jung

Buch has not really talked about "pain" in the sense that people even players talk about pain. He has said he has "discomfort" ...."does not feel right" and wants to be at 100% before coming back. The doctors must know what it is cause they have said he cannot hurt it worse if he pitches with it. There are compensation injuries to consider but at any rate, the docs must know what hit is in order to claim he cannot hurt it worse pitching with it.

And another thing posters are conveniently forgetting is that it has been reported that the medical opinion is that "Buch cannot hurt the injury worse by pitching" CANNOT hurt the injury worse by pitching. Having not pitched since June 8th and having now suffered what at least he considers to be yet another set back does mean he will have to go through another process of strengthening his arm in order to pitch again this year. This last set-back to my mind was the straw that broke the camel's back as he will simply have been away and inactive too long. For a guy as fragile as Buch, just the process of strengthening his arm again can go awry and he is at risk for additional injury unrelated to the first injury just going through that process. Clearly at the start of this season Buch was at his peak having never pitched that well for such a long stretch at any time in his history...hence I think it highly unlikely that he will come back that good even if he successfully goes through the process or preparing to be a ML pitcher again this season. We had him at his best ever and whether we want to admit it or not, he will not likely be that same guy after what will at minimum now be a two month hiatus. If he goes though yet another week of this screwing around, we will be looking at more like a 2.5 month hiatus before he can be ready to take the mound again. I will totally grant that the team has done well in his absence which has in part saved Buch from criticism. However, now that it has gone on this long, fans unwillingness to deal with the reality of such a long stretch of inactivity are simply putting their heads in the sand. As I said earlier given Lester's problems, that is an issue. Felix plus Lackey do not make up for the Buch and Lester combination that we had at the start of the season. Call it ranting if you want. Come back and tell me that when we are truly dealing with this issue later this year. I would put the chances that we won't be dealing with this issue in a negative sense at less than 10% at this point given Buch's history of fragility. Take the one 29 start season away and Buch has averaged about 14 starts per year. Add the 29 start season back in and he has averaged more like 18 or 19 starts.....hardly a horse.

Look the guy (Buch) admits he can pitch! So he can pitch but has resisted pitching all the way to the point where he now has to rebuild the strength back in his arm!!! You have got to be f***ing kidding me. "So he does not pitch so as to not risk his season cause he does not want to pitch unless he is 100%. I guess that is the reason??? That is also what he is now saying. He has already risked his season due to inactivity! How long is the off-season. If you pitch into October, the off-season is 2.5 months long before pitchers are throwing in ST. He is now going to be off for 2 months at least. Please don't tell me those long tosses amount to anything. He has not been on a mound in 2 months and that will now be at the minimum. I would suggest that since he now has to rebuild his arm strength as in start from scratch, the chance that he comes back as strong and as capable as he was at the start of the season are somewhere between slim and none. So when that happens you guys can tell me again how that has worked out for us. But remember when that happens that Buch himself is saying he could have pitched. The mistake in my view was not in pushing him to max pitch counts while he was struggling with his whatever. The mistake was shutting him down completely when he could have pitched because his season is officially shot now.

I would question the Sox getting there with Lester like this AND no Buch. The longer this ridiculous thing with Buch goes the more at risk the ability for Buch to come back and be what he was earlier in the year. It is getting to the point now where he has lost so much time that it will be like starting from scratch when he does come back. When you are idle so long that you have to regain your arm strength just to pitch you are starting from scratch. Nobody goes through that process and comes out the same way. Since there is no way he could be better than he was at the start of the year, there is only one other way for that to go. I for one take no comfort in the comments now from Buch himself that he could pitch if he had to. Well then pitch,,,,WIMP!

I would listen to people who were interested in WMB. Might not do anything but after what I saw I would listen. WMB is simply not making any progress. I thought he was making progress based on the Red Sox propaganda machine and news media comments. Then I saw him on Saturday. Very small sample size but I was just looking for the tiniest sign of progress and I could not find it...none...nada...zippo....for a guy like me that was really hoping that WMB would show enough to make it back this year it was in a word....frightening!

And it is true that fans don't care about jerks as long as their jerks are winning. But the truth of it is that the big four pro sports can't really survive on the hard core fan. The NHL has probably done the best job at surviving on the hard core fan. In truth, the Stanley Cup playoffs offer so much drama, draws in so many casual fans and lasts for something like 40% of a full regular season that the NHL really lives and dies on its playoffs. MLB ratings are not growing and in fact have been in decline since 2007. MLB attendance is not growing this year either but attendance grew from 2004 through 2012. We all know that the 2nd WC was dreamt up as a means to keep attendance growing and it seemed to work for the one year anyway. This year attendance is also down. We don't notice that much cause we are in one of the major markets for MLB. But MLB can't survive on those major markets either. Attendance is up in ten markets and down in twenty with the total down by 1,500,000 attendees already. Miami is the big loser accounting for 500,000 fans. 2nd WC seems to be a pretty short lived boost. Interleague seems to have lost its luster as well. The last rounds left in the gun are variable and dynamic pricing. Once all teams have instituted one plan or the other, there is little left for MLB to do to boost attendance. The real deal is rating though. Ratings have been in decline because TV viewers have several entertainment options to choose from in the comfort of their dens and MLB is just not capturing enough of their attention. TV is really tough as even hardcore fans have got to learn how to glean as much of what they would get about the intricacies of the game from the mighty tube as they would get being in the stadium. In order to do that, you actually have to teach yourself what to look for from the mighty tube and you just have to resign yourself to not being able to get as much from the TV experience as you would get being there. Heck, casual fans don't know enough about the actual game to make that transition. The key to ratings is likely computer integration and enhancement of the TV experience as a means of actually bringing the TV viewer more than what he can get in the stadium. Clearly it won't be the same but you could still envision the ability to get more from the tube than you would from being there. If you are wondering, attendance is down in Boston. Tells you that you can be exciting as hell but it takes a long time to reverse a trend. Hence my comment about killing the golden goose and taking some time to revive that sucker if dead. The worst thing that can happen to pro sports is the idea that the fix is in. Even wild cards are tough for pro sports to take. So, blind umps and PED's are negatives big time both because they dampen the betting interest and because they dampen casual interest. Nobody wants to spend 3.5 hours invested in a game to have some jerk umpire blow a call and turn the whole thing on its ear. Nobody wants to read a week later that the guy that hit the walk-off is juicing either. That is the problem with jerks be they juicing jerks, incompetent jerks or unscrupulous jerks. The game takes too long and casual fans just won't give it that much time only to be foiled by the jerk factor.

Probably a dispute over starting vs relieving. Aceves is unscrupulous and a total jerk. The number of total jerks in baseball seems to be rising exponentially. Beware PA, between the nitwit owners, the commish, the umps, the networks and your constituents somebody is going to slay the golden goose. Once dead, that sucker will be hell to raise up again.

The Sox may have gotten to the point where it is time for a little cloak and dagger as far as Buch's condition is concerned. They may decide to do something about another starter after all and it may be too close to the deadline to expect honesty regarding Buch's health.

Based on what I saw from WMB yesterday in Pawtucket...if he keeps on going this way you may never see him in a Sox uni again....this year...next year...any year. Just as Lou Merloni was very surprised that WMB did not make one single adjustment while he was up this year, I am equally surprised at how little progress he appears to have made after being sent down. In a word, he is still a mess at least from what I saw.

Thornton is also about fourth on the list of Farrell screw ups in this game starting with leaving Workman in. Sometimes games like this happen where almost all of a manager's less than impressive tendencies bite him in the ass in one game. This was one of those. Does not excuse Farrell. Thornton probably should never have happened for one thing. We should have won the game and been on the way home by then! So what the hell is Thornton going to be? Is he going to close? Is Bailey going to close. Is Ueh still the closer and if he is, why use him in the 9th inning of a tie game on the road? The one thing Farrell got lower grades for in Toronto than running his team out of games was the way he handled the pen. Still not his best feature IMO. Farrell gets high marks for being head and shoulders better than V....for what that's worth and there are many things Farrell does better than handle the pen. However handling the pen is a pretty big deal.

IMO, you can chalk this one up to Farrell as much as anything else.

Well that totally totally sucks...hate these games we could have won especially when they are in parks against teams where we are usually lost from beginning to end.

Unf***ing-believable......this guy is an embarrassment to embarrassing umps. Why hasn't Joe West signed him up yet. He would fit right in on his crew.

This ump is vying for the blind man award. In fact, Workman might have found a way to his curve ball if this idiot had seen a couple of them as strikes that were called balls.

Using your closer in the ninth of a tie game is pretty common when at home cause you are getting the last bats. On the road it is a bit more unusual cause your are just extending the game and now your closer is used up. I don't think Farrell has shown a tendency to vary that approach between home and road which is unusual IMO. Then again, I don't think use of the pen is Farrell's best managerial feature anyway.

I could not tell but I would bet that Gomes was verbally asking for time before he raised his hand...very common for the batter to be asking for time without taking his hands off the bat and only take his hands off the bat if he is not getting a response from the ump. All by way of saying, I could not tell you when Gomes started asking for time.

I for one would not have posted a word if a reliever had come in and given up the HR. Workman is a kid in his first ML start, tiring, at 100 pitches, getting the ball up and without use of his best pitch. How does that turn into having enough juice with the Manager to stay in the game at that point? It doesn't. Hindsight has nothing to do with it. The reliever would have been the better move to me especially with a pen full of guys that are going to get three days rest and it would have been the better move even if it had failed.

Workman may have only given up one hit but this was his first big league start. No way the kid has the kind of experience to be left in a game like that. If was able to either a) throw his hook for strikes or keep the ball down then I would say there was an argument for keeping Workman in the game. But he was not able to throw the hook for strikes and had been steadily climbing the ladder. Pretty contrarian move by Farrell when he has a pen stocked with guys. Maybe it won't matter in the end...maybe it will. By the way you can't be arguing that Workman would have been left in to complete the game...with what 140 pitches? So if you are going to have to take him out and your pen is stocked with guys, why leave him in there?

You would think Farrell would have been looking to empty the pen today cause everybody rests for the ASB. Don't know why Workman was still out there once the no hitter was gone. At 100 pitches there was no way he was going to be around for the complete game shut out anyway and his pitches had been steadily climbing the ladder.

Well if you are going to be up that often in the zone, somebody is going to catch up to you sooner or later. Workman pitched very well though especially considering he really could not throw that hook for strikes today.

The long run looking into that high sky is what killed Iggy on that one. If a 3rd baseman had been over there, that would have been an easy enough play. We might be carrying this shift s*** a little to far if we are shifting for every A's LH hitter.

Workman's got a real shot at impressing us today. His FB location is really good today. Able to get some guys out without even having to show that hook. If he can keep the FB going and then work in the hook, he might have a memorable first start.

I am really anxious to see more of that hook that Workman carries to the mound. Having to endure Fat Slob Colon is the penalty I guess. I refuse to believe the guy has not juiced to the max.

I lost so I am out. Somebody must want it!

Lucchino definitely pulled a lotta' strings during the Theo era. AGons was one guy that Theo longed after forever and finally got. Many of the other Glitzy deals Lucchino was at least equally favoring. Still Theo was the GM. If he knuckled under to Lucchino he is a sell out. If was the master of his own ship he was a fanboy with a budget. Take you pick. Neither are particularly appealing.