jung

Completely different eras...depending on when this hypothetical WS game would be played, Pedro's era might be more relevant than Young's or vis-versa. Do we really think Young would be rattling off 400 inning seasons in todays MLB?

I am all done with the egos. They are two games above 500. That is what they are. Egos my ass. Is it any wonder that they cannot even get close enough to the Yanks to sniff their exhaust pipes?

Why would I put Ceriaco at SS? Because he is available and because the Sox margin for error is zero at this point. Can't afford any more V hunches or booted balls hit right at SS or missed DP's and extra outs cause Aviles take so much time to make the most rudimentary SS plays.

No Aviles defense has not been better lately.

Oh come on.....V can't be serious. I was thinking Pedey to DH cause it would get his bat back in the lineup and maybe allow just a little more healing for the thumb if needed. Seems to me he has mashed his thumb in the field more often than at the plate. But if V is adamant about having Pedey play 2nd why in Gods name would you put Aviles at SS and Ceriaco at DH? This team is so unbelievably willing and able to make things more difficult than they need to be....across the board! Why does this make a single bit of sense?

I have seen critical game after critical game go out the window. I actually think that they are really down to their last shot to pull themselves up and end up with at least some swagger to take into this stupid WC play in game. It is very likely the very last gasp of even a wisp of a chance to sniff the devision as well. If they end up with a split series here, meaning they will have really not gained anything for another series, then I think realistically they are out of time entirely for the division. In truth, that is exactly what I thought on the west coast swing. That mess followed by the Yankee series by rights probably did seal their fate for a realistic shot at the division. Maybe they still do have this tiny little window of opportunity left but if these four games with the WS end up just being a waste of time needed to catch up (meaning a split) then realistically they just won't have enough time left. As much as we need to go nuts and run off more like a stretch like 20-5 for the next 25, the Yanks need to fold and they just don't look like that. So far I just hate everything about this season. The Yanks have approached this entire season like the professionals that they are and that is likely the quality that they have lived off this season. The comparison between the two teams is depressing. Red Sox....more whiny ********...me...me...me baseball. Yanks...find their competition's weak spot and stick a dagger right in it. I could not be more depressed if I tried.

If anything Punto has gotten worse as the season has groaned on....hard to believe but I think it is likely true.

I think Bob Gibson is one of baseball's greatest pitchers. I used to love to watch him pitch for the same reason I liked watching Drysdale and Koufax pitch....tremendous determination and competitiveness....wanted to blow you off of home plate...not at all afraid to pitch inside and with good reason. However those guys did not have to pitch to guys pumped up on steroids. I think what Pedro did in his career is inhuman....not logical.....very likely something we will never ever see again. Also, by the time Pedro came along we already had the lower mound and more hitter friendly strike zone. All things being equal....I have got to give it to Pedro.

I see Pedey as the DH with Ceriaco at 2nd also.

Hamram at some point for somebody is surely a possibility. There is much about hanley's game that the sox would admire. Clearly they would use him as a SS and keep WMB at 3rd. Hanley is much more the kind of SS the Sox like. Given a chance to get one the Sox will take a SS that boots the ball around but hits every time.

I actually just wish Crawford would play more and talk less. In truth I can say that for just about every Red Sox player. Just stop please....just stop. As for Crawford whining about how Tito handled him....that just sounds like a bunch of whiny ******** to me. That said, it has become the expected norm for players generally and Red Sox specifically. Have you ever heard a guy make so much out of where the manager put him in the lineup. As I recall the Sox were in the midst of their first crash and burn session of the season in the 2011 time frame that CC is talking about and Tito was trying to find some way to get them to WIN A SINGLE f***ING GAME. But of course as you might expect, team wins are wayyyy at the bottom of the list of things these guys care about. Never mind the manager is trying to find a way to get this $180M juggernaut to win one stinking lousy game. Baseball is all about me...me...me...me....me. To be honest I am starting to wonder if I am cheering for laundry at this point. I like Nava, Ross, WMB, Ceriaco, Ells, Morales, Felix, Buch and Shop still like Pedey since I just think the whole Youk/V mess just put him in a bad spot. You can have the rest of them.

Salty is probably not doing any better by the other pitchers he catches. They just don't have past ML records as starters to compare with other catchers. As 700 suggested, you can look at Salty last year vs Tek with the same pitchers and Salty this year vs Shop with the same pitchers and the same trend exists. That is not a small sample size. For one thing Salty gives his pitchers terrible targets as I have already said several times and that is something you just cannot mitigate as a pitcher. I cannot tell if Salty is indecisive and ends up giving poor targets because of it or if there is some mechanical issue that he cannot get past but his targets are terrible. I cannot comment on how he is calling the game because I am not peering in to see what he is calling and how often the pitcher is shaking him off. I have just not taken the time to pay attention to that. But the targets he gives are something easy to see.

I for one am not excusing the two guys who were supposed to be the top starters for this team for pitching like s***. In my view, one of them does not give a s*** and the other simply cannot find his way out of the abyss. Granted Lester does not appear to be getting much help but he is clearly struggling. The guy is supposed to be a top line pitcher and his mechanics were so fouled up Tuesday night against the WS that he could not even find the outer half of the plate...he could not even manage to look like he was throwing for the outer half even though he was. But Salty does not even do the most rudimentary things you would expect a catcher to do to help his pitcher succeed. He just does not. The result is just sitting there in the numbers. I don't want to try to estimate the number of games Salty may have cost the Sox because he is such a terrible handler of pitchers and a terrible receiver to boot but I would bet the farm that the number is not zero and it is likely not insignificant either. The guy is intimately involved in every pitch thrown in games that he catches. Sox need to do something else but it is galling as hell to think that Salty may just be the straw breaking the camel's back, a burden that stretches across every pitcher on the staff and that may just be more than they can stand.

Not liking the deal to start with and not being willing to take what would likely be a bad deal in a trade are two different things. If I could turn back the clock and force Theo to take a 24 hour nap for the period he made the trade I would do it. It was a bad deal. However I don't see a mid season trade involving CC that works to the Sox benefit. I just don't see it. In my view the only "sell" trades the Sox should consider at the deadline if they consider any at all would be trades that clearly work to make this a better team. That does not mean the deal has to be a one sided deal with the other team getting raped in the process. It could be a deal that was in essence an equal value deal but it would have to be a deal that without question made the Sox a better team. I just don't see how they could pull off something like that midseason especially with the complexity of and the cost involved in the Crawford contract. I was more interested in who broached the topic for the reason I suggested earlier. If the Sox it would suggest to me that the Sox "think" they will be sellers at the deadline and virtually nobody is safe.

Isn't there a difference of opinion about whether the Marlins brought up Crawford or whether the Sox did? It sounded like ultimately, the Marlins brought up his name as opposed to the Sox bringing up his name. But I don't know....the way the posts were coming in maybe it was all just timing.

I don't think running away with the division really assures the Yanks of post season success. I know that sounds counterintuitive. This is the toughest division in baseball and the Yanks are wrecking havoc. The Yanks do not really look like that great a post season team....I can rationalize how they are going nuts here in the regular season but more than the years when the Yanks have gone nuts in both the regular and the post seasons, I just don't think they are going to prove out to be as good a post season team relative to the competition as they are proving to be as a regular season team. Sure I am looking for a silver lining here but the Yanks have lost pitching to injury as opposed to every day players to injury. Has anybody heard anything about the Yanks trying to bolster their pitching before the deadline or is the view at the moment that the Yanks will stand pat? I hope they stand pat because as much as they have been running away with things, if they lose any additional starting pitching or any good pitcher, that could really cause them issues in the post season.

I am sure you are right Palodios. I took "go with" to literally I think so I thought maybe the idea included dispatching Buch and just missed seeing it in some previous post. Buch has improved so much that I thought maybe some might be offering that we should try to sell him or something like that. There are so many ideas being tossed about lately that I am never sure if folks want to trade somebody.

Oh come on....I hate the Yanks but whether I like it or not they are running away with the division. They are 23 games over 500! That should be the only thing we would have to know regarding the division. We can be one of the WC teams but I think the division is unfortunately done and dusted. I don't see the Yanks having enough of a reversal and the Sox playing so far above 500 ball to catch them.

So do you mean go to a four man rotation of Beckett, Cook Felix and Frank or are you suggesting that the Sox will definitely grab another starter before the deadline to round out to five guys?

NESN talking heads discussing Crawford's change in stance. Anybody remember if his stance was as open as it was last year, year after year. Just wondering if his stance kept creeping more and more open until it was way open or if he had adopted that way open stance a few years ago and stuck with it. I really cannot remember what his stance was four or five years ago.

I think every win is super important right now. I do not want to see management pack it in on the season and the best way to prevent that is to win any way they can. I realize that if hopes are slim planning for the future might make the most sense but as long as they don't trade away the farm to get somebody, I would want them to either try to prop up the pitching a bit without trading the farm or just doing nothing. I really don't want to see them do anything that says they have packed it in on the season.

Did V announce a pitcher for the Thursday game?

Is that Gulf sign new out there? It must be....I don't remember it and I have to think they did that thing tonight because it is new out there.

Bitch hits are the same all over the league....hits bitch or otherwise generally start with the pitcher making a bad pitch. So I suspect Paps put some bad pitches back to back and paid for it.

Buch at least made progress....made progress.....made progress all season until he finally seems to have gotten where he should be (hopefully making the rest of his starts this year) but Beckett and Lester to be honest really aught to be ashamed of themselves.