jung

Sit down ya' stiff

Figure we are bound to benefit from these walks more than we have so far. Maybe this will be the spot.

Remy pissed off about the accusation that Buch was throwing spitballs last night. In case there are those that have not seen what one looks like....the ball drops off the table at the end....I mean literally drops right off the table at the end if it is thrown correctly. Nothing breaks that sharply at the end which is why most ballplayers know when a pitcher is using something. Remy describing it as "dipping". I wish it was that subtle.

Dempster is toying with that place he cannot be....up in the zone

That has always been a tough pitch for Nava to lay off of from the right side

1st innings are can be ragged for SPers. Dempster appears so far to be one of those that struggles a bit in the 1st.

Usually they have been right down main st mistakes as well....like that one!

WEEI's web site might have it. I have never checked.

The article closes with the line "it does not look like rosin. What does the guy writing the piece think rosin mixed with sweat and water looks like.....powder??? What ********. What Buch has had since the beginning of the season is ridiculous command and location you would die for. The movement on his pitches has been good but not out the ass good. Lester has actually had more movement on his offspeed stuff (except for his last outing) but Lester cannot so far match Buch for command and location of a bevy of different pitches. Nobody else has been able to match Buch in that regard either. Buch has been able to move from high and tight and just off the plate inside or just on the black inside if he wants to right on the outside of the black outside with multiple pitches almost at will.

One thing I should point out so that people do not think this is another of those, the players were just better sort of threads.... Up until the last decade....maybe two, ML hitters and really all ballplayers swung much heavier lumber than they do today. You no longer can even find bats that heavy in a ML dugout any longer. The heavy lumber started disappearing in the 80's and was I think for the most part gone by the mid-90's. So when a really strong player made absolutely solid contact....the thing could on occasion just take off into the stratosphere. It did take tremendous wrists to manhandle those bats. I remember Willy Mays looking at some player's bat during an AS game and commenting that "I use these for toothpicks". So yes there were more 500' HR's and long HR's generally. However the guys playing today have opted for the ability to hit more not longer HR's as well as base hits and extra base hits by using lighter lumber. Naps looks like a pretty heavy bat by today's standards. However I would venture a bet that it falls into Mays "toothpick" category.

Well you have to hand it to WMB, he clearly works hard. He ended last season a very iffy defensive 3rd baseman and has started this year solid as a rock. That just does not happen sitting on one's duff. So I am not sure if we will see big changes in WMB at the plate this year. However if they can ever get him to stop swinging at balls off the plate and get him fouling off pitches on the outer half with two strikes, WMB will turn into a monster at the plate. Might be another off-season's work to get where he needs to be....presuming that he works on this stuff this coming off-season.

Mantle a few times for one

Hacksaw could work for Naps! Although the guys I have seen with that nickname are usually lean, mean, nasty sons-o-bitches. Hacksaw Mike sounds good though.

Except for the ball that dropped about 3 yards in front of him that would have been easy pickin's for Vic

Naps has always hit monster blasts. I have been more impressed with his play at 1st. He is not going to run down lots of balls and impress us with range and such but neither has he been a liability over there. We will have to watch how the season wears on Naps. He played 140 games in 2010. All other seasons he has been more like about 110 games or so. No catching should really help him. However the season is a grind whether at 1st or mixed positions. Remember that tower of strength (sarcasm alert) Agons running out of gas and complaining about the schedule. He never played anywhere but 1st.

Depends on the RF. Nava appears to e a little slow of foot for Fenway's RF. He has enough arm so that he can get away with spending some time in RF. He will not make you forget Vic out there though. Nava is perfect for the dimensions and the general requirements of Fenway's LF where his judgement and baseball savvy really come in handy.

Sorta' tells ya' how much of a bomb a 500'er would be. Imagine hitting it a full 33' further than that?

Holy Crap....!! McCauley Caulken....Does he play for the Braves?:D

However, while I do not agree with him, the ump claims that Salty had released the ball BEFORE his elbow hit him. I do not agree, but it does not sound like the call would have gone our way, rightly or wrongly.

As good as the hitting has been, without the way Lester and Buch have pitched we are slamming away with the rest of the AL trying to bang out more 10-8 victories than the other guys. In the AL that is always a much more iffy proposition than if you can pitch. After Lester and Buch it is Ueh, Taz and Bailey for the way they have closed out games. After them, you get to talk about the everyday players and the way they have played. Without the way they have pitched to date, this is just another AL team bashing away, trying to break down the fences. Probably winning a few more than they are losing but not many more. Probably something like 16-11 instead of 19-8. That is not necessarily to discount entirely the hitting but other than the Rays, everybody that wins games in the AL, hits.

Buch and Lester have been beyond outstanding at the top of the rotation. Just flip Lester and Buch for a second. Would we not think that Lester to this point has been outstanding for the #2 in a rotation? Buch has been other-worldly. Of the Sox nineteen wins after tonight, eleven will have come on games they started and ten of the eleven are games where they figured in the decision....That is just unheard of. It is worth checking but you would have to think that it rivals anything any 1-2 starters have ever done at the start of a season at least since the inception of the DH when you figure all of their combined stats.

Oh for Christ's sake THROW STRIKES....Thank you!

Throw strikes Wilson...don't dick around

One of the million problems I see with this Jays team is that it seem to have devolved very quickly into an "All for none and one for one" bunch. They should do well with that approach. Like trying to stretch into a double down 8 runs for example.

Maybe PED's were regenerating brain cells for Cabrera as well.