jung

Gomes has got unbelievably good eyes at the plate.

Another dud

I did not like how Felix showed up for ST but as i said earlier, once you get past all that stuff that within a certain context does matter, it is really hard to complain about how he has pitched. For example if you were in the post season and were forced to give the ball to the guy in the 5 hole in your rotation, why would we feel that disadvantaged handing the ball to Felix? I mean he is not a bad option sitting down there in the 5 hole. In that situation our guy would be a heck of a better option that a lotta' teams would be stuck throwing out there.

I am sure with all these RH pitchers coming up to face that Carp is going to get more time. Napoli was never going to be able to play tons of games this year regardless of not catching. They are going to need to give him more days off just to nurse him through the season. You guys are right about that three year deal though. Imagine having to go through this for three years!

Yea I gotta' admit I have given up on that with Felix. However if you can get past that....then it gets really hard to complain about how he is pitching for us.

That could not have worked out better....give up the run but get two outs and hopefully kill the rally. Really not happy when Felix starts going full count a bunch a' times.

Well Shucks!

Boy I would love to see the Sox get this game. Would almost feel like stealing. Travel day..West Coast....Wilson going for the enemy....Ortiz sitting....O's already lost

Shuck disease seems to be spreading! Something tells me we are going to pay for that damn walk. Must have given them 5 outs this half inning.

I think that would be a great west coast swing.

As I think Ells has already proven this year...the best way for him to hit HR's is to not try to hit HR's.

At least Nava has gotten on but jeez we need Salty to do something or we strand guys again. nice job Salty...Shuck in shock....did not know what to do with himself.

Gotta' be encouraging for them to see Felix work out of the 1st. Fly out last night...probably feel like s***. Go down quick in their half of the 1st and BANG....AngelFish is a base runner and already in scoring position. Nice job getting outta' that.

I can't remember a season with so many travel/play days.

I think we did forget the 30 HR year for Ells and with good reason. He is not a HR hitter. Unfortunately it was pretty clear early on this year that Ells had not forgotten it or maybe Boras had not forgotten it. He spent the early part of his season all the way up till latter in May, trying to jack the ball over the RF wall. All that produced was an endless string of ground outs as he kept rolling over. BA fell to a low of 241 and OBP fell to 303 at the bottom. Good thing Vic did a good job behind him as the team did not suffer much for it. If it was not painfully obvious it should have been when it took nothing more than a change of approach at the plate to turn his entire season around. As soon as Ells stopped trying to jack the ball over the fence, his stroke improved dramatically as did everything else offensively. His BA has climbed to 303 and his OBP is 367. He is stealing bases and doing all the things you expect of the guy batting 1st in the order maybe with the exception of drawing a few more BB's. I don't think Farrell had Ells batting from the 1 hole with the idea that he would go to the plate with HR on his mind. That said, even if only marginally I suspect Boras and Ells will pay for their sins. If Ells had been producing as he has been lately from the beginning of the season, his numbers right now would be insane. An entire year like that would likely yield something pretty close to the same salary territory as a 20 HR season combined with less of everything else. Maybe he would be on his way to the ASG via vote instead of running 8th in the voting as of earlier this week. An AS game selection has to mean something as far as salary goes. So he very likely cost himself there also. If he keeps going like he is going now the early season fiasco will likely cost him a couple $M per year but not more than that. However, contrast Ells with Gomes and his selfless attitude toward getting much less playing time than he had thought when he signed and some disappointment in Ells is understandable. If the team had done poorly while Ells was pulling that s***, substitute anger for disappointment as that also would have been justified. It is another good example of how the money corrupts baseball.

I don't think the Sox will spend any time thinking about replacing the starter in their 5 hole.

I think the starter question still hinges on Buch. Get him back and we should be fine. Without him its a different story.

I think this Sox team will do better on these west coast swings than recent teams have done. I might be wrong but it should be better suited to those damn west coast parks than what we have had in the past. We may not do great out there but I don't expect one of those 1-9 or 2-8 deals like we have had before. 5-5 would be terrific and 6-4 would be downright incredible.

I don't know if Snyder will be here long enough for the scouts to get around on him but he cannot stay off of high heat. We should see if they start to feed him high heat with two strikes to get him out.

Will Bailey throw one more slider this inning? Threw one more and hung it but it did not matter. At least two of those FB's should have been in the seats and likely would have been if this were anybody but the Padre's. Maybe Bailey can build on it though.

You have to respect certain guys arms in this league. This is not pee-wee baseball. No 3rd base coach is going to get many guys thrown out at home cause there are not that many opportunities during the year. However, I would bet money Butterfield will have us crying in our beer before this year is out.

I surely do not think the running issues here have been what Farrell had going in Toronto. That was hideous. My biggest issues here are with Butterfield. Granted Farrell puts Butterfield out there. I am not sure Butterfield is even taking calculated risks cause he does not ever seem to hold the runner up. I would not have had Vic challenge Joey Bats in RF for example. I just did not get that. Butterfield has seen Bats throw. He is not only capable of making that throw but challenged is likely to make that throw. To me Butterfield does way too much of that. Somewhere along the way either in the regular season or post season if we get there I would not be surprised to see Butterfield really burn us somewhere along the way.

Man this SD team must be tough to watch day in and day out. That even sounds like torture. It just does not do anything. Nobody coming to the plate you really wait for...nobody pitching that you would anticipate....nobody in the field that makes you stand up and take notice. Probably have the world's fastest computer trying to figure out who they should send to the ASG.

May Iggy never extend that swing out to where it was last year. If he can keep this swing where it is...he is on his way.

Yea but I wonder how many more throws from 3rd like last night's Snyder might have in that arm of his. He is not exactly a defensive wiz. WMB is not great either but better than Synder. WMB probably back after the ASB. WMB has to be able to recognize and lay off of ML sliders starting on the outer 3rd and headed off the plate. If he can't do that it hardly matters how many balls he knocks out at AAA. He will be meat up here. Volquez would have had the WMB we know spinning like a top. Hopefully waiting longer (apparently that is what he is trying to do down there) allows him better pitch recognition.