jung

Salty probably got off to a slow start in the voting.

Look out....Cook is starting to get the ball up

Spot starter is about all you can realistically expect out of Cook. If he is ever up in the zone I won't be joking about getting somebody up in the pen immediately cause he will get nobody out.

Pedey killing the off speed stuff the last couple of days

OK get somebody up in the pen:D:D

Geez Clay took to many pills and croaked his gut? Wow. Well I was chiding myself the other day for looking at the SP for the teams we had to play as it looked like we should have an advantage. At that point Beckett had gone to the DL. Now Clay is there and Bard is out of the rotation. This is a hell of time for our rotation to head for the DL. At least we finally get to see what Cook has got, at least against a NL team.

Morales should look at film of himself from yesterday. I commented during the game that I had not seen him that smooth and flowing like....ever. It might not be a coincidence that his control was pretty much there all day.

Man I can't believe this move. Clay has been on a hot pitching streak and this team needs to win games.

of course Bailey is having arm trouble. Seems like a number of Sox this year end up with an injury on top of an injury. Guy goes out with a thumb, ends up with a bum elbow.

He may have healed after all. I would like to see how he handles hitting a good fastball. He creamed a couple of those off speed pitches on Saturday. If he pounds a fastball on Sunday that would go a long to proving the thumb is fine again. Boy would that be terrific.

Especially in games where one of the national crews has the telecast we get to hear the latest rendition of....WMB will certainly slow down once opposing pitchers find his weaknesses and pitch to them which is of course true to some extent. One thing I have however noticed that might help him as pitchers do find chinks in his armor is that his strength at the plate does not appear to be determined by particular pitches that he just eats up. Much of the success WMB appears to enjoy comes from really making pitchers pay for the classic mistake pitches. It does not matter who the hitter is, pitchers don't want to throw right down main street with little on the ball. The difference is that at least right now...make that kind of mistake to WMB and he does not miss it and when he hits it he hits is really hard. There are a number of guys throughout the history of baseball that made their reputations by being terrific mistake hitters, guys that you could get out if you did not make a mistake to them but make one and you were watching the thing go over the wall. That might be what we have in WMB. If that is the case, then as pitchers and scouts dismantle his swing and look for weaknesses, while they will likely find them, I don't wonder that it will be hard to rob him of his ability to really make you pay for the classic mistake pitches.

Unfortunately, they have to get Youk outta' here. In an odd sort of way, Youk forcing their hand is not the best way for him to handle this but it is what it is. If I were Youk I would not be talkin' about what was said to him and what was not said to him and when etc etc. Youk is on pretty thin ice right now. He is living by the slim thread of teams assuming he can benefit from a change of scenery when in fact it is just as likely that he is very close to just being done certainly as an everyday ballplayer. So if you are no longer an everyday ballplayer what are you? How much do you really think you are going to make as an ex-everyday ballplayer that wants to be treated like he is still in the starting lineup? How much tolerance should teams have for a guy that is going to spout off every once and awhile because he feels slighted. Youk really does not owe the Sox anything but he does owe it to himself and his current employers to sort of get where he really fits in the baseball world he finds himself in and frankly that spot is not one where he has much of a platform to spout off from.

He is basically a terrible analyst I think. He did have what I thought was an accurate comment on Miller but other than that one gem in the rough...he was pretty hard to listen to tonight.

Well it has taken Nava a long time to get anywhere because he has used all of this time to become a really smart baseball player. He must have been like a sponge this whole time. That is why he is here. He has studied hard, learned well and puts all of it to good use. So what he has is not likely to go away. He has a nice compact swing and he takes good swings at good pitches to hit. Goes the opposite way when he should. You can tell that he gets overpowered by guys that the really talented hitters can still hit so that is his ceiling if you will. I don't believe he will hit this good for a major league career or even a full season. For one thing not only can he be overpowered by somebody that just has good stuff (does not have to be great stuff), he likely has a spot in the strike zone that he just cannot get to, where he can be overpowered pretty easily. That is a spot where with two strikes, he has to protect the plate and just cannot get to a particular pitch. All of that said, based on what I have seen so far, I have no doubt that he can start for somebody in MLB. Just look at the teams that are not that good and the guys playing for them. Then look at the teams that would love to have Nava as their backup outfielder. So to me he is either a starting OF for some teams or a backup OF for others. However unless there is some flaw in his game, yet to be exposed that is so weak that once discovered really makes it easy to get him out, this guy is a ML OF to me. You don't see many players like him.

Morales is already pitching into the mid 80s headed toward 90 pitches though. I am going to guess that we will see him over 90 pitches next outing presuming that he is still starting and happens to be having a good outing.

Nava bails our ass out. If you think about it...most of the good situational hitting we have gotten has come from the Pawston Red Sox, not from the Boston Red Sox.

I know we love Aviles but he could do so much more damage for this club than he does

Geez Mike will you stop trying to pull everything

But Morales has not started all year. He has been a relief pitcher up until Beckett went on the DL.

C'mon Ryan really really think we need a run here

Interesting observation by Mitch on Miller and totally accurate. I guess Miller really can't pitch any other way or he would. I have often wondered why all that length never resulted in a motion that looked more like a Randy Johnson motion. Since I have never seen Miller pitch when he was not coming back from something or pitching in relief I never paid much attention to the fact that I never did see the motion I would have expected from a guy that tall.

Man I don't like the way this is going....from the point where we did not plate another run with guys on 2nd and 3rd. Hope I am worrying for nothin'

David you know you can't swing at that

Yea boy those broken bats can really be dangerous. Thank God we are ahead. If we were losing this game I am not sure I could stand it.

Jesus H Christ like I was really dying to get a history of the Atlanta Braves deal tonight. God almighty it is a great baseball game...can't the just stay on the baseball game.