jung

Remember guys, that was a double header day. It looked to me like much of what Farrell did was based on knowing Felix was very likely to leave innings to be pitched cause he has all year long. I suspect he wanted to give Frankie a shot to pick Felix up and would have likely used the bullpen differently in game one if they had stayed in that game. I really don't think Farrell knew for sure what he could get out of Frankie under the circumstances but I can't think of a better situation to use to try to find out. As it was, Frankie did not get it done. However in the end, the Sox ended up with the split. Winning both ends of a DH is not easy in this year of no days off. Really not sure why Farrell used as many guys as he did in game 1 after the horse was outta' the barn. Not sure it mattered in the end. I do not think I have seen a season with fewer days off for all the teams. We are off on another seven straight days on the road right now, playing and traveling on the same day per usual.

I think Naps is going to need more than 1 off day every 1.5 months.

scioscia's head just exploded

I would have thought Pedey also. But Ortiz is catching a lotta' flak lately for bat flips and posing at home. Ortiz would not be a surprise.

mike scioscia must be happy that he is getting paid for about million years. Between the Angels Defense and relief pitching which does appear to suck this team must be driving him nuts. I guess they can score or at least they should be able to. Seems like they have to in order to stay ahead of the pitching and the defense.

Please God tell me he just has a blister or something like that.

Buch shows us the kinda thing you only see from the very best pitchers in baseball. He only shows the hitters just so much the first time through the lineup. When he gets to adding his secondary pitches, the sequences he uses are just ridiculous. He just has hitters on the end of a string. There are really not that many pitchers that can do that to the degree that Buch is doing it.

Oh God. I thought we had it rough having to listen to Cafardo today. Forgot we were going to get McCarver tonight.

Clay seems to be up in the zone much more than we have seen him so far this year. Angels are right on some of these pitches.

Bringing Miller into a garbage time situation has really worked out nicely. I am not as exercised about this as I maybe should be. But this does not look like one of Farrell's better moments.

Good point Pal and that is one step even past being frustrated by watching the thing go down the drain like that....Once it was lost, no sense in wasting guys at that point. Tell Frankie to throw strikes and see where the cards fall. Maybe Farrell has that much confidence in his team. But for me, down 5 means your still out of the game even if you hit a GSHR. So down 5 this late, you are really out of it. Now ya' really got me though. So OK Farrell did not leave Frankie in to finish it and now he is not even going to leave Mort in to finish it!!! Now ya' got me. Why use Miller now?

To be honest I thought with two games to play today that Farrell was going to try to risk making Felix go longer regardless of the fact that he was tiring. Baring that, I guess I am not sure why the choices were only Frankie and Mort. This is a tough lineup but Farrell lately has allowed Miller to pitch to both LH and RH batters just for example. Maybe we could have tried to get one of our late inning guys to go more than one inning as an option. They all had a day off and we have Buch going in Game 2. Maybe the complaint is more, it seemed like we were still in this game before Frankie totally pissed it away and we could have tried something to save it. Lets face it though...it is a double header day. Farrell might have decided before a pitch was even thrown today that he would take a split if he could get it without f***ing up the staff, starters and relievers. We might know more once we see how Farrell handles Game 2. It is frustrating to watch the Angels just waltz across home plate like this in a game that we could have won. It's not over yet. We are all going to look kinda' sheepish if they come back and win this thing.

I give up on Amica pitch zone. Too many times looking at pitchfx the next day and left with a completely different impression on a pitch than what I had with Amica pitch zone. Sometimes we will have a forum member using gameday and the same thing happens. Would like NESN to use something but make it something more reliable than the Pitch Zone.

Guys like Nava and Carp have really done one heck of a job for this team this year. I am really impressed with Carp if only because he got left cemented to the pine for a good part of the early season but has still done a pretty good job when he has gotten his shots. Sox 10th player award should be a tough battle this year. Not sure if the system allows for a tie. Depending on how things go this might be one of the few years where more than one guy really deserves the honor.

Boy good luck with that one too Nick. The agents are never going to be able to put their desire to forward their client's interests on the back burner. As such "depending" on what they are telling you will always be a recipe for disaster. A guy might get the straight dope 9:10 times but boy that 10th time, will likely be left hung wayyyyy out to dry.

Ortiz may have been invited to the post conference championship Bruins party last night. In fact I can just about guarantee that he was invited. If he went, today might be a tough day for him. Seeing four baseballs coming at you and trying to hit one of them can be tough.

At least with mine if I am not recording, I can go back but not that far back. I can see something from the last minute or two but no farther. By the time I remember that I can do that the live feed is already too far away from the frames I want to view. If I can just get myself to remember to record then that problem goes away and I can just delete the recording at the end of the game.

Jeez Cafardo...wishing for Ells to regain 2011 power!! Forget it Nick. We just saw Ells kill his early season swinging to try to jerk the ball over the RF fences and rolling over everything. He will likely get a dinger now and again hitting this way. But I will take this Ells over the "swinging for the fences Ells" any day.

Cable box has a DVR built in but I never remember to have it running for baseball games. Gonna' start to remind myself. I have always wished that broadcasters would just pan back more often, more to show you were the fielders are playing but it would nice get a flash of the whole field situation every once and awhile as well. None of them EVER pan back. Lucky to see that shot once in 5-10 televised games.

Damn dogs had to go out for a break again. Lately missing too many plays servicing the animals. No idea how Salty ends up standing on 1st base. Missed Gomes getting on in front of Ortiz entirely the other night and did not even know he was on 2nd base in front of that HR.

Not sure you want to wish for aggressiveness out of Salty behind the plate. Too many of his throws end up rolling around in the outfield....way too many.

I guess Cafardo figures Albert is all done. Maybe he is right.

If that is the way King Albert has been swinging, no wonder he has not been getting much done. Has 9 bombs for what its worth.

I might be wrong but I don't think the Bruins were ever behind in one single Pens game. I think the Pens were at best tied in these games but mostly looking up at the Bruins. Also even when the Bruins were outscoring the Pens big early in the series, early in games the flow of play was favoring the Pens. But with the possible exception of Game 3, that never went on for more than a period. From the second period on these games were played the way the Bruins like to play hockey. Without question the worst decision the Pens made was to try to prove that they were as tough as the Bruins. That was a complete waste of time and effort. As it turns out, the Pens needed every minute of offensive pressure they could get and even then, it never looked like they had an answer for the Bruins defense, especially since even if they beat the defense, they were stuck dealing with Tuuka. I don't think the Pens saw that kind of performance coming from Tuuka.

I don't know that there is much sense to worrying about Felix at this point. It looked like he might head for a really tough stretch but that did not happen. So he seems to be a serviceable 5 at this point. Long term, I don't think Felix has the upside we had hoped for. He has shown up twice for spring out of shape and that does not sound like the kind of guy that will put the sweat equity into his game to improve. But he is this year's 5. His pitch count is what it is. He does not get outta' the 6th inning. Big deal. Do you ever get to your 5 in the post season if you get there? Does anybody get more than 5-6 innings out of their 5 in the regular season? All the things that are wrong with Felix become non-factors once you stop hoping he will be more than he is.