jung

Rodney is such a crap shoot....anything can happen with him out there...anybody but Price PLEASE!!

Funny...would be a pesky pole shot or something equally strange to finally get a run off this guy.

Good for the CWS. Unless they are realistic about Peavy they can choke on him for all I care. Maybe the Sox could sneak in and get him for something reasonable instead of something ridiculous. I think the CWS statement is good news. Probably means teams are not willing to pay and are backing off leaving the WS to stew about just keeping him or getting realistic about the price. Only thing I like about Peavy is that he would likely allow the Sox to move somebody to the pen taking care of one of the pen arms they need. Other than that, Peavy is a pass for me.

The Rays are very easy to dislike. Some way worse than Longoria. But there has to be a special place in hell reserved for horse face Texiera.

Strike 3 to Lavs was just ridiculous. How the hell are you supposed to hit that? I really want to see the Sox do something about the pen. If a starter allows the Sox to dance a couple guys around and gives them another good pen arm that would be OK but a starter just to have another starter does not do much for me. Need two pen arms. Not sure who the Sox will bring up if anybody but the schedule coming up would be a perfect time to bring up a guy and let him get into a groove...build some momentum before the guy is stuck facing this sort of s***.

Man Price just paints...unreal command and control

Thank God Vic got to that Looney liner.

Two is not bad...three might be a killer though. Price has been so damned economical, that he could go nine easy tonight. Only thing worse than this is nine innings of this.

Just too good so far.

Farrell commented that Price went Strike 1 pretty often in the last meeting suggesting that the Sox needed to be more aggressive against him. Whatever....the Sox had little success hitting as they did in that game. So doing something different tonight might make some sense. So far...not working. When a guy like Price is pitching great, the hitters are pretty helpless.

Does Naps even try any bunts during BP? I would not be surprised if the answer is NO.

OMG, another blind as bat home plate ump. I am sure he will end up hurting us at least as much as the Rays.

I think scouts have commented that XB already has the frame of a 3rd baseman and just needs to put on the weight to fill out the frame. I think that is why talk of him filling out and moving to 3rd has been around for so long. That could be fine. An infield of XB, Iggy. Pedey and WMB would not be all bad. Of course the Sox have other options for 1st and even for 3rd. Enviable position for the Sox in that regard. Iggy still has work to do as far as his hitting goes. So that is another "remains to be seen".

Nava is playing less. He did tweak that wrist of his again this year and I guess there is the chance that the Sox have decided to see if rest will bring it around. When it is bothering him, it really does have an impact on his swing. Not saying that is definitely what is going on but it could be.

Well Lee is not going to come available. However all of the starting pitching options are way overpriced for what they are and most if not all are copies of something the Sox already have. Lee would be the only guy that would represent a true upgrade as opposed to just another arm. I just don't think the Sox should pay the price for just another arm. If Peavy's price gets down to just eating his contract and some prospect that the Sox can see their way to move (maybe Merrero????), that would be fine. The Sox could probably move some guys around and get a pen arm out of the deal with Peavy moving into the rotation. I just don't think Peavy's price will slide that far. If it does, I am not sure I would have much to complain about if the Sox did that deal. That would still leave them in need of one more pen arm, like Hochevar for example.

I really don't think Peavy is an answer to anything for the Red Sox...he might be an answer for somebody else but not the Sox.

Suiters appear to be falling by the wayside on Peavy. Wouldn't that be an ironic outcome. CWS unable to convince anybody on the asking price end up having to lower their expectations. Who would have thunk that with 4 or 5 reported suiters at the doorstep.

Hard to blame the Yanks for not trying to get out from under the A-roid deal. The Spanks baseball people did not want to resign A-roid. He went to ownership and they signed him, obviously thinking the PR boost they would get was more meaningful than A-roid's pure baseball value. Why else would you overturn the decision of your baseball people. Then he turns out to be a juicer which sort of throws the PR boost down the toilet. Yanks are screwed on A-roid any way you look at it. Only way out for them would be if A-roid retired. Fat chance of that. Next CBA will very likely give teams relief in cases like A-roid in the future as it will likely give teams the option to void a contract obtained using performance numbers suspected of being juice based. They will probably write the language so that teams will not be forced to prove that the player was actually juicing for a particular period of time but will allow the team to void the contact if the player tests positive during the contract period. There is a good deal of hypocrisy in all of this. Really MLB only wants to catch players stupid enough to get caught. The league wants HR's which are getting hard to come by. They don't want 160 lb pip-squeaks banging out 20 HR seasons but they want more offense than they are getting currently. I think MLB is willing to live with a certain amount of PED use if they can find a happy medium. It might be time for MLB to stop dancing around the thing, making believe they want players 100% clean...admit that they are tolerating PED use and find a way to regulate it so that they get what they are after.

I saw a snippet somewhere about Felix being switched in for Workman on Monday against the Rays. I like the Sox making this move. Tells the team these head to head games are important and we have to make every effort to win them.

I would have to guess that when a team decides to make a guy the face of their franchise as the Sox have with Pedey, that means something that you can take to the bank when you are living in a world of homicidal tight ends (no pun intended).

Not really sure how this particular bunch of suspensions is going to work out since the players are not being suspended based on PED test results but rather on the strength of evidence provided by Dr. Bosch. Apparently they had Braun dead to rights but decided not to really ream his ass in order to get the first of these evidence based suspensions on the books. Braun is a dick that surely deserved worse. Apparently they have reams of evidence on A-roid. Sounds like he is truly a goner. Teams are in the tough spot of having to figure out if the player is going to fold his tent and take the deal offered or fight. Without real test results it really boils down to the strength of the evidence Bosch provides. Who knows what that is for Colon. Interesting that after Braun they are not exactly falling out of the air like flies. League only tests for a fraction of the boutique PED formulas available. That looks like it will always be a problem.

Not sure I have ever seen such an immediate cause and effect reaction from a pitcher greater than with Lester getting off that f***ing cutter in two strike counts.

Iggy needs to go back to Pedey for more lessons in hitting. At this rate he is going to put up a steady stream of 0-fers.

There is not a single member of this ump crew that is fine. Timmons is just the worst of them for balls and strikes.

Iggy has improved as a hitter but expecting a continual improvement in baseball is simply unrealistic. Hitters improve. Pitchers probe for the hitters weaknesses. They are exposed and they are either overcome or not. If they are overcome they are not even overcome the same way by every hitter though they might seem to have similar if not the same weaknesses. Pitchers have found the biggest hole in Iggy's current hitting capabilities and they are exploiting it. He will either overcome it or he won't. WMB will overcome his current biggest hitting weaknesses or he won't. Even if they both overcome them, in both cases, pitchers will continue to probe and exploit whatever remaining weaknesses they find. This is why some refer to hitting ML pitching as the hardest thing to do in any team sporting activity. If you look at the number of athletes in this world trying to hit thrown baseballs and the pitiful few by percentages that actually reach the pinnacle of the game it is hard to argue the point. There are stronger athletes, faster athletes, more durable athletes but no athletes that have the hand/eye coordination and reflexes of the ML hitter. Those that do make it and stay in the ML's as hitters are so good, that all it takes is the most meager of decline in the pitcher's capabilities in order for those hitters to succeed. The ninth guy in a ML lineup (if he is not a pitcher) creams crummy pitching...destroys crummy pitching. At any one time, there might be two or three hitters in the entire world that are functioning at the peak of the sport as hitters. How many guys are at Cabrera's level? Are there one, maybe two others in the entire world??? In fact, you have to layer on a willingness to study pitcher's tendencies and understand what he is likely to throw in a given situation on top of tremendous hand/eye coordination and reflexes to be a Cabrera. I still think the Sox have enough hitting to succeed as a team, as long as Ortiz stays upright. They don't have enough pitching and their defense has holes. Now that Drew has had his three AB's for the month, we could likely sit him and avoid the next 30 AB's. Maybe keep Drew in for the last game in Camden Yards which has even more laughable RF dimensions that new Yankee Stadium. So if they want to try WMB back at 3rd and Iggy at SS I guess I would be OK with it if WMB has actually improved. I am not even opposed to XB at 3rd and Iggy at SS if they have been working XB at 3rd. Neither WMB or XB is going to light it up in my opinion because past the weak part of the schedule coming up after Monday they will be facing pretty good pitching the rest of the way. Expecting one guy with problems and another guy with no ML experience to come up in that environment with pennant races on and light it up is unrealistic. Maybe it will take some time for pitchers to get a book on XB. So, he might enjoy some limited success. Sox should get a couple relievers, see if Lee actually comes available from the Phillies and make their run.