jung

Poor Jonny...You know you are in trouble when they are walkin' Nava to get to you.

Gomes has actually taken all this pretty much in stride. Nothing has worked out like he thought it would. Initially they were going to see if he could hit RHers in an effort to determine if he could play every day in LF. None of that has even come close to happening and he is really right back where he has been...riding pine for the most part. Not getting enough AB's to knock off the rust when he finally does get in there. Not sure there is any other way for the Sox to play it regardless of what their intensions might have been.

McAlister must have been hoping that would hook. That stayed straight as an arrow I think.

Unhittable as in too good. It might have been off the plate but too close for Cabrera to take. Gomes looking at his bat after strike 3 the way d-mac used to look at his bat...looking for the hole in it that the ball must have gone through.

Jeez come on guys. Do we have to have the mustard story again?

Strike 3 to Cabrera was unhittable.

Wow..was that outside

That has been the only weak spot for Naps so far this year. He can be beaten upstairs. However he is as good a low ball hitter as some LH hitters.

McAllister lucky to have gotten that one past Naps

Good thing for Tito he is kinda' relaxed. The way these guys pitch is going to have Tito going nuts at some point. Here let me walk Pedey so I can pitch to Napoli with RISP.

Farrell must think that Gomes is just not getting enough AB's and with Ortiz coming back maybe thinks he may even get less unless he can show that he can do something against RH pitchers. In any event Gomes has had very few chances regardless of the pitcher. I suspect Carp showed Farrell everything he wanted to see and he wants to see more of Gomes at this point.

Reverse locks have been prevalent of late. Not sure about this one though. Lester is on track early on to have a career year....finally his career year. He seems very focused...almost too much so. But it is working for him at this point. He seems to me to be the kind of guy that knows what he has accomplished so far and what he could accomplish. I figure he will consider a bad start now squandering the momentum he has built so far. That should be enough to stave off the reverse lock.

Hitters don't hit every mistake pitch a pitcher throws. If they did, the final score would have been 122 to something last night. But you cannot look at Masterson's location last night and say that he offered up much of a test or a challenge as a starting pitcher. He just didn't. I enjoyed it...but I took for what it was as opposed to taking it for what it was not. It's nice that we made Masterson pay for most of his mistakes. There are actually teams of players out there that would not have done as well in spite of Masterson's vulnerability last night. Those teams are going to find their way to the basement of their respective divisions cause if you can't take advantage of a guy throwing the way Masterson was throwing last night, pack it in cause you are all done. Even if you can pitch some you are all done. The other thing that is being undervalued is the comfort zone you get hitting with a lead. Why we would miss this one is also beyond me. We got a healthy dose of how much more difficult things get for hitters when you are constantly playing from behind. Well the opposite is just as true when you are always playing from in front. That is why the Ells/Vic combination has been at least from the everyday player perspective and particularly Vic, so much a factor in the team's early success. The two most critical guys for the Sox so far have been Lester and Buch, without question. But I would stick two everyday players into the mix of three through six when trying to value contributions to this early success. Third through sixth for me would be Vic for the way he has set the early table and for the way he has played in the field. Uehara for the way he has come in and shut down mid/late inning efforts by the opponent, Bailey for the way he has closed and Ells for the same kinds of contributions that Vic has made but somewhat less effectively. I might be tempted to insert Taz where I have Bailey cause it is not like Bailey is coming into too many tense situations closing so far. Vic and Ells have pressured the opposition almost from jump street in every game and have allowed the Sox to jump out to early leads. In fact they have jumped so far out early that they are taking opponents out of their game plans before they can even implement them. As I stated in a different post and thread, the Ells/Vic combination have been about as effective as Jeter/Ich was for the Yanks, except Ells and Vic are about 50 years younger. In fact that is also in part why if I had my druthers, I would switch Ells with Vic. Both are fast enough to lead off. Vic is really trying to copy the way Jeter now hits whether Vic knows it or not. That is why I would switch him with Ells. As long as Ells remains healthy his power numbers will be better than Vics. The only dif would be that Ich may have better bat control than Ells has and you might be more effective in the hit and run with Vic remaining in the 2 spot. However the 2011 version of Jeter was not faster than the other three guys in the discussion. Vic is faster as is Ells. Ells slugging % is better than Vics so far but Vics OBP is better than Ells. No surprises in either case. Things are going too good to mess with those two guys at the top at this point. Regardless of what I would like to see, even I would not likely have the guts to switch Ells with Vic at this very moment.

JBJ is the only defensive sub we have that can be inserted into any of the three outfield positions as a late innings sub. However we are not going to sub out Ells or Vic. So that leave JBJ for LF. That is a waste unless it is a big LF where he could cut off late innings extra base hits. Plus JBJ needs to play every day. I fail to understand why that would not be self evident. He is not a polished ML ball player yet. He is not a complete hitter by any means and makes too many mistakes in the outfield. He is athletic and that is for now about where it ends.

Yea we only scored 3 cause we left the other 117 RISP on without driving them in. I am sure Carp is enjoying his night in the sun and does not give a rats ass about what people post here. However Masterson was not a test for anybody last night. I really would like to see Vic and Ells switch although it is working so good right now that nobody is going to mess with that lineup. As good as it has been I do think it would work better and makes more sense. Vic is not even trying to hit for power and Ells would seem to have a more natural power stroke as long as he is healthy. Vic is certainly fast enough to bat 1st.

We need to see more of Carp against pitchers that are not leaving everything up and in the middle of plate. Masterson was a Batting Practice pitcher last night.

Nobody should have been giving WMB anything to hit middle in anyway. He is meat outer half until he passes a course from the Victorino school of hitting.

Vic would have to do it over time for me to put him in the same class with Dewey. Dewey was really good over an extended period and his arm was ridiculous. Threw guys out at 3rd at home all over the damned place. Also Dewey never seemed to suffer from playing in a different ball park. Played them all equally. I would say Vic could be second to Dewey though.

I think they slipped a 0 in there. That crowd looks more like 1,282...not 10,282

Iphones don't make me laugh. Now Galaxy Notes are another story. Like carrying around a 50" plasma in your pocket.

Sox will pay for this. They will need Carp's bat late.:D

Farrell trying to give Ace a chance to complete the inning and get 6 complete. He was not on his last legs though. He was past last legs about 20 pitches ago. Not a bad gamble under the circumstances. We may end up having to score more runs before it is all over though.

Ah yes the Aceves bomb-o-rama home run derby video game is never too far away.

Normally by the way, I would say that the AL pitchers will eventually find a hole in Vics game and start having more success against him. But they seem to think that hole is outer half and that ain't workin'. Might be interesting to see what happens if and when they really try to pound Vic inside.

He may not stay this hot but the way he approaches his plate appearances, there is no real reason to believe Vic will turn into a pumpkin at some point. Really not doing more than keeping that bat on plane in the strike zone. Then when they come inside he has enough snap in his wrists to get around on the inside pitch. He will be a tough out all season hitting like that.