but never because he has his thumb up his ass figuring out where he will make an "appearance" that evening.

One interesting side note on the post season so far: The other night the MLB Network "Panelists" spent at least a half hour talking about how the "young" pitcher did not recover from Young's ringing home run and how inexperienced pitchers should be expected to struggle if something goes awry....an error, a bomb, a bad call etc. However we have seen experienced pitchers crack pretty quickly if things start going sideways. Lester really did not recover quickly from the bad call by the home plate ump and Moore just completely fell apart after the Myers non-play.

Nice piece of base running by Drew

Tough place for a lefty eh Mr Moore.

So hard for LH pitchers in this park. Almost every mistake pitch turns into something s*****.

Really would have loved to go. Have not been to a post season Red Sox game in soooooo long....since season ticket holder. Some fall "thing" is in the air today though at least in NH. My eyes are burning up and there are times when I can't even keep them open. Can't drive!

Obviously the network believes LA/Atlanta is a better draw than Boston/Tampa or Boston/Tampa wold be the 8:00 game and LA/Atlanta would be the 3:00 PM game. The networks would play the games at midnight on Mars if it suited them. I guess the Network is OK with bumping Days of our Lives or whatever other afternoon horse s*** would have been on at 3:00.

3:00 start...the networks strike again.

It will be a dogfight because both teams play that way. Sox have the better offense. Starting pitching may be a wash. Sox have the better defense as long as Ells and Vic can play at their normal pace. Rays may have an edge in the pen but only if their pen guys show up.

I don't know Station..that looked like a pretty typical late season/post season game by the Rays. Tribe never seemed to be in it even with a few base runners. Really does not mean anything for the next series. However I have no expectation that we will just run over the Rays. I expect us to beat the Tampons but ******* Maddon knows how to turn games into dogfights. It is what he does. You can like him for it, you can hate him for it....but that is what he does. Puts good to excellent pitching around solid defense and a few runs here and there and bing bang bong, he has teams frustrated as hell and then on the ropes. However, I just think that this year he will have met his match for a team just oozing the the ability to frustrate the s*** out of you....that being the Red Sox. This Sox team has outmaddoned Maddon all year long and I expect them to do it face to face in the post season. I don't think either team will walk over the other though. Neither team plays baseball that way.

We should have known Tito's little dip-shits were not going to beat the Tampons. They were not even in the game. Maddon has got to be the most irritating f***er in baseball. He has made a science out of being an irritating f***. Worse we get to hear more man love for the ugly f***. "Four different cities in one week....Oh my God...How does he do it?" f***ing can't stand it. Don't even know what i hate worse....Collinsworth trying to turn the Pats into NFL's Boys Town. "BB must visit at least five orphanages a week" Gimmie a break. or MLB media types genuflecting every time Maddon has a bowel movement. "Oh Joe....what wonderful turds....I bet your turds can hit for the cycle Joe". "Why I believe my turds could actually hit for the cycle."

See ya' later tribe. Not sure I like this. I don't like seeing f*** face Madden and that damned Rays pitching staff. We can surely beat them....but Madden will be his usual Madden-ing self and so will his dick-head team.

Well the way things are going, it looks like we will get the Rays instead of the Guardians for the usual reasons....The Rays can pitch. Frankly I would prefer Cleveland and I don't care how "hot" they were going in. They played s*** teams and won....big deal.

Well hitting came around when it got help. Hitting rarely came around on its own. Periods of expansion were always huge boosts for the hitters cause there would just not be enough pitchers to go around. Lowering the mound really helped hitters....the live baseball helped, not as much as lowering the mound or periods of expansion. It did help though. The DH is a huge help to hitters in the AL. They all see better pitches to hit....AL pitchers cannot pitch to the lineup nearly as much. Heck NL pitchers are planning for the pitcher as soon as they see the guys batting 6th and 7th in the opposing lineup.

I am not even sure I understand the discussion. As Bill Parcells used to say....you are what you are. Now I will grant you that there are things about ML post season play that make it distinctly different from regular season play. However, we often get into different versions of this discussion. What is a good team? Is a good team, a collection of numbers....of stats that should perform better than some other collection of numbers and stats wearing a different uni? Is a good team a collection of ballplayers that have a process by which they generate offense and a particular defensive skill set coupled with terrific starting pitching? I would suggest that either could be a good team but that the latter actually has a better chance to win the bulk of at least its regular season games than the former does. As for the post season....IMO, you have to have the horse filling the 1 hole in the rotation in post season ML play. I posted up something a few days ago that shows how important winning game 1 of the ML post season series is to the eventual outcome. Having the big horse in the 1 hole gives you a great chance to win that game. If you can win that game, you could be off to the races in the ML post season. But to my way of thinking the WS Series winner is neither a good team or a bad team. It is what it is....the WS winner. There is really nothing else to be said at that point.

I don't believe PED's have been eliminated as yet. I think players who are not using may now be less inclined to use with players starting to believe that the league may finally get its act together with regard to prevention. So I think it is going the right way. As for the hitting totals, pitching has gone through several phases of prominence and decline in MLB. As has already been pointed out periods of expansion wreck havoc on the quality of pitching, especially starting pitching. Expansion or the lack of same is usually the biggest factor. We have had live baseballs, dead baseballs and differences in mound heights all of which have made contributions one way or the other. Clearly pitching is resurgent again and that usually really means starting pitching. The difference during this phase of the pendulum swinging back is that we now have fully developed the concept of the relief pitcher as far as it has ever been and certainly farther than it historically ever was. So this time, as starting pitching improves, we now have specialists all over the bullpen. Obviously, we have the closer. However we also have the fireman. We have the matchup guys and we have the guys that are tailored for the innings leading up to the closer. Some of us probably remember what it meant to bring in somebody other than a guy who was supposed to take the ball through the ninth inning back in the 60's. If your team had to bring some guy in that clearly was not intended to finish the game or that was not your very best bullpen arm, your head was in your hands and your heart was in your throat. "OH no....not the relief pitcher"!!!!! Now its what inning is it and do we bring in our "X" inning pitcher or do we start to go match up or do we need to put out a fire first. "Oh its the 9th inning......closer". I actually believe that PEDs will not ever be completely eliminated in baseball. I believe that the PA, owners and players will eventually come to terms with PED usage....mainly as a means to get injured players back in the game sooner rather than later. I suspect that eventually you will see baseball crack down hard on use purely for the sake of enhancing performance while at the same time regulating use for purposes of reducing time on the shelf due to injury. I think that will be the trade off...legal usage for recovery from injury for meaningful testing and truly ugly fines and suspensions for performance related usage.

Well I have to admit that Thomkins is making progress. Still dropping too many balls and his concentration seems on and off again. But he is clearly doing better. I do think Collinsworth needs to tone down the BB hyperbole. I think he is a great coach and I do not blame Bill for Hernandez being what he is. However even we, here don't talk about the Patriots like they are some kind of home for wayward boys. Just stop Chris. It sounds ridiculous. If i heard him right it sounded like somebody kicked him under the desk at one point. He had gone through the Thomkins...troubled kid routine and was onto the Talib, troubled kit routine and was saying something like "all BB does is bring them in here and.....and....". I think the sentence just trailed off to nothing right there. What the hell were you going to say Chris "all BB does is bring them in here and put a gun their hands". Again I don't blame the Pats or BB for any of the Hernandez mess. But everybody should just stop with the Patirots as home for wayward boys ********. We don't do it here. The media here does not do it and I don't think we need the national media pulling in here to spout this ********.

Well I know I mentioned this before spring training when people were discussing Felix out of the pen. He can't work out of the pen IMO. He does not know how to do it. I know he has done some pen work in the past but he is terribly uncomfortable doing it and he does not prepare well for it. Wake sounds like he is ready to pounce on Felix for not enthusiastically accepting the pen role. I think that is just Felix knowing his limitations. Just because Wake could go back and forth between pen and rotation does not mean Felix can. Hey I am as ticked off as anybody when Felix shows up out of shape for spring training. However, this is different. Trying to shove a square peg in a round hole is neither good for the peg or the hole. I believe Demps will help us out of the pen...but not Felix.

I think I would have wanted Lackey to pitch today if he were going in game 2. That says it makes wayyyyyy more sense to have him go in game 2.