jung

Ells has been fishing for that splitter the last couple weeks. That looks like a piece of scouting getting around the league. I don't remember pitchers throwing so many in that spot to him earlier this year.

That was a nice AB by WMB. Tried to tease him with that low outside s*** twice and he did not bite.

Seeing Nave for most of this year..if you can throw that pitch, you can give him a lotta' trouble

come on Sox...get the jerk now

I might have to turn to radio for audio of this game. I can't take McCarver any longer. I can't understand what he is saying with Cano's dick in his mouth anyway.

Jesus Nava is slow

These f***ing fox turds do more of this than anybody else....hate it when they basically take the contribution of one player and turn it into some overarching team stat. "Yankees are batting .440-something with RISP in the last some number of games". How much of that is s*** bird Soriano and the run he is on? f***ing stupid. Hate both of these jack asses....especially that boob McCarver.

I did not know Naps was also injured. I thought they would have wanted to keep Naps out of this game. Thus I thought the injured or at least gimpy Vic decided to man up. But I guess in reality they are both gimpy...great! I am amazed at how much I agree with SFF lately. I do agree with him that we need a shot in the arm sooner rather than later. We simply do not have the same guys contributing to the way this team develops offense. Some of them are no longer even here now. Yet I just do not see this as a bash the opponent to death offense....watch how teams start to focus even more on controlling Ortiz now that we are in crunch time. You can be a team of plodders who bash the ball or you can be a team of speed demons that dink and dunk you to death or you can be a bit of both, which is what the Sox have been. But you cannot be neither....which is sort of where they are right now. It is an offense without much identity at present.

"Quality Start" should just go away. It is extraneous and will always be a subjective measure that means nothing compared to the real numbers. It is stupid.

I think if Bogarts comes up he plays SS against LH pitchers where Drew is hideous and also shares time at 3rd base where WMB is still for the most part lost and Holt is sort of terrible.

Sounds like Vic is taking one for the team. He could not even turn and get back to the bag last night. Hope he holds up, especially in RF where he only seems to know one speed.

If you are wondering, Vic apparently is sore enough at this point to need another day off. Went out of last night's game unable to run and I guess can't today either.

They could have enough pitching if they pitch to their peak potential. But you could say that about almost any group of decent pitchers in this league. If they get to the post season with the starting pitching where it is right now and not knowing where Buch is going to be...NO, IMO, they don't have enough "good" pitching. Who do you trust right now.....Buch? Haven't seen him pitch since June 8. Peavy? Two good starts, one turkey so far.....the 1st option at present. Lackey? Seems to be fading a bit down the stretch here.....Lester? No idea what you are going to get from game to game. Felix? Now also having some rocky starts with the added issue of not having much experience in high pressure games.....Dempster? Fading of the regular season rotation....never mind post season. I am reasonably confident that Peavy gives you a good post season game one. After that....no idea!

The problem with Demps at this point is that a "good" game from him tracks to the number of bombs he gives up. That is not much of an expectation. Workman, when he pitches well seems to give us better than that which is why I would toss Workman out there every five days before I would continue to toss Demps out there every five days. It has gotten to the point where throwing Demps out there is an automatic defeat. Besides, at this point (hopefully) it is a matter of one or the other going every five days until Buch gets back. Once Buch is truly back then the rotation is Peavy, Buck, Lackey, Lester and Felix. Neither Workman nor Dempster are starting at that point. However assuming two more starts for either one, I would definitely prefer Workman to Dempster, again if only because Dempster has turned into an automatic defeat.

Well we were saying it pretty early...the pitching and the fate of the team really rested on Lester and Buch performing to the best of their potential and making every start. Lester has made every start but has not pitched at his peak and Buch has pitched at his peak but has not made every start....not by a long shot. Even with that, some of us thought they were one arm short in the rotation and with demps sort of folding like a cheap suit down the stretch, that appears to be the case. Workman now seems like the wild card to me. He HAS stepped forward in my opinion and while it is a little scary hanging expectations on a rook....he is the one guy I think they can look at and say...hey....he might be that arm we were going to be short on this year. I would risk that before continuing to toss demps out there every 5 days. That is looking more and more like a train wreck with teams taking advantage of demps early while our offense does very little early. Without pitching, you are just kidding yourself. To their credit, they have done remarkably well so far even with Lester and Buch as they are. But that is the beauty of the 162. Gotta play them all and then see where you are.

Somehow they have got to get Naps on track cause teams are just going to start to take Ortiz out of the game. What people do not seem to understand is that while a lost game in April is just as important as a lost game in August, teams do not play the same way throughout the year. Once you get here, teams know what your weaknesses are and focus on them intently. They make you pay for them more now....whereas earlier in the year, teams are trying to find out what your weaknesses are and trying to find their own identities as well. In our case, teams that can run, run wild on us cause our pitchers do not hold anybody on. Opposing hitters are generally able to be very aggressive at the plate cause we fall into these lapses where we do not pitch inside effectively as a staff. Our RH lineup is not as strong as our LH lineup and you can control this offense by controlling Ortiz. Frankly, with Vic nursing some dings and with players missing that were here, we have lost some of our offensive identity IMO. Finally, as others have pointed out, always playing with somebody out of position or weak as a fielder catches up to you eventually. We have done a little too much of that as well. But...on the bright side...they have things that they can do....I really do think they are going to have to do them though cause I just don't think they have the horses to just keep on keepin' on. The one place where there are no answers other than hoping Buch comes back strong is the pitching. Really looks shaky to me right at a time when other team staffs are stepping forward. I know they want to keep Workman for long relief. However I would be tempted to replace Demps in the rotation with Workman cause we are getting down to individual starts and individual games really counting for something.

The loss column is what ML players look at because once you are either tied in the loss column with the opponent having games in hand or behind in the loss column with the other team having games in hand, you no longer control your own destiny. We can talk about the chances of someone winning four straight all we want to. Games in hand for the Rays amount to pressure on the Sox because they no longer control their own destiny. Not real sure this team responds well to pressure. We have already seen guys like Pedey and even Ortiz trying to do too much to pick up the offensive slack and that has not really worked to their benefit either. I guess we will see Buch when we see him and the pitchers we have are going to pitch the way they are going to pitch. But as I said earlier, IMO, this team needs an offensive boost from somewhere because they have not battered down the walls all season. That is not how they score runs. However they don't really have the same offensive profile with the players they are putting on the field now. They are a tweener now. Not enough raw power to play that game...not enough speed and dynamic capability to play that game. At this point I would take my chances with some new faces and see if I could rekindle the dynamic offensive profile they had earlier this year. I still believe they should be patient at the plate, get the starter out and work on the pen. However they are doing close to nothing early in ballgames now.

Well the rule of thumb if you are playing it safe is once you get to the point where you actually must rebuild arm strength to come back, you take one day of recovery for every day out. That is why the extra time they spend dicking around fries me so much. Every day they screwed around with that actually cost them two days and at some point they crossed a line where he was for all intents and purposes, starting from scratch to rebuild his arm strength. To me, that was totally ridiculous in light of being in a pennant race. Every time I would see..."well it really does not matter cause we are still in first" it was like chalk across a blackboard for me. I don't even know what the f*** it means! Does it mean the Sox never really felt like Buch's early season performance was sustainable so ...f*** it? Does it mean, they didn't feel like they were in a pennant race so ...f*** it? I just don't know how that was justified and I guess we will never know what the team thought or thinks about sort of a casual approach to getting buch back on the mound.

Like I said earlier, I can't argue the ultra-conservative rehab schedule especially in his case....but the extra 5 weeks tossed into it via dicking around when he was having problems really roasts my ass. Sox are as responsible for that as buch is IMO.

Rays have won...5-4

Last I heard they were going to give Buch Three...count them ....Three rehab starts before bringing him back and he has not had the first yet. Not even sure how they are going to get them in at this point.

Baseball is in such a bad spot on Aroid. I heard some s*** today saying that MLB should have just given ARoid the same penalties that other guys were getting..claiming that he would have just taken that. Well in the first place, Aroid is delusional. How is his not appealing an iron clad cinch under any circumstances? Second, how do you just justify giving this turd the same penalty given what we are hearing now? How the heck could MLB look itself in the mirror doing that? Plus the PA is in on all of this this time around and even they did not balk at Ariod getting the penalty MLB is trying to levy.

I think this team would play so much more confidently if they had at least one lights out starter. As it is Peavy is their best at this point and he has had one stinker and two good starts. Still don't really have anybody pitching consistently good at this point.

Don't like seeing Vic out of RF again...gotta' be something wrong again.

Boy there has been a few horrible games this year. This one might take the award since it is against the f***ing Skanks. Rays Jays tied now in the bottom of the 8th