jung

If Dempster continues to leave so many pitches up I don't care how far off the plate they are, the enemy will continue to get bitch hits and we will complain that they were bitch hits not realizing that the bitch hit and most hits for that matter begin with a mistake by the pitcher. If he continues at a rate of about 6-7 free passes per game those bitch hits will come with runners on and they will score (see initial comment about bitch hit complaints). If he continues like this his "impressive" line will end when he pitches against a team that actually has ML hitters in the lineup. He MUST keep the ball down really much like Cook must keep the ball down to succeed. There are differences between the two. Dempster is not Cook. But if he tries to live up in the zone like he did last night, he will lose and badly. I should add that using the size of the park you are in to support or defend a pitcher in ML baseball really does not make much sense. ML pitchers pitch to the park they are in. They pitch to keep the ball in the big parts of the park if they rely on fly ball outs. If they can't do that then the ball reaches the seats. It is just that simple. If anything I was more pissed that a stinker of a Yankee team hit....what....three HR's in three games in that bandbxx and we hit how many.....

Napoli seems to be trying to set some swing and miss record. At least he got a ball to the outfield. Then again what am I doing...using Iggy as a standard for our power bat?

Whoops...spoke too soon...Mortensen gets two. I am not gonna' be happy if we can't jack one stinkin ball outta' this bandbox.

We like to try to pick out Manager idiosyncrasies with regard to relief pitchers. Looks like Farrell is the "everybody gets one inning guy", at most.

Can we chase Petite?

Salty got a couple last year. He has a strange arm...seems to be an absolute cannon but he takes too long to let it go and is often off the mark. When Salty does nail somebody the guy is usually out by miles. But it is so rare, we can't even remember them!

The preseason juice on Dempster was that he would keep us in games against the lower tier teams and possibly even dominate them, ala current Yankees. However he would really struggle with the better teams. At least I think I see where that is coming from. The better hitting teams will square up more of those pitches up in the zone and if you have walked guys ahead of them...well He just cannot live up in the zone. Not as vulnerable as Cook but his balls that are up are not moving very much and if there are too many of them I doubt that will play against the better hitting teams. The lesser teams probably can't hurt him that badly when he is up and he is effective when he keeps the ball down. Has guys swinging at balls in the dirt.

Obviously when Dempster can keep it down he is a zillion times better. When he is up though he appears very hittable.

Sorry guys but I can't be that impressed with Dempster so far. He is up too much and four walks in 4 1/3 innings just not going to get it done.

There is much not to like about Petite but I cannot remember the last time I saw him complain about a pitch. Gets the ball and throws it. Much to be said for that.

I am just glad he will miss Toronto. I don't want to know what it would be like having Dempster throw like this to those guys.

That one should have been in the right field seats

I know Dempster is not up middle but up is still up. That is why the Yanks are getting bitch hits off of him. Up is still up and up is not good.

Shoot I did not know Pedey had already screwed the thumb again. It is starting to sound like that thumb is going to be a problem the rest of his career.

C'mn Sox...Gardner's got a jack and we got none so far. Somebody juice one please.

I don't like Hafner here.

Gardner....Gardner!!!!

Geez Bruins outshot 17-6 in the first. So much for Jagr the offensive machine making a dif.

That was a Victorino brain fart. He does have a few of those per year. Not many but when he does it usually calls for a "what the f*** was that" and it is almost always an overly aggressive play. I wish I had been watching the 3rd base coach. He probably got caught off guard. He will start putting up stop signs for Vic if he did not have one up there.

Did anybody see an update on Kuroda? Just wondering if he ended up cracking a bone in that finger. I was not surprised to see it go numb. I would also not be surprised if they eventually found a crack in there.

Correct but from what I saw I think JayZ and CAA representatives are going to get paid out of the same pools of money as opposed to lets say JayZ getting paid separately for directing "off-field endeavors". In that sense, JayZ ends up getting a piece of Cano's baseball contract action and CAA gets a piece of Cano's off-field endeavors action. That has got to mean endorsements and the like which is thought to be JayZ's strong suit. I should also mention that CAA's reputation is to be 180 degrees opposed to Boras. Their major clients tend to sign extensions and stay put as opposed to becoming FA's.

Well in fact Cano signed with JayZ who is partnered with CAA. Cano could have just signed with CAA if he wanted to do that. His agreement is with JayZ and JayZ's agreement is with CAA.

I am not so sure the Sox are playing over their heads as much as they are playing a team that is downright abysmal at the moment. Without yet another in a long line of Aceves meatballs, the Yanks would likely have put up another 2 spot last night.

Well Pedro appears to be saying that the Sox did not have to match the Mets deal but had to get close enough "in his mind". These guys all think they are worth the universe. So while he may have been looking for something from the Sox that was between where they were and where the Mets were., it still might have been more than the Sox felt they could spend. In light of how Pedro pitched, three years at a higher per annum might have gotten it done and might have satisfied both sides. Hard to tell. I am just reporting what Pedro says. None of us know where and when the offers were made and how they ultimately got where they got.

I wonder if Aroid has such a hair across his ass for Boras that he is campaigning players to leave him for anybody or if he is campaigning players to leave Boras for some particular other agency. Whatever, it does appear that Boras has overplayed his hand in several cases this past off season and has a reputation for adamantly thinking he knows what is best for his players. It is probably not coincidental that what he thinks is best for them also holds out the potential for the highest financial gain, with some risks involved. At any rate Boras has surely gotten some clients pissed off at him and has some others that are stuck in limbo whether pissed off or not. Result, those are some big name clients that have left the good ship Boras. However, Ells is not one of them and he does not appear to be so disposed to leave. JayZ is based in Jersey as I recall and he is pretty much attached to the NY area. I think it is pretty clear that Cano wants to stay. That said, Pedro says the worst thing he ever did in baseball was to tip his hand and let the Sox know he really wanted to stay in Boston. The result was that Boston low balled him by too much and Pedro left. Neither side probably wanted that but that is what happened.