jung

Not a bad at bat at all considering Salty. He did very well there I think

Well forgot Ross was next...would prefer Ross look for a FB inside until he has two strikes

Thank you AGons...somebody please copy that

Please God come up to the plate looking to just get on base anyway you can....draw a walk....hit a seeing eye single...anything please.

V looks like he is close to pulling the plug on Lester. If he loses this guy that might be it

If you are going to swing at these pitches in games like this please for God's sake just take the ball back the way the pitcher has thrown it when there is nobody on base. They can't hit a six run homer. We need a rally. These chump pitchers kill us because we refuse to take what they are giving us. Just stroke the ball and dump it into the outfield someplace. Get some guys on base for one of the big boppers and then hit one out. Take a ball that is up in the zone and just dump it into the outfield back the say way it came in. Heck the Jays are tossing enough accommodating pitches up there. I know it looks like something you should put over the fence but that takes me make to the top of this post....no such thing as a six run homer especially with nobody on.

Still pretty early in this game and it is being played the way the Sox at least like to play.....sloppy, slugfest baseball. They could still win this game but these wins don't seem to do anything positive anyway. Its not like they win the game, rip up a bunch of jerseys and then come out the next day playing good baseball.

While McClure cannot at least in my view be responsible for their demise, it does not appear that he has done anything to help the pitchers and I do think it significant that Lester himself has even said that he feared Farrell. Maybe feared him enough to actually prepare for his starts. That is certainly a view from afar though so who knows.

The ONLY thing I can suggest is that V is not going to allow Lester to sit in the dugout and stew. Something we have seen a good deal of this year. Maybe he is trying to force him to at least pull himself together emotionally because if he continues to take the mound in his current state of mind they will just pound him senseless regardless of anything else. He is not going to work out his mechanical issues during the course of a start. Even if his mechanics become s bit better at some point in this game, it really won't signify a turn.

Boy you just knew that was coming. I know it just the 2nd inning but leaving him in is just giving up the game. What does that say to rest of your team?

I don't know really but when a pitcher's mechanics go off that badly it seems to me that it will take a considerable effort to get the guy back on track. Not sure I have ever seen it done successfully without going off to some developmental league or situation. Lester is just all over the place. His body is one place this pitch another place the next...his arm is all over the place. I am actually afraid he is going to hurt himself pitching like this.

I have not liked anything about McClure from the start and he would be my first fire after the season. True these are seasoned starting pitchers and they have to be responsible for their own performances but so many Sox arms have deteriorated over the course of this season without seemingly getting any help that has mattered.

Wow that discussion between Pedey and Lester in the dugout is totally flipping me out. I don't think I have ever seen an everyday player talk to a pitcher like that during a game, even when I was a season ticket holder and going to a bunch of games every year....an occasional word yes....a long discussion like that....boy I would love to hear what Pedey is saying to him.

Two of AGons last four HR's have been crushed so I think we can safely say that whatever has been contributing to his power outage it is not his shoulder....that has to be the best news we could get on him .

Sox are making that decision easy for management now Chin Music. I posted a few days ago that I thought the interest in Garza might be more related to fear that the rotation might totally implode when you consider Felix and Frank have to be on innings limits and Lester and Beckett are well Lester and Beckett. Seems to me they might still have to do something just to get the rotation through the season but other than that, at this rate, I just think this team is now making the decision for management.

I am a little surprised they are letting Lester pitch like this. You can see that his mechanics are still a disaster. Middle of ML baseball games are no place to try to work stuff out.

Wow, at this rate it won't matter who they are resting today but yea I do think at least real baseball fans are sorta' getting screwed by this team and this management. We don't even get to watch good baseball. You would think we would deserve that from a ML baseball team. The Sox don't play good baseball. Of course I don't think most of the folks sitting in those Fenway seats would know good baseball from a monster truck pull.

Thanks for the compliment.

Sitting Ells is to me just an indication of how far any hint of respect for the fans goes. Management couldn't care less....the players clearly couldn't care less. So they just get their heads handed them AGAIN by Laffey in a game that I think they should have approached like they had to have. Instead they just laid down and died like the dogs they are. So what happens next. After blowing that game, instead of putting the best team on the field in an effort to secure the second game of the three game set and thereby preserving the possibility of at least taking two out of three in a series they could have swept (as the yanks just did) they REST Ells. I give up. They should blow up the entire stinking wretched mess from the very top to the very bottom....there should be a way to impeach JH if he won't leave voluntarily before these bums turn one of the jeweled crowns of baseball into a lousy tin hat laying in the gutter....painted pink of course.

Unfortunately, I think that long before the entire season is done, this edition of the Sox will have wiped out any and all possible illusions of goodness that its fans might hold for it. It seems to be its one unifying, all encompassing goal!

It is and it seems so ridiculous outside of the context of the year the "tradition" originated. Whether it ever should have started is one thing but in my view it should have died at the end of that season. I don't know which is worse...Gatorade baths to celebrate a regular season win (geez act like you have been there once) or the wave and Sweet Caroline on nights when they are getting their heads handed to them by last place teams.

It might be more an issue of what they are willing to admit to more than what they realize or don't realize.

They may be trying to save Morales arm for next season though. He must be on an innings limit.

Well V has always been the one guy in the entire Sox organization that you could claim without question truly cared about the Sox prospects for the 2012 season. He has tried to bring players up that he thought would help him win this year and he has tried to use the assets he has to do just that. Tonight the look on V's face not in his presser but in the dugout at game end spoke volumes. I think he is now staring directly into the abyss and the pit truly does look bottomless. I believe it likely that regardless of the chances of success that V is going to try to force this "team" to finally look at itself honestly and recognize that "we have met the enemy and it is us". Although on the other hand (boy I have never been this conflicted before) there is the chance that what we are seeing from this team is a caricature of the baseball V wants them to play. V shuns the sacrifice and in fact hates it. Maybe he is actually telling them to just go up to the plate...."see the ball, hit the ball". I suppose I have to deal with the possibility of that being the case, that he is actually not asking more of this team than that. I doubt it though because they are a caricature, they are an exaggeration of something. I hope that is not the case because if that is true, if they are playing the game the way V has asked them to play, then this team has left V with nowhere to go. What could he do at this point. Say, sorry fellas' it looks like maybe you guys took me to literally or maybe I thought you all were better hitters than you are but this is not working. This looks more like the remains of last year's debacle finally reaching rock bottom in the form of a completely independent group of players that don't play baseball as a team at all. I don't know what to make of this. They don't look like they dislike each other. So why would they set themselves up for the kind of collapse and resultant criticism that they are destined for at this rate? Why would you do that? I rarely agree with the radio talking heads but the one thing they have been saying the past few weeks that I do agree with is that the fans are not really blaming V as much as they are blaming the players for this mess. Anyway I think V has one shot if this door is still open to him. He has to force the players to confront what they have become. That is not going to be easy because what they have become is not a very pretty picture. If he can force them to see that they are eating themselves from within, maybe they will snap out of it. If he can prove to them that they are putting themselves in positions where their very careers may not recover, that might work. They might be. The kind of failure we are seeing here may be the kind of failure that imprints certain players for the rest of their careers. Anyway, they have got to start to play as a team. If they play on Sunday like this is a getaway game...and just pack it in, then there is nothing left to hope for this season. They are done and dusted.

Me also VA....me also.