jung

Can't start walkin people Felix

Well at least this is how it should go with a big lead. Indian hitters getting their bat on the ball and hitting it hard but we are collecting outs. Should put up more runs against these guys.

Felix throwing with little on his pitches. Maybe needs to get some throws after such a long half inning.

Real interested to see how Felix plays this. He should come out throwing strikes period. Even though it is early in the game, this is a big lead. Plus Felix has been sitting for awhile. I don't want to see him trying to clip corners at this point.

Mercy K by the home plate ump.

Wow ...what a terrible outing for Jimenez. His motion completely fell apart once he started missing and he never got it back. Probably did get a couple bad ball/strike calls but completely lost it after that.

Like to see him knocked out of the game right here

Walks galore.

Not surprised the Sox have Nava playing instead of JBJ. If Ortiz comes back on Friday, he may not play another game before going down.

I don't really think the focus in the rotation is on Felix or even Lackey. How much can you expect from your 4 and 5. It is as it was suggested before the season started. We expect Lester to be the horse he has always been. It falls to Buch to go a whole season. Webster is not going to come out of the woodwork and replace Buch.

Yes Napoli gets $13M just for suiting up but it is a one year deal. Do you think he will be satisfied with just suiting up? He has every incentive to play solid ball and do his thing. So I think the point is that if he cannot stay on the field, the Sox have gambled $5M. If he stays on the field, he very likely will be worth the $13 as he will be playing for a new contract someplace...maybe here...maybe not. Frankly when all is said and done, I would not be completely surprised if the Napoli deal from a Sox perspective ends up besting the Ortiz deal.

Napoli would have been a very questionable add at $13M or whatever that was...at $5M he is an absolute steal. He has his issues but most power hitters do. The big dif is his cost is very very attractive for what he can produce. So I don't think he is the end all of power hitters. But how can you complain for $5M.

Walk off time....great win...for the broom job.

We might have to put a check mark next to this ump crew. They have been a little shop of horrors all three days which is rare. Usually their is a bright spot somewhere. They have done OK by us on balance which is why I will not want to see them again. This stuff tends to balance out.

Rays got jobbed on that one. Pedey was gone.

At least Bailey came through at the end. That was a terrific pitch to a LH hitter for the second out. Just in far enough under the hands to not be in the sweet spot for the LH hitter. That sweet spot is only about an inch away from where Bailey threw that ball.

Well not for nothing. This is a classic Rays game. We could be behind instead of tied.

Where was JBJ throwing that....no chance he was going to get the runner at home.

Were it not for the fact that the Sox have set this up as JBJ down when Ortiz comes up, I would send him down now. If they changed the plan they have had JBJ might actually lose some confidence being sent down. But he does not even know where he is at this point.

Are we possibly going to see even worse umpiring this year than last? Plays at 1st are supposed to be judged by the sound of the ball hitting the glove combined with the umps view of the batter's foot hitting the bag. Are they deaf and blind this year?

At least at AAA JBJ will see stuff he can hit. Real ML pitching is much harder to hit than ST pitching. JBJ has not hit since the regular season started and is flailing at air more times than not.

I did not say anything when I first saw it cause TV can be deceiving on plays at 1st but Longoria was way safe at 1st.

JBJ is going to start to lose confidence if he hasn't started to already. Farrell commented that he had started to see it last week before he sat him for a game. If a hitter gets to the point where he is not hitting anything it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and he ....doesn't hit anything. They have got his number up here. Needs to go down and work it out and get this service time thing done with.

It will all boil down to whether guys in the rotation can stay healthy. Even when a 5 goes down, somebody has to step in for him. That somebody is then not available to step in for somebody else. On the bright side, Lester has been a horse his entire career. On the not so bright side, Buch...not so much.

There is no question that Farrell has had a major positive impact. I don't think I read posts from folks contesting that. However I don't read every post. There are some elements outside of Farrell's control that have also helped I am sure. I suspect that as important as the guy that is here is the guy or guys that are gone. Beckett had become a truly negative influence on the other pitchers and his position on the team made him hard to ignore. More importantly while Farrell is a competent, good manager, he was replacing the complete and utter antithesis of competent and good as a manager. At the point in time when the Sox hired him, Bobby V may well have been the worst managerial candidate available as opposed to the best. He was quite possibly the only manager in my history of watching baseball that has forced me to acknowledge how damaging he was to his team of players. In fact Beckett while not being a positive influence probably enjoyed even greater influence with the pitchers since the manager's office was such a black hole of deceit, deception and incompetence. In truth, as often as we have given the Sox, their players and their organization a pass, the biggest pass ever granted was the pass granted for having brought V here. I think we were all so happy to see him go that we just did not care to truly offer up the degree of criticism the Sox deserved for bringing V here. May they never again convince themselves that the opportunity to hire a caretaker for the manager's position also affords them the opportunity to bring somebody in that draws even more media attention than you would expect for a MLB team, especially the Sox. Lastly. both guys, Lester and Buch were likely as ready as they could be to turn a corner. Farrell and Nieves got them at just the right time, when both players were motivated to live up to their potential. I think both guys feel like they had dicked around long enough. While they had both enjoyed OK careers to that point, neither has really done more than whet both their and our appetites for more. I would not want to leave the impression that IMO the god of pitching coaches arrived and rescued these two guys from themselves. I think their own contributions to their turn arounds are as important as Farrell's and Nieves'. I think Lester is set. As long as he stays healthy I think he will have a great year. I don't expect him to go sawing through opposing hitters like he has so far for an entire season but I think he will have few off days and his health history is excellent. The only question for Buch is the one about taking the ball for an entire season.