jung

Lets see....anybody want to predict that Lester won't give up more than two runs tonight? Coco Crisp....wow

Are we trying to set a DP record?

Holy Cow, the White Sox must have batted around twice to plate 9 runs in one inning. Should do Oswalt's back wonders.

Well I am not sure I really answered the question UN asked. I am so non-plused by this two WC set up that I really posted what I thought the Sox needed to do to have a legitimate shot to remain in contention for and win the division. I think they could get to the one game play in doing most of what I suggested in my earlier post. However I don't think they would need another arm in the rotation to get in via the WC route. Since I really don't think you can plan strategically for a one game play in if I got in that way, what I did next would depend on who I was playing in the one game and who I thought I would be playing in the first round should I be able to win the one game play in game. I would not necessarily pitch my best pitcher in the one game play in and would make the decision about whether I was going to try to cycle my best pitcher up to the top for that game as the season was winding down and I had some opinion about who I thought I was going to play both in the play in and then in the first round if I won the play in game. As I said earlier I really don't think much of this one game play in thing. I am just as inclined to think that Selig did not like the possibility that one or both of his cash cows (sox/yankees) might get shut out of the post season and used the rational that more teams would have a shot at the playoffs as a cover for his making an effort to insure that at least one of them would get in and increase the chances that both would remain in the hunt till late in the season.

I think a one game play in is definitely a crap shoot no matter who you have starting that game....I don't really buy the argument that a short series is a crap shoot. If anything it is easier to control a short series with superior starting pitching than a long series.

Sox need to: 1) get another arm for the rotation 2} get better starting pitching out of the other starting pitchers 3) bring up iggy if he is heathy giving them more bullets for these dog day type games more of which are on the way 4) adjust the lineup to suit the players as they are not the players as they wish them to be...time for wishing is done 5) pray that Ells and CC come back completely ready and not needing yet another two weeks to adjust to ML play. By the time they do get back they just won't have the time.

Sure Parker is pretty good...but the Sox are not adapting well to this style of play, and would not be matching up will with any number of teams with better starting pitching than the Sox have. Parker is the best of the A's starters and Felix is without doubt the best of the M's starters....but we are 2-3 on this trip so far...not 3-2 and would have lost this game to any number of pitchers not named Parker cause the guy we put out there melted away in about 30 minutes. Remy's comment implied that this is all a matter of running into "outstanding" pitching across staffs and the Sox are losing games on a number of game elements, not one. Our starting pitching for one has not in several days now done a good job of controlling some pretty lousy offenses and our defense has been what you would expect given the players we have in key defensive positions.....a disappointment. Our situational hitting has been what it has been for the bulk of the season as well....another disappointment.

You know I am not at all blaming tonight's disaster on V..not at all...but I don't wonder if V talked to dice and put it into his head that this was a big moment for dice, for the team etc...not going overboard but simply making the point much like we have seen V do already with other players and especially other pitchers this year in an effort to motivate...I wonder if what we really saw was dice's reaction to that...in the sense that this was a complete collapse....he was tossing the ball up there at the end and the end was what....about a half hour from the beginning????? That was as complete a collapse by a pitcher as I have seen since.....since....Bard in his last start with the Sox only really worse when you consider that one of us might have been able to throw as well as dice was throwing at the end. At the same time think about how many collapses...total caves there has been out of this rotation this year. to be honest, a staggering number when considering total caves. Virtually every starter that has made the bulk of his scheduled starts has had at least one complete and utter white flag surrender game. While at this board we like to simply toss those aside as some sort of anomaly like our method of judging these guys is to toss out the high and the low (and always be wary of that Russian judge, the one that only gives high marks to the Russian ice dancers) when you see that many complete surrenders, you start to wonder what the hell is going on with these guys. Maybe it is a heartless, gutless group overly influenced by a guy that maybe just does not want to be here anymore, does not want to lead, and rejects anything that smells like leadership of this group (Beckett) and another guy that just carries this black cloud around with him wherever he goes and insists on staying with the team even when he can't pitch, insisting on influencing these guys even though there is nothing about his attitude about pitching that we would like any of these guys to emulate (Lackey). While on the one hand I could easily be accused of reading to much into this start, it is really the number of truly ugly starts that we have had that I am thinking about, this now being one of to many in my view. For one thing do we really get the sense that there is a staff mentality at all, meaning a feeling of union, collective responsibility, a collective pride if you will, a desire to pitch well because it puts another good outing in the bank for the staff as a whole, as well as putting one in the bank for the pitcher as an individual? I don't get a sense that there is any of that at all going on with these guys which in fact would be one aspect of there being no true staff leadership of any kind. Lester, a guy we rightfully thought of as tough as nails now looks like Lackey Jr without the pending TJ. Do you ever get the feeling like a Sox pitcher struggling out there on the mound feels any support from his mates or does he look like a guy that is out there on his own, completely isolated with nobody in that dugout or in that bullpen that is in anything but in his own little world, completely disassociated from that guy out there drowning on the mound.

Can't change the fact that the NL never adopted the DH and that is going to take most of those guys that favor NL ball right out of the equation for HOF voting. You have to get enough votes to get in and you cannot insist that the voters vote based on a particular perspective. Just listen to a panel of these guys...I can just about guarantee you that if you had six on a panel and posed any question you wanted to the six, you would end up with the voting 3-3. Issues that allow voters to stick a check mark on the negative side of the ledger are death for HOF voting. Ortiz has two...the DH thing for NL proponents and the PED thing for guys who are steadfast on that issue.

I would think that 3rd should be Mike's best defensive position...He has range to his left...and the ball might get to him so quickly at third that it is going to clang off his chest and land in front of him more often than not anyway allowing him to pick it up and show off that arm across the diamond. I would actually like to see that.

I am so sick of the NESN boys and their ********. Here we go again....Oh yea....this A's staff is a very very good pitching staff...Mariners...Oh yea....this M's staff is a very very good pitching staff. They really are not that great. They are good to very good...they look terrific next to our stiffs but then again most everybody does.

This offense is simply not designed to play in this kind of park....the whole team is a fail in this kind of park. They are simply not a very well rounded baseball team and are really only talented in particular areas. Those are not well suited to this kind of park. Also it is much harder to adapt your game to this kind of park....I have long ago given up on this team being adept enough to make those kinds of adjustments anyway....it really only knows one way to play.

Well this game totally sucked.....1-1 for July guess what! .500....what a shock I will say this....at no time that I can remember will it be so obvious what your Sox Management thinks of its chances this year....no more arms for the rotation...save yourself the angst...they are....another arm for the rotation....keep the faith and keep the home fires burnin'

Jeter is not Jose Offerman but he is no longer the SS he used to be because of his range and if you were to fast forward about 5 years from now the SS play you are seeing from Jeter today would be considered less than average when you consider what you could have out there patrolling SS. However you are correct in that at least Jeter makes all the plays that are right in front of him...Aviles does not.

Although if I had a baby boy that I wanted to have ML baseball aspirations I would not bring him up as a SS, you guys are going to have SS's coming out of your ears in the next few years as baseball retools for the game it has post Steroids....if I had a young son and I had aspirations for ML baseball for him, I would teach him to crouch before I taught him to walk....would probably give him a pacifier attached to a catchers mask too!:D

The Yanks have way better Starting Pitching than the Sox have. If we had better starting pitching we could more easily get away with a defensive liability at SS. We don't have better Starting Pitching...we have what we have....and don't make the mistake that the Yanks don't see this coming...they are stocking up on Starting Pitching like crazy even in that bandbox of a baseball park that they play in and everybody is jamming SS's into the farm systems like nuts and with very good reason. As usual, we might be a little late to the party although we are now doing the same. By the way, don't expect anybody that works in baseball to acknowledge what is going on and its link to the end of the steroid era. There is to much uncertainty about whether people are actually going to like the baseball they are going to be seeing and nobody wants to really talk about how much those big power number years were fueled by Steroids.

If you think Aviles is a "fine" defensive SS then with all due respect I just do not think you have seen many "fine" defensive SS which I can absolutely believe. We are going back to the 1970's folks. We are going back to an era when 40 HR's is a s*** boat load of Home Runs and where pitching is even more important than it appears today and when you will need to have a "fine" defensive SS. If you were not watching baseball in the 1970's you probably have never even seen the baseball you are beginning to see this year and will continue to see unless Uncle Bud decides that his game is no longer interesting enough post the Steroid era.

I have to give credit where credit is due....Salty's throws have improved 100% since the start of the season. However he is still a defensive liability behind home plate and makes big big big mistakes in the big moments. In case your wondering Catcher is the second most important defensive position on the field, after SS.

And right on que Agons does what????hits into another DP...you can't make this stuff up!

Believe it or not....I actually like Aviles but not as a full time SS. Mike Aviles is a full time utility infielder...you move him around as you need him. We have like one step down from what we should have. We have a utility infielder playing the most important defensive position on the field every day and then we have mister nothing Punto as our utility infielder.

Did you actually think Aviles would continue his early season success? No I did not and what you posted is precisely why I suggested early on that a defensive liability like Mike Aviles at SS was a mistake. If you want to you can just search my user name and you will see post after post about the failed logic of sticking defensive liabilities in the most important defensive positions on the field because you think they are going to hit that GD Green Monster.

Geez I swear ta' God I hate to sound so damned negative and I mean no disrespect to anybody but WAKE UP! There is no more time left for "Oh we are usually bad in the first game of a series but USUALLY make up for it later". We used up all that rope in April and May and June...no rope left. Go look at the June records (June was the month I pointed to as my personal line of demarkation for this team) and look at what the opponents and the Sox are facing in July. I posted it within the last ten or so posts in last night's game thread if you don't want to look the info up yourself. Go look at that s*** and tell me if there is any time left for this Oh we tend to lose the first game of a series horse s***.

Ah yes and Mike Aviles another guy that it just took awhile for the opposing pitchers to catch onto. Now his BA is into the 260's and his OPS is .705 while still being a liability in the field at SS. The only silver lining to Mike Aviles is that he might be the gateway to the Sox actually playing a SS that can play SS!

I would be fine with the singles with nobody on if they were accompanied with more extra base hits and home runs and less K's, DP's and pop ups with runners on. We never understand pitching on this web site. Pitchers ratchet up the intensity with runners on and this years AGons is for the most part a fail in that situation and he is not paid to be a fail in that situation. He is Wade Boggs in a bigger suit size. Add to that the fact that he rarely drives the ball anywhere anymore whether with runners on or not and you have what is looking more and more like a year that is going to go right down the tubes on top of a second half of last year that was the beginning of his power numbers decline...not a very pretty $21M picture.

Oh yeah Adrian...another base hit with nobody on....and another single to boot....please