jung

One of the baseball analysts (I think it was Abraham) said Merrero would have been the Sox equivalent of Delmonaco. Not really sure about that. It was the only comment regarding equivalent Sox prospects I saw after the trade.

Farrell has grown rightfully cautious with Demps lately. Seems to be giving him some rope but not enough to hang himself.

This ump crew has been terrible every time I have seen them this year. Tonight they are so bad that they are actually effecting the teams on the field and the way they are playing. "Did he make a call? Did he not make a call? Is it a foul ball or fair? Is it a HR or not? Does anybody have any idea where we are supposed to be?"

Its a Drew-fest!!

Couple walks....outs were rockets....come on Demps...get the hell out of this inning please.

Sox get a little break in the schedule after that Monday make up game. Two weeks of teams they should be able to do decent against and maybe build some momentum back. That might be a good time to bring a guy like WMB up. I am not sure I would want to bring him up and walk him right into a buzz saw of a pitching match up. But maybe the player can build some momentum along with the team after that make up game.

It might be time to give WMB a shot at third. Gets Iggy back at SS full time. Maybe something good comes out of it for the offense. Hard for it to get worse on the left side right now and I would prefer Iggy at SS.

Yanks will only stay out of the basement if the Jays refuse to give it up. Cleveland is going nowhere this year. Texas will very likely get in I suspect. Unfortunately, that is a problem. If we get the relievers we need we could catch the WC. The relievers are the biggest problem we have and that problem has got to be fixed. That could get us to a WC.

I feel great about this team. Whatever happens from here it has provided more excitement in 102 games than I had any right to expect. It has allowed me to bury the 2011 September mess and the 2012 season disaster. This season does not have to end in the WS for me to be very pleased with what this team has accomplished this year.

This won't be a popular view but as the things we want start to pile up, the reality of what this team is does start to settle in. They are not going to rebuild the team in a week because their hustling, never give up, overachieving style of play got them to the ASB in first place this year. I for one cannot count the number of outstanding Red Sox first half seasons that have eventually fizzled. They are simply too numerous to mention. I hate to admit it but the Rays are a better team and the O's might be a better team than the Sox. That is especially true when you have what was the most effective starting pitcher in baseball on the shelf for what will eventually turn out to be 9 weeks at best. So we need two relief pitchers, a starting pitcher, a RH bat, somebody to play 3rd base, probably somebody that can catch without needing a compass to find 1st, 2nd or 3rd base with his throws.....and on and on and on. It has been a nice run but maybe in reality this is the team many of us thought it was at the start of the season. I think BC will let us know what he thinks shortly.

Hey I can't help it if you can't see weather a hitter is driving his hips toward RF or LF. If you can't see it in Adam Jone's HR swing tonight...nuff said!

I absolutely agree..he has gotten pull happy. However if he does not want to stop driving his hips hard toward LF what is he supposed to do.....just disappear and become a grocery store check out line bagger for the convenience of some of you folks? He is either going to change or he is not. If he doesn't then he better damn well do a better job of pitch recognition and with less than two strikes pick the pitches he can pull with that swing. He won't be the first guy in MLB to do that if he does...and he won't be the first guy to have a successful ML career either.....far from it. He will never be a Cabrera turning his hips hard toward LF like that but he does not have to be to have a successful ML career. In fact, if he were to play an entire career in Fenway, he might have a very good ML career with that swing. Can't tell what will happen to him at this point. However saying he is pull happy and not acknowledging the swing characteristics of a guy that is pull happy is just double talk!!!!

WMB's plate discipline actually seemed a tiny bit better a couple weeks ago in that he was desperately trying to keep from hacking at that pitch that starts low on the outside corner and is heading off the plate. But he was also not swinging at pitches that he absolutely has to swing at. So he is trying. In truth I don't think plate discipline is exactly the right description for that part of his problem. Pitch recognition is the problem IMO. As for his swing, all season long, WMB has been driving his hips hard toward LF. That is not the swing he was sporting when he came up to the bigs. If you compare that to the first Adam Jones HR, Jone's hips were driving toward RF. Jones intended going to RF and he did. I was typing instead of looking at the second but I suspect the same is true of Jones second HR tonight. If your hips are driving hard to LF an opposite field hit is a pure accident. An opposite field HR is a testament to WMB's power but it is still a pure accident...which Jim Rice proved with slow mo while he was making the exact same point I have been making about WMB all year long.

From what I can see, he still has the swing he has been using most if not all of this season, which is not the same swing he had when he came up. Yet his approach is very similar to the approach he had when he came up. So, he is stuck firmly in the middle. Having an approach that does not match your swing is about as f***ed up as it gets. He either has to adapt his approach to the swing he has or ditch the swing and go back to the swing he had. IMO, the latter will take longer to produce results than the former. If he is going to try to keep that approach and ditch the swing, I don't expect we will see WMB again unless defense on the left side of the Sox infield gets to be a real problem. It will take a long time for him to make it back if he is not going to ditch the swing as he seemed almost addicted to it at this point or at least last I saw him. But then again I have said all of this from the beginning of his problems.

This game totally blows.

I will say that WMB's problems two weeks ago did not appear to be the exactly the same as they were when he went down. They were just as bad though and maybe even worse.

Another starting pitcher won't do much unless he is a better starting pitcher than what they have. They need better starting pitching and more relief pitching. Nobody they are going to get for a starting pitcher is going to push guys like Lackey out of the rotation. Felix is certainly not going anywhere. Nor is Lester. Demps could get displaced by somebody....maybe. At this point a starting pitcher would be taking Buchs spot until his return....hopefully sometime this decade.

Rays pounding CC

Naps and Taz seem to be the two Sox players that got the most benefit out of the ASB

of the three he reminded me most of last year's James Loney.

Seems to me a perfect night for killing birds....No??

This series takes on monster proportions especially now that the Rays using Price on Monday has been confirmed. f***ing Rays....f***ing....Price...f***ing Rainout. I hope that rainout does not become memorable for all the wrong reasons. Really excited that the Sox have become the front runners on Gonzalez. May well kill two birds with one stone with that signing.

I have not seen WMB hit since two Saturdays ago. There was no visible improvement at that point. But that is too long ago for me to offer an opinion at this point. Maybe I will get another shot at seeing him soon.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with dosting prunk.....

Man this might not work out so good for us if the Rays just move everybody back one day. It looks like Price would come up again on Monday having pitched Wednesday.