jung

Well if there is a silver lining to having Crawford down here in the order, once on base there is no reason to hold him from trying to steal.

I suspect we are stuck once again hoping one of these guys hits a bomb. They don't seem to have another way to score except on rare occasions.

Geez Tut I knew it was bad but even I did not think it was that bad. Should have gone to look myself.

Why was that not a strike....I have no idea what is or is not a strike any longer.

Geez I really have a bad feeling about Melancon here. One pitch and the twins could be leading in the 8th

I think you are right SFF. I was almost going to post something myself. This guy is totally lost behind the plate. I would not know what to do at this point....pitcher or hitter! How can you look at a guy like Pedey almost spinning to get out of the way and then think that was a strike. Just out of respect for Pedey you think the guy would think twice about that pitch.

Although I am not going to give them the ump as an out here. This should not at this point be a tied ball game with the awful twins. It is on the Sox that this game is this tight this late in the game and honestly if I had to guess right now I would probably guess that the twins are more likely to win this mess than the Sox.

what the f*** is this guy looking at?

Oh come on ump you are not even giving the hitter a chance with that s***. How is he even supposed to want to protect the plate on a pitch that far outside.

Yea I agree Doc....changing the manager and then castrating him the first opportunity they had was really bad. I just don't understand what upper management saw that said to them they should have empowered this bunch of players after what happened last year....appears to me that there is a giant disconnect between upper management and their belief in what they have in this group of players and what they actually have in this group of players.....I posted a couple of weeks ago that for one thing, I don't think they are going to allow any illusions to remain after this season.

EEI guys were saying that with all the ******** in the media and the digs going back and forth about this V and WMB and ownership thing that a bad series here against the Twins could really touch off some ugly ugly s***. Apparently there are a good many folks in this organization that are right at the brink right now....just right at the very cliff edge. I always take this stuff coming out in the media with a grain of salt. However there is enough getting out from the actual combatants themselves to have me worried.

Another guy we are making looking like Cy somebody. It sounds like the guy has only gone six innings one other time this season....terrific.

Well they escaped that inning. Maybe they will put themselves in the same spot this inning they were in last before the DP. Really hard to see opportunities like that just get frittered away and then what????hope they get another opportunity like that. I mean it is the Twins for God Sake. You have two on, nobody out getting late in the game and you get......nothing!

I really do agree with what Brennan was posting the other night. While the pitchers do clearly have a good book on these hitters now based on this year's performances to many Sox hitters just seem to go up to the plate to take their hacks without really having a plan for what they want to accomplish against a given pitcher. They just end up playing right into the hands of the pitcher and they end up looking like puppets at the end of a string. Magadan is obviously really very frustrated at this point as he has now become vocal, talking to the press about it.

That is in part what I mean by lack of anything like a killer instinct. That sure looked like a real good spot to put this team back down again and what do they do....nothing.

Oh my God what a terrible time for a DP. Whyyyyyyy???????

The way the Sox let these barely MLB teams push them around is pretty bad I think. It is almost like they think they are in the NBA or something and against these bad teams they can sleep walk through a few innings and turn it on at some point....virtually impossible to do in baseball but they sure do play like they think that way against these chump teams.

Geez what a way to come back to tied...Holy Cow!

Well I am not talking about some long drawn out delay....I am just talking about stoping himself and demanding of himself that he put it behind him....Sort of the equivalent of what Tut just posted. Commit yourself to understanding that while your 1st baseman made the error whatever happens next is on you as the pitcher. That might not have taken more time than he took between pitches anyway but by itself might be enough to shake a guy out of it and put himself back on track. I mean I find it hard to believe that without that error the pitcher would have made a pitch that bad just in the normal coarse. Maybe it is even an experience thing where the more experienced pitcher knows he probably is not really focused and in the best frame of mind to make the next pitch and must stop himself and recommit himself to what he is doing. Felix might be going through a little of the same thing right now.

Boy I often wonder if pitchers would do well to just slow themselves down after something like that error over at first base just before the Crawford homer. You know the pitcher did not want to put the ball in that spot. In fact that was the absolute worst location for that pitch to Crawford from the pitchers perspective. I would be willing to bet that a guy in that situation thinks he is ready to go but still has not really shaken off the frustration from seeing his first baseman make the kind of mistake that screws the third out and leaves him stuck out on the mound with runners on base. Probably needs to give himself the time to really make a conscience effort to put it behind him before he tries to make that next pitch.

I did not get one Youk.

Just got home. Did Crawford hit his way on to eventually come around to score?

And now today we have the wonderful Boston media declaring V dead in fact so dead that some of them are calling for his firing right now. Does the media in Boston have any respect at all for the fans? Are they dedicated to reporting the story and then giving a journalistic view or are they dedicated to continuing to fuel the fire regardless of how much of a conflagration is going already. Will they not be happy until there is an ultimate nuclear holocaust to report on and opine about? Will that even be enough for them? To be honest I don't think so. I am not trying to blame this mess on the media. Red Sox Management appears defocused and out of touch, only concerned with generating revenue from the existing brand with no interest in improving the quality of the product on the field, substandard FO performance and substandard on the field player performance accompanied by whining on a level that boggles the imagination and who knows about the manager since he was done in on day 1. So there is plenty of blame to go around within the organization. There is no need for the media to just keep pushing this even farther. There just isn't. Just stop for God sake...please just stop because I for one have no interest in seeing this just totally explode. Does not do me any good. I guess media ratings will get a boost but maybe not. Maybe we will all have just had enough by then and tune them out....change the channel....cause it is getting to the point where there is simply no reason to play into this ******** any longer.

It is scary as hell to me to think about where this can possibly all be going. I know it sounds like a "the sky is falling" post but my God the quality of their play combined with the never ending litany of whacky s*** from management, the front office. Honestly while not being a V guy, he has almost been stabile comparatively speaking. I think this could be close to a real conflagration, especially if they go out there now and end up splitting with the woeful Twins. I just don't know how the lid stays on this thing.

While I have posted a bit about the Magadan comments and Sox plate appearances the other shoe that has dropped on this offense is the complete lack of power coming from anyplace when Ortiz is not in the lineup. Pedey has not hit for power this year. Agons has not. Ross has some pop but that only goes so far. WMB has some pop but all in all, for a team that really does need to hit with power especially in their ballpark their power numbers have been pretty bad. It seemed a bit better up until opposing pitchers really started focusing on their various weaknesses and they just don't seem to get many pitches that they can drive anymore.