jung

Yes but we think Breslow has tremendous upside. We plan on moving him into the rotation next year where he should be a steady back end of the rotation starter for us. Where have we heard this one before?:D

Think the Rangers where forced to respond to the Angels although not sure how much of a response Dempster will be.

Wonder if we have one in there

This is just really kinda' funny....all of the radio sports networks and most of the TV sports networks have got these guys all hangin' around looking anxious like....gee at this rate they will not likely ever pay me to do this again. They must be calling in to every contact they have asking for just any piece of information that they can use to fill about an hour of air time. If they can just get on something for an hour and follow that with something that can fill the last hour then they are at least done. Sean McAdam moving that all knowing goatee on Sportsnet talking about how much faith the Sox FO still has in Beckett.... Here is something I do agree with that has been said now for months....his salary is not astronomical...He is overpaid at his performance level but his salary is not in the stratosphere. If there is anybody in that FO that has some idea that he is going back to some sort of version of a power pitcher, he would be dreaming. That said I think McAdam has become a mouthpiece for somebody...who???? I don't know....I don't care....If Beckett had already successfully made the transition that he needs to make as a pitcher so you know what you have, then I would be more comfortable with Beckett. I would not allow myself to be raped to move Beckett. That is my position on Beckett...move him if you can but do not allow yourself to be raped. Let it alone if that turns out to be the right move. I had hoped that maybe there was a way to get him outta' here without being raped because of the deadline but that does not appear to be happening...so OK fine...leave it alone....see how he pitches....hopefully he gets better. I think there is probably a level of concentration that a guy in Beckett's position needs to adopt to make this sort of transition cause he can afford no loss of control. Chances are to great that once he loses control, it will take to long to regain it with the opponent scoring runs the whole time. He can go off for a few pitches but that is it...he has to quickly be able to regain it cause he is no longer going to blow anybody away to get out of innings. I just don't think he has actually found a way to deal with this successfully yet. But for as long as he is in a Red Sox uniform, we can always hope. I just wish I had some indication that he was working to improve because he has been stuck here for a long time now....the only thing that has changed is that the results have started to reflect the problem with much more regularity.

You mean to say that the team that gave Paps $44M for 4 years to pitch about 65 innings a year is a wreck????? Lies all lies......How can a team that had the brilliance....the foresight....the sheer dynamism and managerial skill to put that one over on Paps agent swooping in to rob him from the Sox at the same moment leaving them laying dazed and speechless is a wreck??? I am just not sure I can comprehend that......at least without thinking about for about ohhhh three nanoseconds!:D

Which means the most interesting thing they are doing in the FO at the moment is deciding between a straight espresso or a latte.

It would be interesting to see what the Guardians would want to do for Masterson.

I would have been fine with Sweeney going for something where we had a hole...we have had enough OF on this team to choke a mule and I am sick and tired of seeing 6 foot something 220-something pounds of ball player plunk his little singles out there. Come to think of it that makes an overabundance in two categories....OF and oversized singles hitter. But of course, he goes and punches a door and screws any deal because why.....he did not hit yet another single? Oh boy that was worth a door punching...s*** that was not even worth it if the door was the only thing damaged!

Well, if I wanted to look at it from the other side of the fence I guess I would say that I suspect they have spent more time trying to dump Beckett on somebody than anything else and that is the other end of the "nobody is giving up much for the guys that are changing hands" comment. Beckett is no longer one of those big name guys. Teams are likely not offering anything back and still sticking the Sox with more salary than they are willing to take. Just because his name is Beckett does not mean he is worth more than any other 91-92 mph FB pitcher with occasional control problems that result in blowup innings against. In fact now that Buch has had another good start it is probably time to review the rotation changes that have occurred this year. We started with in order: Lester Beckett Buch Felix Bard Right now I would say that in order we have: Buch Felix Lester Either 3 or 4 Beckett Either 4 of 3 Cook Felix may shortly be pitching on fumes. I guess they seem pretty adamant about protecting Morales arm. There is a fearsome post season rotation if I ever saw one. Would love to see these guys pitching against hitters hitting with post season intensity when adrenaline makes the ball look like a grapefruit coming up there anyway. The pitchers have to have both the physical and mental capability to match that intensity. In that environment I would trust Buch......and lets see....well....Buch and....ah.......Buch......and............hum

Well we could not do enough to compare to the Angels in our league anyway. If the Angels do not get past the Rangers they are not even going to have to worry about who pitches in the one game play in....they will be at home and will be able to throw a guy that we may be able to match up with if we can pitch Buch. We are on the east coast for all the final games of the season. So we would have to finish, fly all the way to Anaheim and if we win that game, fly all the way back to Boston...sort of diminishes the value of starting that series at home. The only thing that might save them is if they get in and out of Anaheim so fast that their bodies do not even feel like they went anywhere.

At this point the roadblock to Iggy is not Aviles but Ciriaco. Lets face it, if the Sox were willing to take Aviles butchery at SS for his hitting they sure as hell will take the combination of defense and hitting that Ciriaco brings to the table. At least there is some rational for a Ciriaco road block. He looks very smooth around SS even though he has mostly been playing 2nd in the minors. I think for some here, seeing how smooth and graceful Ciriaco was around SS finally gave them some comparative input to use in their analysis of Aviles at SS although if you were looking for the right things, Aviles issues at SS were there to see from day 1. I would still like to see Iggy here for the later part of the season and I think we will. Ciriaco is such a versatile player he can play elsewhere.

Throw Aviles in to the deal for a bag a balls...somebody else will only view him as the utility infielder he is, not the SS he isn't. Punto with an occasional wall ball thrown in. I do completely agree that it is a Salty of Shop level deal that is likely here. Nobody wants the guy or guys we really want to move....Beckett...Sox don't want to give up Lester when they are already weak in starting pitching seeing him as somebody that can make it back.

It is entirely possible that Lester's issues are tied to his mechanical problems which are likely solvable. However he has been working slowing up to this exaggerated motion now for the past two years really where he is throwing half of his body weight across and away leaving his shoulder and arm open and for the most part detached from where his lower body is going. As bad as that motion looks when he is using it, it is now likely the motion his muscles have grown used to and it will take time to get back to something effective again. You could see him struggling with it in the Yankee start...it was taking tremendous concentration for him to avoid it especially pitching from the stretch. As others have pointed out...his ERA actually went up in a game that comparatively speaking looked pretty good for him. But you could see it happening to him...I put up a post in the game thread as soon as I saw him starting to open up leaving his shoulder hung out in space. One inning later, in the stretch again...runs aplenty for the Yanks. In my view it will be an off season at least for him to work his way back to the point where a better motion is the norm and not the exception....not something that takes tremendous concentration for him to maintain. Every stint he has remaining this year will likely be a gutsy performance. However at least in my view he CAN fix this and be again the pitcher he once was. That is simply not possible in Beckett's case.

Doesn't matter...nobody and I mean nobody appears interested in taking Beckett...shocking!!:D

What is ridiculous is the assumption that players MUST meet their career numbers. Players age...they change....and beyond aging and more permanent changes, they go through cycles similar to golfers....do we expect pro tour golfers to "come back to their career numbers"? Of course we don't. In fact, we are mostly shocked when pro tour golfers come back to their former dominance and expecting that baseball players MUST, I repeat MUST come back to their career numbers is even more ridiculous. I use MUST here because the claim is made so often and stridently for that matter that you would think that "return to career numbers" came down with Moses from the mountain on one of the tablets. Beckett is NEVER coming back to being the pitcher he once was....NEVER...take it to the bank. He may finally succeed at the transition he is undergoing, one he surely had begun by 2011 but he will never be the same pitcher he once was. The similarity between the Lackey, Gonzalez and Crawford signings is that all three of them had injuries/physical maladies at the time of their signings that the Sox knew about and in the case of Agons, an injury to a major joint (shoulder) that he was rehabing from and in all three cases the Sox STILL gave them all the money...in fact all the money PLUS....stupid!!!! Idiotic!!!!! Drunken sailor dumb In the case of Crawford he was never going to be a fit for this team ever...he was and is always going to be underutilized on this team...hence he was always going to be over-paid even if performing at his best by virtue of underutilization if nothing else. The Crawford signing was always going to be a bad deal at $142 for seven years, a bad deal that could only turn into a worse deal....has actually turned into a disastrous deal. Never mind where he was ranked or any of that...he was NEVER going to be a fit here. At best he was going to be the most expensive insurance policy ever for Ells leaving town...even that was a foolish, ridiculous, idiotic rational for signing him to that deal. Lackey while having known elbow problems, was and is a contact pitcher....to be avoided like the plague in the AL East, not lavished with all the money. As usual, the Sox had the money to spent and simply went to the top of the FA market and spent it...foolishly particularly in light of the fact that this is the exact thinking that has left us with the knotted purse strings we have now. Never mind who is there at the top of that particular FA market list...never mind whether he has a physical malady that may make performing like we are paying him even possible...he is at the top of the list....we are taking him and we are giving him all the money plus....stupid, idiotic, drunkin sailor dumb Agons may well never regain his power and it may well be a consequence of his injured shoulder. He is getting power hitter money and if he never does better than he is doing now, he is as has been described earlier...Wade Boggs in a larger suit size.... Agons while a fine ballplayer...never should have gotten all the money under the circumstances under which he was signed and may never be the power hitter we purportedly were signing. If that meant we did not sign him...so be it! Given the choice between wretched excess and rational thinking the Sox of that time and maybe still again some day picked wretched excess as usual. Don't talk to me about the occasional Fenway wall homer he hits now or home runs hit in the "house that Granderson built" he has hit few true power hitter home runs since the half way mark of the 2011 season. Lets not forget gems like Jenks and Cameron.....nobody and I mean nobody contests with any credibility the fact that Theos or I should say the management and baseball operations group that in essence is still here absent Theo was horribly bad at major FA signings....it's real high points long in the past, its best is in recent memory, JD Drew. Nuff said. I will never argue that the Sox should not spend exorbitantly to support this team. It is the manner in which they spend the money that has gotten them into this mess. By all means....spend the money...but use some intelligence doing it....don't tell me that you always wanted so and so (Agons) or that Mr. XYZ is at the top of this particular FA market cause I could care less...I can see with my own eyes what that kind of thinking has done for us.

Please don't be bad news about the heel....I have to admit thought that already seems like it is maybe stretching out longer than initially expected.

Sweeney making sure he does his part to fit into the general boneheadedness of many of the guys on this team...I guess he wants to prove he is a real Red Sox player. Congratulations Sweeney....you make the grade.

I don't even think this should be an issue. The guy has missed so much time already what the hell does another 8-9 months in the offseason mean in the overall scheme of things. Either he plays a bit longer this year and gets the surgery in the offseason or he does not play a bit longer and gets the surgery now. Seeing how he looked after that one throw the other night which by the way was much more a pop gun blast than a howitzer shot, I would say he is going to have to resign himself to soft tosses or get the operation.

I don't even know why this is hard to figure out. Beckett has been going through a transition from mainly being a power pitcher to being a pitcher with a 91-92 FB relying on his secondary pitches to be much more of an integral part of his game plan. His velo is down and his K9 has never ticked up again since something like 2007. He has not completed this transition with the degree of success he really needs to remain a rotation mainstay at something like the 2 or the 3 of a decent staff. Signs of problems arose in 2011 with the onset of games when he would sustain a blowup inning, one where he gave up 3+ runs. He would lose his control for an entire inning and no longer had the stuff to blow guys away. Hence he could not get out of those innings without giving up multiple runs. This year the blowup innings have continued. The only difference is that they are occurring earlier in games and he is being kept in the game after the blow up inning blowing up his ERA. Josh Beckett will NEVER ever be the same pitcher that he once was...you can take that to the bank. Beckett may in some place and at some time regain the focus and the work ethic needed to finally complete this transition successfully but he will be a different pitcher at that point. He will not be the pitcher he was for the bulk of his career and for the bulk of the time while he has been compiling his career stats.

Padiila allowed the first two hitters of the 9th to get on with nobody out. So one swing at that point and it could easily have been a 1 run ball game. V HAD to get somebody up and the natural choice was Ace. DP play ball came next followed by K and Padiila was out of the modest jam.

Three straight...hot diggidy....have not won three straight since sometime in early June I guess....maybe late May.

Yea there is way way bad blood between them and I think we can see what happens when Padilla gets his blood up.....he is a whack job for sure. To be frank I have been somewhat surprised that he was not lost it at other times but he clearly has no control of his temper, his pitches his anything when up against the Yanks...clearly instigated by the bad blood between himself and Tex.

Well this sucks...a real break for Ace would have been not having to get up at all

Hey its the mad man. He better get his innings in because there are a good many Yankee games left and I do not think you will see Padilla in a Yankee game again unless it is a blow out either way. I believe V has lost all confidence in Padilla's ability to control himself and maintain his focus mainly because of Tex. I don't blame V and suspect he is right.

Have called Buch to finish the year the ace of the staff as long as he did not get hurt again for a couple of months now mainly because Beckett has been going sideways and Lester has been going backwards. For my money, Buch was way ahead of both of them once he had regained confidence in the mechanical/physical stability of his back.