jung

Come on Ortiz....you could have banged that one off the LF wall with your eyes closed. Everything can't be a HR.

That is the other thing that happens when hitters are patient. The ump gets used to batters taking and the resulting pitch being a ball. Ultimately even when the pitcher finally puts one on the corner, it ends up being called a ball.

Jones reminds me of Randy Moss with those long legs. Once he gets motoring, he has another gear and he looks like he is an inch or two off the ground.

Lackey just let up a tad when Roberts removed himself from the base paths and John paid for it. Leaving pitches in bad spots to RH hitters in this park usually turns into some sort of number going up on the scoreboard.

Roberts almost seemed to take it personally that the Sox were trying to control him on the base paths. Stupid play on his part.

Our offense often does not look "impressive" But Norris is up to 39 pitches in two innings and we don't even have a hit yet. This is a tense way to generate offense. It is the way they have to play to win though. It is not comfortable nor is it comforting which makes it that much more remarkable that the Sox have remained so disciplined all season to this point. This is the sort of discipline we are used to seeing from the Rays but not the Sox. I would not have believed the Sox would have played this way unless I had seen it with my own eyes regardless of whether it was in their best interests or not. But there is no question in my mind that this is how they have to play it.

Lousy way to give up a run. But I don't think that one run is going to be decisive in this game.

Hopefully Lackey can keep up this starting pitching streak the Sox have been on. Would be nice if the Sox could get him at least a few runs. Much less pressure playing from ahead than behind.

5 innings???? 5 innings against that Colorado team?? The only thing that series proved is that the last thing you want to do in the post season is win a series too early and then wait for the other series to end. It just never works out. The team that waits comes out flat and lifeless and nothing anybody has so far invented has been able to change that. The Rockies won the NL Championship on Oct 15 and did not play a game again until the WS started on Oct 24. These guys play close to every day for an entire season and at least every other day in the post season and then are sometimes made to wait seven, eight days......just doesn't work. Probably no cure for it but there does not appear to be any remedy either. One thing that concerns me is that the Networks more and more control regular season and post season scheduling. If they have their way, once we get down to League Championship games, I suspect we will get a game in each league alternating every other day. So to the question of how many days of rest a team's number 1 rotation guy gets between games, if it works out the way the Networks want it, a number 1 rotation guy pitching game 1 on day 1 of a seven game series if waiting till game 5 will not pitch again until day 9 of the series. I would want that guy to be out there on day 7 of the series, not wanting him waiting till day 9 to pitch again. As has been proven time and time again, it is just the worst time of the season for excess inactivity for a team and for a pitcher. Excessive time off the field that the team is not used to and excessive time off the bump that the pitcher is not used to simply throws everything out the window. I still think the Sox would have won that 2007 WS. I just don't think they would have rolled over Colorado had Colorado not been made to wait a full week for the WS to begin.

While some have decided that if Buch can't pitch or isn't ready to pitch a really big game in a post season series, they would choose Lester and others have decided that their choice would be Lackey, all we are really saying is that without Buch we don't know who it would be. Would anybody question that the choice for the Rays would be Price or for the Rangers would be Darvish or for the Tigers would be Scherzer...No. Our split on the question tells us we are really not confident that any one of them could match up without Buch and I am not at all convinced that 80% of a Buch gets the job done. Anyway if Buch is not going to be ready to go, my choice would be Peavy for one reason. Peavy has been that guy before. He has been the Monster that can simply dominate a game. The reason Zito could summon up what it took for him to come out of nowhere last year and win that critical game for SF is because he had been that monster once before. He was able to summon up from inside him another game like that because he did not have to go someplace he had never been to summon up that game. We don't have anybody but Peavy that has been that guy. We always hoped Lester would be but he never has been. Lackey was close but not quite. So if I could not have Buch and had to go nose to nose with Price or Darvish or even Scherzer, I would pick Peavy and hope he could summon up the monster again.

Markekis has warn a path back to that dugout tonight.

Talk about a break...Soriano would only go to one team and its the Skanks and he comes in and rakes. That is just not right.

Wonder why the O' are using krod here. He is not what he once was but you would think they would have some other cannon fodder turkey they could bring in here. The other thing to remember about post season play is that the first guy out of the bullpen tends to be a team's regular season fourth or fifth starter. So even post season middle relief is improved over regular season middle relief.

But I thought Soriano had cooled or somebody said. I doubt it matters. The skanks ain't gettin' there. It is not the number of games back it is the number of teams they have to climb over...too many I think.

Vic is the guy I voted as my favorite Red Sox player other than the obvious choices. Have always loved his game and thought getting him here was a great move even if partially motivated by a desire to protect against Ells leaving before JBJ was ready to come up.

Correct but if you have the stud to offset that (enter Buch) then you are in those games as opposed to being rolled over in those game. Gotta get Buch back and by post season he has got to be the Buch he was. No other starting pitcher we have can match that sort of pitcher and they are out there headed for post season play. Price could do it. Darvish could do it. But I think those two are almost but not quite as likely to lay a post season egg. I don't fear those two teams cause their "studs" are less likely to get it done and dominate in a game. They could do it and I would not be surprised. However it would not be a total shock if they went out there and laid a post season egg either. Scherzer is the most obvious guy that can do it of the teams likely to get to the post season. Somebody posted that he would love to see Price and Darvish head to head, mano a mano post season. That might be a scoreless game into the 9th.

Because the Sox will invariably face more and better starting pitching as a percentage of total games played in the post season than they face in the regular season and it won't even be close to comparable. Teams don't get to the post season because they mash. Some teams get there cause they pitch AND mash but teams that just mash are dead and too stupid to fall over. They will face more starting pitchers that control the game and take the ball to the 8th or 9th innings. In a seven game series, individual games count for a lot. Lets say you face starting pitchers that take the ball through the 7th inning in two games out of seven. Well that could be a team with one dominant pitcher and I don't think the Sox would stand much chance of winning even one of those games especially without Buch or I should say without the Buch we had. That would leave them having to win four out of the remaining five. Those are tough odds. That is also why a big stud at the top of the rotation is more meaningful post season than regular season.

The Sox have a beautiful thing going offensively. They get to middle relief earlier and more often than any team in baseball because with the exception of Ells who is swinging as he leaves the locker room, they all take tons of pitches, foul off tons of pitches and leave starters very often at 90-100 pitches by the 5th inning. They very often force the opponent to his bullpen in the 6th. Notice what happens to us when an opponent gets to our bullpen in the 6th. It just take too long to get to Taz and more importantly Ueh. We do what we just saw recently happen to us to opponents more than just about anybody. We don't have the wall mashers that Detroit has got, but we do have guys that get the other guys starter out of the game. The problem with that is I don't think this offense can sustain itself without being able to do what they do so well and I am not convinced that it will be as easy to get to middle relief in the post season as it is in the regular season. It is a great regular season offense and it is really a well constructed regular season team. Not sure that will be as useful in the post season. If they can get the Buch back that they had before June 8th....now your talkin'

Hopefully it is not s***** starting pitching cause I doubt they will see that comfort zone too often. But the Sox generally crush middle relief.

This could easily turn into a double digits score, even mid teens. Now the Sox are really into their comfort zone, middle relief.

Game becomes easy when you know what is coming at least for professional hitters. I remember seeing Foulke pitch for us in a game I was at against Oakland when Oakland had absolutely nobody that could hit...terrible lineup. But Foulke just could not find the plate that day and was forced to FB after FB. The 8th and 9th guys in what was not more than a AAA lineup just ate him alive. It was terrible. They were all just striding into the ball and little guys were hitting it into the triangle...off the wall, over the monster....truly embarrassing. Didn't matter that they were the 8th and 9th guys in a terrible lineup...they were still schooled, professional hitters and Foulke was meat.

I would not put much stock in what they are doing to Chen tonight. Chen is horrible tonight. Not only is he horrible but he is predictable. Forced to FB too often and the Sox have just been sitting on it. Chen does not have that kind of gas.

If Chen does not watch it, Showalter is as likely to go out to the mound and shot him as soon as pull him.

As long as Pedey takes to get ready to step in, Gomes is just ridiculous. I keep expecting him to show up at home plate in street cloths and just get dressed to play right there. There is not much difference time wise.

Whoops throwing equipment...toss him