jung

The point is it did not take one year to get here. It took more like 50 years to get here slowly but surely. Continued expansion has really brought us to this place that we are in with screwy rules, 4 hours to play 9 innings, and 14 pitchers, no complete games, even the DH to some extent is a product of over-expansion though I like the DH. Of all the things they have done since they expanded from 15 teams the DH is the only thing that makes any sense at all. The rest is sheer crap and their massive hypocrisy regarding things just like Spyertac is mightily annoying when you realize where they have brought this game. Not sure it will ever get any better again though it could get worse. We are in for a nasty CBA negotiation coming up and these guys STILL are not smart enough to avoid a strike. I frankly doubt they have learned a single meaningful lesson since at least the 1980's anyway. That might be true if your DH could be inserted anywhere in the order on a real time basis. But he can't. While the DH does give you a bat that is far more potent than a pitcher's bat, he effectively robs you again because once assigned as the DH for that game, he is stuck there. You can only replace him with somebody on your bench. Oh look, another base running mistake. A real shocker that.

If you have 14 pitchers you can only have 11 everyday players. One HAS to be your backup Catcher. That leaves two bench players remaining. That is not how this game should be played. Spydertac is not a cause. Its a symptom anyway. They need 14 pitchers because most of them can't pitch Spydertac or no Spydertac. Going from a 4 man to a 5 man rotation made a huge difference. You had 4 starters going at least 7 innings per game if not more. 4 Starters meant you could have an 11 or 12 man staff and the whole equation is flipped. Now you have 13 or 14 everyday players and you have a world of options during a game as well as players already in your dugout that are not jack of all trades as much as they are actually good at something, readily available if there was an injury to an everyday player. Does it really make sense that Wacha is out of this game at 5 innings pitched???? Can't be serious. We should have gone back to a higher mound for one thing....a long time ago. Probably 12.5" would have been fine. I would not be in favor of what we actually had at one point, a maximum of 15" mound height with no minimum height spec. Teams used to tailor their mound to their starting rotation. We even had teams that would have the groundskeeper tailor the mound by rebuilding it for every one of their starters, start by start. I would not be in favor of that. But I would be in favor of a 12.5" min and max for mound height. What we have now masquerading as MLB is frankly ridiculous. As for the Santana's of the world, were it not for expansion the Santanas would be toiling in AA ball at best. They would probably be bagging your groceries! Never should have expanded past 20 teams, 10 in each league.

I suspect Richards can take note of it all he wants. I doubt it will matter. What noise is coming out of his mouth is all bad. I doubt Richards has thrown without some sort of stickem' for years. Its just that SpyderTac is that much more effective. Really I blame MLB for this. You guys probably would guess that I would. A few years ago the PR was that hitters wanted pitchers to use something to improve their grip because it was so obvious that pitchers were struggling with their control inside. I knew then that MLB was going to simply ignore the sticky stuff. So now, its too sticky???? Now they gripe about it. MLB should have stopped it when it started years ago instead of silently endorsing it and letting the national media let the story out regarding what the hitters wanted. We are in this mess with pitchers because of expansion. Should have been obvious that we would not have enough pitchers to feed this many MLB teams and the minor league system that support them. Now we have teams carrying as many as 14 pitchers half of then that can't throw 20 ML pitches in a row. I don't mean strikes, I mean pitches! The consequence of that is teams no longer have any bench strength in everyday players and immediately fall into nose dive slumps when they have injury in their starting 9.

"OK" was not what the Richard's curve was with the Spydertac. It was ungodly...best pitch he had earlier this year. Now its not even meh. Its "spit on it" bad. Yes his FB also sucks. I think MLB just put him out of the baseball business.

What we saw last night and what we are seeing around MLB was painfully predictable. MLB has endeavored to turn the professional game into a one-dimensional power game and they have for the most part succeeded. Hence other skills we attributed generally to baseball players are simply going down the drain. So what assets of what used to be considered a good or even passable ML baseball player our now gone: - Bunting, need a bunt laid down you better call upon your pitcher in the NL. Put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye if you are in the AL - the hit and run, a thing of the past. The runner does not know how to run on the play and the batter does not know how to hit on the play - Base running, clearly completely and totally gone. Nobody and I mean nobody can run the bases any longer. I am sure that the description of the Phillips mess last night by Remy is only half the story. Yes as Remy said I have to believe Phillips forgot that a batter had been intentionally walked and occupied 1st base behind him. However, knock me over with a feather if either one or both base coaches walked out to Phillips or yelled out to him that it was then a "force at every base". Going back to 2nd was not an option as the Ray's player then standing on 2nd immediately realized with his head in his hands. However Phillips was not alone. Maybe just the worse offender in this one game. There were multiple base running mistakes in the Sox/Rays game and multiple base running mistakes around baseball last night. Next IMO will be fielding, already pretty sloppy and bound to get worse. At some point even this season I suspect a number of teams will look at the Astros in the field and say "why can't we do that".

God I am not sure I could watch Yarbrough pitch more than a few innings of 1 game. I might not even want to go to a game when he was slated to pitch if I were a Rays fan. Just too tedious. Its like watching a Bataan Death March.

Renfroe......STOMP

Agreed Now they might have to check Richards every pitch.

Does Yarborough have slippage instead of grippage?

Santana late on 81 mph

Wonder where Diaz thought he was going since he was already in scoring position.

I think his FB is crap so far this year.

Thought that was ruled a base hit and an error.

lol......

I still think ERod has not fully recovered from the heart ailment and Covid. Nothing he throws looks right. His Change looks a little better tonight. I wouldn't give you a plug nickel for anything else so far. Lucky he got out of that inning with just two runs against, one unearned.

I see we still can't field to save our skins.

RH pitcher walks RH batter Hernandez with 2 outs. If there is a way for a Manager to have his pitcher run laps during the game, Keller would be running laps.

The Royals would probably say "keep Santana and Andiese just send us the $20 mil.

For such a big man Perez is like a cat behind the plate. Atta' boy Xander

NESN needs Ellis Burks in the booth with Jerry laid up. Eck is getting on my nerves lately.

Cora must think he has games to give away. Santana at lead off again pumps another lame duck out to SS. Nice Alex, real nice.

I have no idea what this ump is going to call a ball or a strike at this point. He has missed all around the plate. He has no strong side. An ump with all weak sides.

Upset stomach on Vaz

Bruins could have used him in goal.

Maybe that knee that got plunked earlier finally caught up to Vaz. So much for one knee down for catchers Tek if that is the case.