jung

Well now your behind in this game Demps...how's this workin' out for ya'?

Ells did not exactly dig in at the plate that at bat...for sure. In fact he was dancing before that first pitch.

No suspension unless Demps hits him again next time he comes up. Sox better win this game.

A-roid may have deserved it but I don't know who died and left Dempster to represent the entirety of baseball. Heck if they feel that strongly about it walk up to him and call him an ******* to his face. If you are going to man up then man up.

Well then the only silver lining would be if the Sox team manned up and bailed Demps out for the runs scored. If they fold their tent and the skanks rally around A-roid then it really sucks. Christ this team is in a pennant race...wouldn't know it.

The only thing I don't like about this is that throwing behind A-roid clearly was a message. Throwing at him on four straight pitches was excessive and now demps has given up a run. Not sure if teammates prompted demps or if he did it on his own. I would believe either but it was stupid one way or the other.

I was beginning to worry that Demps aim was that terrible. Took him four pitches to finally tag him.

and now the guy leading off the skanks in the second must have more unflattering AKA's surely than any current player....A-roid, A-wreck, A-ruin and now.....A-rat.

Damn it. We are going to see more and more of this I fear. Even loading the bases, CC really was not going to just roll over and give Ortiz something to hit.

' I just don't like to see them having to play on a Sunday night before they travel. As it is now, they are not leaving for the west coast till 10:00AM Monday morning and will have to play that same evening on the west coast.

Jeez you would think the networks would give the Sox a break and get this game going. But no, gotta' be 8:00 PM or nothing I guess.

Just watching the ESPN pregame.....I just don't see how A-rat is not at least some sort of a distraction in that clubhouse. This is a guy that is an admitted PED user that has now ratted on who knows how many guys including at least one teammate and that is not a distraction? Hope he f***s them up royally and I hope the home skanks crowd boos his ass off when they get the next chance. Olney says that XB call up is eminent. As usual, you can't rely on the Sox FO to give out the straight dope on anything. Claims that they are worried about the workload on Drew and that is a big part of the XB call up decision. Really FO. Drew's record against LH pitchers wouldn't have anything to do with that would it? What, Drew is only tired against LH pitchers? Actually whatever gets XB up here is fine by me.

Loney's best HR year was 2007 at 15. He has had recent years of 10 and 12 and most recently, 6 and 4. So he was not hitting HR's anyway. He is not swinging at so many s*** pitches which means he is more often ahead in the count. That has made the most difference. If part of the formula was giving up 6 bombs year...more power to them for making that trade off.

I agree SK....to the extent that V did not communicate anything effectively to anybody on that team. That he did not communicate well through his coaches is another manifestation of the same problem. However as we later found out, what communication he did have with his players...all be it cryptic (You had to have the V decoder ring to have any idea what the hell he was saying) was often sarcastic, full of double meaning and liable to be contradicted the next day either face to face, through a coach or in the media. How do you win baseball games when that is where you are as a team. It is not a matter of "hate". I never used the word hate in my post. It always amazes me how often people jump to an emotion like hate. It almost trivializes it. That team did not trust V and they did not respect him. Playing for somebody you "hate" is nothing compared to playing for somebody you do not trust and do not respect. You can't sleep nights if you can't trust your boss....can't be done. Might they have done just as badly with anybody else at the helm...possibly. However they could not have done worse. Remember everybody and his brother knew that V was ownership's choice. For all the players knew, V could really have enough power to f*** them sideways if he wanted to do so. Did V ever make it plain to anybody that winning was more important than maintaining his sarcastic, f***ed up, "you figure out what the hell I am saying attitude? Absolutely not. If anything he went out of his way to make sure we all knew that nothing was more important to V than maintaining his facade as f***ed up as it was. I don't think that team had a snowballs chance in hell no matter who they put on the field. The only silver lining appears to be that ownership realized it had f***ed up so badly that it gave BC the freedom to make HIS choice next time around. I don't think ownership would have accepted just anybody for Manager but I do think they would have accepted anybody that BC decided to bring in considering that there was no way in hell that BC could have done worse than they did. The 2012 season effectively ended with the trade although I would make the case that it effectively ended in ST.

I guess I am not surprised that the networks have chosen to telecast these games. But it is a tough deal for the Sox who have to play a night game, then fly to the west coast tomorrow morning to play a game that very night. That is the part that really sucks for them.

I do think Chemistry is mostly about player talents on the field being well meshed and players knowing their roles. 2011 really was about the pitching. Without pitching you go nowhere in MLB. The only times the Sox ever truly succeeded is when......they had pitching. As for 2012, I do not think V ever did find a way to communicate what he wanted that squad of players to do.....how he wanted them to blend as a team......V has got to be the worst communicator as a manager in the modern era. His 2012 probably eclipsing any wacko communicating that Stengel might have done for his era. Ballplayers are incredibly protective of their meal tickets....their careers. V managed to make that team feel like he was a lying sack of s*** because he was/is a lying sack of s***. Hence they all became very protective of self because at the end of the day, that is what they had to protect before anything else...themselves. V could have done a ton of things wrong that would have been acceptable and might have given him a chance. However he just could not help himself. He insisted on that snide, wise assed, sarcastic ******** way of discussing everything with everybody. What we all did not see nor understand until later is that he talked to his ballplayers the same way he talked to us.....staggering beyond belief but none the less true. Since it is all wise cracking, sarcastic ******** to V and he leaves his constituents whether players or fans or anybody else with no road map to where he is going he felt free to say one thing today and something entirely opposite the next. In addition he felt totally justified in leaving things to the last minute probably because his monumental ego does not allow for change. If he never commits to anything today, he does not have to change that commitment tomorrow. As I have said before, that our lunkhead owners were able to come out of an interview with that idiot convinced that he was their manager is something I can find no way to rationalize.

I saw that game. It was memorable. Not every pitcher can throw that dominant finger change-up that sort of looks like a screw ball but Pedro could. Many of them just end up sort of dropping a bit but don't break at all. When Pedro had all of his pitches going, call it day...save the time and effort cause as an opponent, you were cannon fodder.

So I am not sure if the OP wants us to ignore the old standards or not. If not for me it has to be Pedey. Of the non-standard guys, maybe meaning the newer players I am going to go with Vic. He came into this town I think greeted by boatloads of skepticism. He has done nothing but play with heart and determination and has really been a rock. Finally it looks like the injuries he has sustained playing hard all season are catching up to him. However it did not prevent him from manning up and going out there today on a day that he likely needed off. He does some quirky things that I don't like. I don't like that throw to 1st that he admits has never worked, not once for an entire career and that has caused him to misplay a ball once this year. Second to Vic of the new guys for me would be Gomes.

I should have added how much looking at the Remy kid reminded me of how Bonds looked at one point....his bloated body not looking healthy or strong but more looking like a balloon character. To think that we let him sit there and tell us he was clean ballooned up like a cartoon character.

I saw some video of him today. First time I have ever seen him. Hate to say it but he looks like a poster child for steroid abuse. I have grown grudgingly to begin to favor MLB making rules changes that would allow particular kinds of PED's for helping the injury healing process as long as it is regulated and as long as there is no evidence of long term health issues. Tons of money in baseball now. I can see the need to get your players back on the field ASAP as long as they are not going to pay for it in long term heath issues. But looking at the Remy kid, another guy with what appears to be another blown up melon head and blown up melon body, scares the s*** out of me....not so much for myself but in part for that reason....but mainly because these guys are just walking around, amongst people that care about them without really dealing with the fact that they are sitting next to a ticking time bomb. Additionally, what is it about us that creates this need in some people. Did the kid feel insufficient in the face of being the son of a one time professional athlete? Was there some other peer pressure? All I know is that we have people and companies that promote this s*** and that has got to stop. In addition it seems to me that we have to stop hoping that a kid like that is going to be able to just get out on bail and be fine.....why is he going to be fine? You arrested him all hopped up...you released him all hopped up and then you wonder why he ends up the late night slasher!!!!

I think the "logic" is that the scoring credits the hitter hitting the sac fly for being able to lift the ball deep enough to the outfield to get the runner home while the ground out in many instances simply seems like a poorly hit ball. Sort of like an element of the way we worry if a pitcher is a fly ball out pitcher....suggests the hitters are having their way with him a little more than we would be comfortable with normally. Trading an out for a run can make some sense late in a close game. I really hate it early in a game cause outs are rally killers and early in the game you really want to rally if you have the chance.

MLB players are far more in control of their own destinies with little involvement from the organization unlike the NFL for example. Team Conditioning Coaches in MLB are glorified towel holders again unlike the NFL. Some players are self motivated to stay in shape and others are not, regardless of the consequences. Look at how Felix has showed up for ST, twice now.

I would prefer the upside of a power hitter instead of the singing voice of a soprano. Right proper job they have done on him. Did not know one of Henry's holdings was a horse farm. Although the swing he has is not what they want or planned for him. It is what they have cause they have got him scared shitless and have insisted on changing his swing as much as dealing with his real problem. I would not give a plug nickel for him at present although I truly feel for him at this point. Then again there is a pitcher we know about that I would not give a plug nickel for either. Clearly Iggy was again revitalized by going to Detroit. I wonder how revitalized or should I say energized he will be when he sees the Sox come to town. Iggy is another guy the Sox were more inclined to teaching lessons. I think there is a pretty good chance that it will be like throwing a red cloak in front of a bull.....fortunately a baby bull at best. Before I forget, plate discipline and pitch recognition are not the same things....far from it. Lack of plate discipline suggests a frivolous, "don't give a s***" attitude on the one hand or simple over aggressiveness on the other. Inability to recognize the pitch that is coming at you is an entirely different animal and a far more difficult problem to solve. He has clearly not solved it. He has simply adopted what is a far too passive, reactive approach at the plate in order to compensate for his inability to recognize pitches at a ML level. Do we really think a guy his size that should have his power potential playing 3rd base is going to be allowed to dink and dunk like this for a career? Like i said earlier...nice job Red Sox...nice job. You sure showed him didn't you!

Oh Boy...when folks finally watch what players do at this site instead of looking at numbers, I will be surprised. Why do you think WMB.s hitting streak is so quiet, all little Iggy knocks? He is batting flat footed, swinging with no weight transfer, no drive. That is why he is hitting so many billiard shot hits and dinks. He is afraid that they are going to send him back down again. So instead of the aggressive power hitter we had that suffered from poor pitch recognition (not to be confused with plate discipline) we now have a punch and judy hitter showing modest improvement in pitch recognition that has basically been castrated. Look, why the f*** do they have to screw with his swing. His swing is NOT The problem. Yet they seem bound and determined to teach him a lesson...lately a trait that the Sox seem to continue to exhibit with their young players. So he has developed a different swing than the one he had in the minors...So f***ing what. Instead of helping him to overcome the real problem that he has, they insist on bending him back to something he appears to no longer want to be and maybe can't be any longer. His real problem is pitch recognition, particularly at the major league level. That is why he swings at so many bad pitches. That is why he swung at that 1-0 pitch riding so far inside two nights ago that it almost hit him while he was swinging at it. But oh nooooooo....not what the Sox had in mind. So now we have a guy scared shitless, basically castrated, standing flat footed at the plate desperately trying to stay back as long as he can to give himself as much opportunity to recognize if the ball is headed off the plate or not. As a result he has not put up any power numbers since being called up but simply dinks and dunks along......and you expect me to call that improvement? No thanks. I hate the Rays. I hate their stadium. I hate their unis. I hate at least half their players and I hate hate HATE their manager. But I have to give them grudging respect when it is due. They do a terrific job with their young players, seemingly knowing what buttons to push and when to push them. Meanwhile our FO satisfies itself with teaching players a lesson. Nice job.

f***ing McCarver jinxing Pedey. Timmy finally finds a Red Sox player he likes. Looked like that hit him right above the shin guard he wears.