jung

Joyce is gonna' get a hernia back there

Ace is probably the only guy Farrell would tell not to "shoot the place up" actually concerned that he mgiht. It was Davis last year that pitched.

Sour puss Ace in the dugout looks like he wants to send a pack a wild boars chasing after Farrell looking to make a snack out of his nuts.

Oh Christ not this f*** again

Yup....

I would start to get somebody at least starting to shake off the cold down there in the pen at this point.

I suspect based on where that FB is ending up in the strike zone, the O's decided to sit dead red second time through and Ace has gone change. It has really worked out for him as you can tell the O's hitters are sitting dead red and can't pull the trigger on the change.

Farrell said in pre-game that he was inclined to let Ace go pretty far if he could. Did not elaborate with a number.

Jeez that pitch location is sorta' ugly.

Great at bat Pedey.

I could be wrong but I think they wanted to get Ace out on the mound tonight because of the amount of time it had been since he last pitched. I think they wanted to get him into the cycle tonight instead of waiting any longer once it was clear that Lackey would miss more than one start.

Hanrahan today "that is not the first save I have blown and it won't be the last". May be true but we don't want to hear that. We want to be lied to. We want to hear that you will never do that again. So we string you up by your balls when you do it again.

Ace got the K there but the reason why Ace gives up so many bombs is because his FB is just right there, middle and up, waiting to get creamed. I had predicted on bomb every other or every third inning. Ace is right on schedule.

A lost season is like last year when the Sox started with basically the same crew that completely collapsed at the end of 2011 and then in their infinite wisdom added a nuclear warhead named Bobby V to that mixture. 2012 was truly a lost season and looked like it before opening day. This will be a fun team to watch. I think it will be exasperating for those that have post season aspirations for it but fun for just about everybody. That is not a lost season to me anyway. The overarching issues on the post season front is that I really don't think more than one team from the AL East will get a WC birth if that. So if you don't finish at the top of the division or 2nd in it, I don't see another AL East team getting to the post season and I don't see the Sox finishing better than 3rd if that. I do think the Yanks are going to come out of this injury thing with a death grip on last place (isn't that just terrible????). I think we finish 4th and possibly 3rd if we can get past the newly uninspired Jays (something is wrong up there beyond simple ERA and OBP). Maybe they know or are anticipating big time suspensions are on the way. Don't know but something is amiss up there that I was not expecting until I saw how that team played and looked in the recent series). That leaves O's and Rays unless I am totally wrong about the Jays. I still no longer see them as getting past the Rays but they could get past the O's.

Well in truth the more we get to see the young guys play, the more fun this team is to watch. JBJ needs to see time in Pawtucket. If there is a silver lining to the way the regular season has gone for him it does not look like fans will be clamoring and demanding that he stay when Ortiz comes back. So the Sox get their little JBJ boost and get to deal with the 2019 thing. Drew will have to perform really good to make it worthwhile not to be watching Iggy gobble up ground balls all over the Sox infield. Things may not break right for the rotation after all. This could be the first of the arm issues that Lackey may face this his first season after TJS. I can't say that Dempster has made me forget the scouting reports on him as an AL pitcher. He did pitch better this outing than the first cause he did a better job keeping the ball down. However he is way more vulnerable than I had hoped for if he is up in the zone at all. If things continue as reports suggested, he will win some and lose some but will not overly impress. Felix did not show up in shape and Buch will probably have us lighting candles for him all season hoping he can take the ball as scheduled every time. I gotta' think there will be ample opportunity for somebody to help this rotation and I still do not think that means Ace for very long. So if it turns out Webster can help, that would actually be great as long as they don't screw him up in the process.

By the way..I am not backing away from any of the other comments I have made about Nava earlier this year. My comment about Nava as a Red Sox LFer are as much a comment about the other options available to the Sox for LF as they are about Nava himself. The way he is getting around IMO lends some credibility to Pal's comments that Nava's late season issues were injury related specifically injury to his wrist. I just don't think all things being equal he has enough physical talent to play every day as a ML outfielder. I suspect his late season issues are a combination of the league's pitchers catching up to him combined with injury as opposed to entirely one or the other. He is fine bench player. I don't see how he does not fit as a bench player when he is capable of coming in and giving you this kind of ML production for a few weeks at a time. Is he even good enough to be a ML platoon LFer? That is even a different question than whether he is a ML bench player. I think we will get the chance to find out shortly.

A few thoughts after tonight's tough lost game against the O's. I said earlier this year that whether I liked it or not, Nava is the best LF on this team at the moment. He is the best fielding LFer we have and is clearly white hot at the plate at the moment. Gomes may have an even harder time breaking into LF after JBJ goes down than while he is here. Salty is on one of his classic runs. However we have seen this before. So I cannot tell how real it is or if it will last in some form or another. Frankly his defense and battery skills are only tolerable when he is hitting like this and these runs of his have never lasted long enough to make you forget his issues behind the plate. I really don't see any real improvement in Salty's defense and battery skills between this year and last. Still struggles mightily with pop ups. Still goes through stints where he does not move the target around enough for the pitcher. Still has trouble blocking balls in the dirt and has trouble throwing. The one place where he appears to have made a little bit of progress is in his defensive decision making. So far has made fewer mental errors as far as where he goes with the baseball...defensive things like that. Sample size may be too small but I think I see some improvement there for him so far this year.

Jeez I went off to the wood shop figuring it would take awhile to get the teams back on the field. Before I know it we are winning and losing again just that fast. So anyway I am going to mention this for what its worth. I mentioned it the first time we saw Hanrahan pitch in the cold and I chalked it up to the cold. It seems to me that it takes a few pitches for Hanrahan's FB to start to finish with a tall the way he wants it to finish. The first few he throws and maybe at times more than a few have super velocity but they don't finish. They tend to be flat and don't move very much. After he throws a few (how many I don't know) they begin to move and finish for him the way he wants. Koji's FB is not quite at the same velo as Hanrahans but it has plenty of juice on it and is moving from the very first pitch. I honest to God don't know that they should make the change. I would take lots of velo and lots of movement over more velo with less movement any day of the week. Just not sure if it makes sense to give up on Haranhan at this point. I do think the dif between Hanrahan's early FB's as to movement and Koji's makes for a really interesting comparison. You have to take into consideration that Koji has not done it in the 9th inning before and Hanrahan has. I can absolutely see UN's point though and it is worth consdering at some point If Hanrahan continues to have stints like this. We have seen enough of moon shots in the 9th inning thank you very much. I wonder if Haranhan is trying too hard to throw with velo when he first comes in and if he needs to find a way to throw within himself until the movement comes for his FB. How I would love to know what Farrell is thinking and saying to Nieves and Hanrahan. Happy with the record so far. That is a tough way to lose though.

In the mean time...Bruins stomping Jersey, 4-0.

Radar loop looks like there is a gap out there they must be hoping for and then steady rain again. Rain forecast for Thursday as well.

Tarps now...anybody know if there is supposed to be a gap in this weather? Now that they have the tarps coming out if this rain does not slacken I suspect they are done for the night.

If they have not brought out the tarps by now they must have radar telling them this rain is going to lapse for a bit and let them get the rest of this game in.

If Salty could have gotten under that at all it was gone.

Where the two are really similar is that I used to comment how "down" for Cook meant below the upper part of the knee joint. Dempster seems similar is that not only must he keep the ball down but his margin for error is very small. Above the middle of the knee is dangerous ground for both of them.

Dempster really does remind me of Cook. The dif is that while Cook MUST stay down in the zone when he is down he induces ground balls. When Dempster is down he induces swing and miss. But if Dempster is up in the zone at all he gets the same result that Cook gets.