jung

WMB is an RBI guy. With the runner on second already and less than two strikes I am OK with him trying to pull which is what WMB was trying to do there. However if he took that same cut with two strikes I would have been much less kind.

Where the Sox really seem to fail against this kind of pitcher is that while they will for the most part swing to protect the plate with two strikes, they tend not to give in and shorten their strokes and go with the pitch. If they want to pull they will often still try to pull even with two strikes....they do not shorten up on the bat in an effort to achieve greater bat control. I am fine with Salty still swingin' for the fences even with two strikes but everybody else should be shortening up against a guy like this and protecting in the traditional sense instead of just swinging. The Sox regularly refuse to do that and as a result guys like this keep them dancing at the end of their strings for whole games.

Laffey has not gone the Jurjjens route and is instead sticking with the same approach second time through the order....still painting the corners with that junk....getting two strikes and forcing the Sox to protect. Now has gone 4 innings on something like 45 pitches....

Lets see if Laffey changes his approach second time through like Jurjjens did the other night

Many of WMB's errors have been throwing errors as well....just has not settled in as yet I think. If you remember some of my recent posts about Salty and his defense it appears that Salty's defensive problems earlier this year were tied to how quickly he tried to execute even the most mundane play. WMB needs to slow down a bit and I think his defense will improve for the same reason that Salty's defense improved.

f***ing Laffey has dispatched us through 3 innings with 34 pitches. That is ridiculous.

Amazing how much difficulty we have had with junkers lately. This is the same progression that we suffered against Jurjjens at least at the start. Swinging and missing the junk early in counts the first time through the order against Jurjjens.....laying off early in counts the second time through the order as Jurjjens switched gears throwing that s*** fastball of his early in counts and getting ahead with it and then back to the junk early in counts the third time through the order. Laffey has Part 1 of the plan in play. Lets see what happens from here.

This has all the earmarkings of another 10-15 run game which is about what it takes for the Sox to win one these days. Ours chances are very good even with the one run deficit.

Well WMB got to that ball which by rights would have been down the line but then did not set himself, rushed the throw and sailed it. Not sure the result would have been any different. Frankly expected a HR there so I guess I will take a base hit and an error and the usual 1st inning run scored.

Well that helped now didn't it....if dice were my national treasure I would be suicidal.

Been a glitch two days running

Why the new guy tonight? We have not won a series against an AL east team in so long that I cannot even remember it anymore. I know he is supposed to be pretty good against LH pitchers and Laffey is a laugh but I would rather give us every possible chance to win this game....dice is already a handicap in my view.

Watch for some whacked out reason V will be resting Aviles tonight.....Aviles alone might beat Laffey on any given night.

Lester is not throwing anything like a 1 on a contending team. He stops nobody....shuts down nobody..... and pitches like a 3 most of the time. Oh yea, I know our 1 is now Beckett, bequeathed the position by an underperforming Lester the second year in a row and where is Mr. Beckett? Missing more starts...what else is new. Hopefully Buch recovers because he will likely turn out to be the best pitcher on this staff. There is certainly more than a possibility that Morales might turn out to be our second best pitcher which says more about the others than it says about Morales. As for the whole concept of bitch hits and luck blah blah blah, you need to look at the actual pitch as it runs up to the plate, not the result. More often than not you will find that the so called bitch hit is the result of a very poor pitch that is simply not well hit, not a great pitch that the hitter luckily gets a bat onto. I made that exact point in a recent game thread where our SP was serving up the usual assortment of s*** pitches to a weak hitting team with the so called "Bitch hit" the usual result. I posted at the time that instead of rueing our fate, we should be counting our lucky stars that the damn things had not been deposited into the monster seats. Good hitters take mistake pitches and deposit them into the monster seats, poor hitters get bitch hits with the same mistake pitches.

This team does not have enough starting pitching now, did not have enough at the start of the season and won't have enough at the end of the season and while I am wondering if they are looking for another arm for the rotation, as I have posted before I don't think one more arm is enough. These guys look like a team that is going to limp along and stay close, if only because of that second WC and slowly settle with the setting sun on the 2012 season and that will be that. They will clear the books of as much of this crap as they can in the off season but in reality they have made so many piss poor deals that they will likely still end up with guys that will ultimately be disappointments if they are not already. They will have generated enough revenue from all this Fenway promotional crap and the highest ticket prices in baseball to have had another "successful" season and clean house enough to make us feel good about next year. Whatever....hardly matters....if Uncle Bud sees one of his cash cows really going tits up he will just invent another WC to bail them out. While I understand it, the whole thing is kinda' sickening. At least with one WC you can make the case that the best single non-division winner deserved a place in the post season but playing 162 games to earn the rights to a one game play in is just hokey......it is an invention....a fabrication in fact.

Wish we knew the Sox were looking for front line Starter. Don't see how they can possible make a legitimate run without one more real deal arm in the rotation.

Last look I had on NESN...it was pouring just couple minutes ago. I figured I would try back maybe every ten minutes or so.

You guys watching NESN? Gammons just had a pretty interesting story to tell. Oddly enough I sort of thought it looked weird when I first saw it but then just let it go. Apparently Pedey noticed and has done something about it. Pedey noticed that WMB was using a glove that looked like a middle infielders glove...much like his own glove and something to small for 3rd base. He got right on the phone with the glove rep and ordered WMB a new glove because the one he is using is just plain wrong for a 3rd baseman. The new glove has not arrived as yet and I think that what Gammons just said is that WMB is now using a completely unfamiliar glove until the new one arrives. Interesting rain delay tidbit.

Youk is ground out, ground out, fly out for the night so far.

Well now that it is raining we have time for a quick review. What did we say absolutely had to happen for the Sox to succeed this year? We said that 1, 2 and 3 in the rotation had to pitch to their potential and had to stay healthy. Where is 2.....DL Where is 3.....DL How has 1 pitched....unreliably How have the other 2 pitched.....up and down. Probably lucky not to be in worse shape than we are in now.

What a frustrating game. One of the guys that has been.... well passible as a starter this year comes out and lays and egg. Game turns into another one of these ugly AA looking deals. Sox now behind by more runs than it looks like they will plate tonight against the freakin' Jays and it is pouring.

Boy Albers has given up a couple ugly HR's lately.

Maybe the inning should be over but the innings the J's have not scored have been more innings of good fortune for Felix tonight. Lots of hitable balls tonight. I have to be honest and say I had looked away from the screen just as Kalish leapt for that ball so I can't even offer an opinion on how catchable it was. However I have seen enough of Felix to know he is throwing a bunch of very friendly pitches tonight.

Give me a grandma with a walker over Punto.

White Sox are down 3-0 to the Twins in the 3rd. Chicago does not have a hit yet. So I assume Youk did not have one of those memorable first AB's.