jung

What I would give to have Perez as our catcher.

Felix...walks and K's ....walks and K's.....one of these days he is going to have 100 pitches going into the 4th inning.

FB is tougher on Pedey with that stupid thumb. Does seem to have an impact on his bat speed

The cold is not as bad as they have had it. It is unseasonable but not intolerable.

The early start does not seem to be encouraging more ticket sales. It does seem to be encouraging more late arrivals.

WMB will likely be better than he has been in the short term. In the long run to truly live up to the potential I think we and the Sox organization see in him, he is going to have to learn to lay off that slider that starts on the outer third and finishes in the 1st base dugout (and I don't mean as a foul ball!). A first step in that direction would kill two birds with one stone. WMB swings at some pretty lousy pitches early in counts. If he forces himself to lay off pitches that are outside corner even outside corner strikes early in counts, he will see better pitches to hit and he will begin the process of learning how to lay off that pitch that finishes in the 1st base dugout.

I do not think Bard would have been an effective closer. I think the Sox lost faith in his abilities as a closer and that in part fed into the decision to transition him. At the time of his collapse I commented that he had always been up and down, that the Sox brain trust had always been struggling with his inconsistency and trying to find ways to overcome it even as a full time reliever. In addition his collapses were always collapses. He never just sort of went into a minor funk. He always had some form of a meltdown when things went south. So I was less inclined to look at that mess as "look at what the Sox have done to Bard". I looked at it more like, "how could you plan around having this guy in your rotation?" In fact, how could you stick Felix and Bard in the 4 and 5 hole, put a bunch of scrub pitchers in Pawtucket as depth and basically consider it a job completed.

Looking forward to these games with Oakland. Interested to see how Felix does for one thing. There is always something interesting to grab your attention and hold your interest in these games this year. Almost does not matter what the record is...it does matter but there is so much to look at and think about with this team from a pure baseball perspective. We have already had some of the best games win or lose that I have seen in at least three-four maybe five years. I don't know if they will hold people's attention if things start going the wrong way. I think they will still be an interesting team for real baseball fans.

I actually think LF is the optimal location for Nava. He suffers from his lack of speed in CF or RF as we saw yesterday. Fenway's LF is a great spot for him because as I have contended on several occasions, LF does not require as much athletic ability as the the other two fields but does require more knowledge of the game, of the field in order to inform the additional judgements the LF must make. For example I used in my arguments about LF the fact that the LFer can throw to the wrong base in such a way that it is impossible to recover whereas the RF has to throw the ball into the RF grandstands to really screw up. The RF needs a better arm but really can't go that far wrong directionally as all the plays are in front of him. Sure enough, one of JBJ's mistakes in LF was throwing home instead of throwing to 2nd when he had no chance to get the runner at home. As a consequence he gave up 2nd base to the hitter who by rights should not have gotten past 1st. Nava has made himself a decent LFer and I have contended that save moving people around that are already in the everyday lineup for the Sox, Nava is the best LFer we have.

The team lost the game. Actually without Vic, there is not much jump in that offense. He is a real catalyst. Miller did not lose the game necessarily and at least in my case, that is not the point. You cannot keep putting him out there to fail in high leverage situations.

I think that until he proves he can come out and pitch effectively in high leverage situations, it makes little sense to throw Miller out there. Even in situations where he has had some success so far, it has been when he has had the opportunity to put a few guys on base before he settles in and gets outs. He had an opportunity to settle in here as well but he has really lived on the edge the whole young season so far continuing to be inconsistent as he was last year. He simply cannot get through a whole inning without getting into deep holes. Sometimes he cannot even get an out without getting into a deep hole. Farrell will have to find ways to use him where he can, meaning where the game is not on the line and see if he can get back on track. Sucks in a way cause Miller does throw hard and you would prefer being able to use him in high leverage situations. He does seem like he could stand to be more focused and a bit more under control when he is on the mound. I often comment that I would like to see Lester free himself up a little more on the mound as he seems super focused and really almost too controlled at times. I would like some of that to rub off on Miller who seems more of a get the ball and throw it kind of pitcher. That would be fine if it worked but it does not seem to be working for him as he goes through these streaks where he just cannot find the plate or is sometimes wild in the zone. Often he regains enough control to save himself but he is usually saving himself from a jam he got himself into. What would happen if he was more often coming into existing jams? Think chances are good he could get outta' those the way he has been pitching?

Would not have thought we would lose both ends of a DH. But we played real sloppy baseball in game 2 and squandered the opportunity to split the DH and take the series. Don't like seeing the Sox drop games that are waiting to be won.

Well that sucked...Santana was just dominant..that will happen but Guthrie was just waiting to get walloped. One silver lining...Might not to have to endure Miller in anything resembling a high leverage situation again.

That's it! We are f***ed now thanks to Remy.

The way left field is designed at Fenway can be tough. There is that one foot of foul ground and bang you are running into ten feet of wall. Then on hard hit balls down the line they might continue down the line or carom off toward CF

Wonder if there are any numbers for either Gomes vs Guthrie or Salty vs Guthrie that mattered to Farrell. There must at least be some numbers cause Guthrie has been around forever. In the case of Napoli for example it just does not seem to matter that he is batting RH....Guthrie throws right into the plane of his swing. I am surprised Guthrie is not throwing and ducking with Naps at the plate.

Cain at the plate looking around to see if Gordon is coming

I think the RH pitcher is what kept Gomes out and has Salty in.

Well I can't fault WMB there. That was not a slider...it was a decent pitch to hit and the way WMB goes down to anything low and outside I am in favor of him swinging at any pitch that is not a breaking ball on the outer third and low...If that means he swings at the first pitch I am OK with that for now.

Salty with the mighty wave

Guthrie should just walk him

Napoli owns Guthrie. Its like Guthrie is throwing right into the plane of Naps swing and it is just a matter of how far it is going

Honestly I think one common trait for pitchers making their early ML appearances is that they are not used to having so many of their mistake pitches tagged. They are used to hitters missing many of them. They are still missed up here but not as often and on some days, it can feel like they aren't missing any of them.

Well that was clanked

I think Gordon would suffer from multiple dismemberment if Cain ran into him. At this rate next time Cain sees Gordon coming he is going to shoot him and then catch the ball.