jung

Damn...no NESN tonight. Really struggle with the national guys.

Well I think if somebody had talked to Youk before the game it would have been a pretty short discussion...."we are going with the hot bat Kevin, at least tonight." If there is one thing I have noticed just in V's press conferences, he is very terse and it seems to me that he assumes people know exactly what he is saying when in fact he is saying very little of substance and is often nebulous as hell. I guess I don't know how that has worked for V in the past. I suspect he can get away with it with reporters cause reporters need the Manager just to make their living. So he can throw some nebulous crap out there to them and when they say they don't understand he can criticize them for their pea brains and get away with it. Don't think that works with anybody else yet we seem to hear this a good deal with V. "I thought so and so understood". "I thought so and so was told by such and such." Nobody is telling anybody anything unless you, V, clearly instruct somebody to do so. Isn't it interesting that as the Olney article got clarified more and more it became pretty obvious that it is the level of communications in the organization that is lacking. I am not sure I would point fingers at Youk because it appears to me that V does this with everybody and has a pretty piss poor success rate doing it. Nobody gets his cryptic, nebulous crap and I am sure nobody appreciates being treated like an idiot because they can't see into the "wizard's" mind and divine what the hell he is really saying.

Here I am making noise the last couple days about the condition of the rotations for the teams immediately ahead of us (Braves and Jays) and what is happening in our rotation? Bard now toiling to find himself in Pawtucket with dice in for him. Beckett on the DL...nothing but hopes for good news coming out of Sox FO but no real information one way or the other....Morales starting in his spot....Now Buch will miss a start (only the guy coming on the hardest of late) with the possibility that Aaron Cook will take his spot for a start.

Unfortunately for Youk I think he is catching flak because people really want WMB to play and blame Youk for the time WMB is not getting at 3rd. Makes no sense but I think that is why Youk is catching so much flak. If the point you are making 700 is why is there such an effort to trade him when we are going to have to eat his salary...I kinda' hear you on that one. The "experts" have been treating the idea of keeping Youk while playing WMB as an absolute crime. "Youk will be a distraction". "You don't keep seasoned pros on the bench. You either play them or trade them." I guess I can understand that. But the whole effort as far as dealing with Youk and WMB seems so strained mainly because of the insistence that in order to play WMB the Sox must trade Youk even getting nothing for him and paying his salary wherever he goes. The young guys have been commenting that Youk has been nothing but helpful even given the strains of his current situation. So, I think the calls to get Youk outta' here are kinds overdone. If the Sox are going to have to pay every bit of his salary getting nothing in return, even after making the effort to move him would it be such a crime to keep him here? Is everybody that positive that Youk will throw a fit and be a complete disaster if he is no longer an everyday player going out the year here? Can you just see ding-dong McCarver during the ALCS commenting as Youk strides to the plate "this was the guy that the Sox were trying desperately to move in order to make room for the now injured Middlebrooks. Youk has been hitting .330 with a 910 OPS since the beginning of the post season." Can't you just see that? Does that not sound like typical baseball gods having their way with us s***? Obviously I am having some fun with this but is it that far fetched?

I think Bard can get back to his relief role. I just never have viewed him as a very adaptable guy. It might take some time and he has to get his pitching motion back in order as well. Last we saw of him he had no idea where the ball was going. I am sure that is just not a couple weeks work at this point. Might be end of this season at best before we see him again and more likely next season.

Once all said and done Youk will deserve to be acknowledged much more for the good he did than for his foibles. He really was a major part of some serious flag raising at Fenway. I don't think they will get anything for Youk at this point unless somebody is desperate for RH 1st baseman going into the second half. Frankly as soon as I heard all that crap about his offseason weight training my first thought was Oh No.....this may be it for Youk.

Well if there is one thing that should be considered done and done as far as Bard and his performances on the mound are concerned it is that we can say with complete confidence that he is a much better pitcher when he can just throw. He does not do well having to think his way through games from the mound. That is not to say he is a dunce or anything like that. He is simply not well suited to the mindset of a ML starter.

With a left handed pitcher going I would have dropped AGons one more spot and put WMB ahead of him in the order. This might work out OK. Salty does not get on much anymore. Either he is touching home plate before heading back to the dugout or just heading back to the dugout.

Boy I don't know...the shoulder is a big joint. If Agons shoulder was hurting I would think even he would be asking for some help. Now it might be weaker. That might explain some of the power drop. That HR to center that he hit was absolutely crushed so if anything that one made me feel like he can drive the ball under the right circumstances. I think his swing has flattened out for one thing contributing to his no longer getting the ball over the left field wall. Like I said I do think this has been progressive in AGons case and while I did not add it to my post above at about the same time this year that he really started focusing on going the other way, he really did flatten out that swing of his.

I find it hard to believe that the HR Derby would still be causing him a physical problem at this point. Maybe the thing got into AGons head somehow and started Agons down a path to the spot where he is now. Agons has not really been battling the same hitting problem all the way through to now. Even if you just take this season, at least from what I saw I thought his problems started with an overemphasis on going the other way, to left field. I think that started him swinging early in counts at anything that looked like a pitch he could take the other way easily. Once he made his approach to plate appearances obvious pitchers started pitching him that way. It became easy to either tempt him farther off the outer edge or tie him up inside. AGons seems to have gotten past that and has been a bit more selective of late. He is not chasing pitches off the outer edge as much and he as at least handled pitches on the inner half a bit better. Now while his plate discipline has gotten better his swing has gone to hell. His shoulder is often flying open and is way out ahead of his hips. I am not sure if this is some reaction of his to his power numbers going to hell or if he has just slipped into this but his swing is off at this point. Hopefully he will pull out of this at some point. Agons would not be the first guy that let that left field wall get into his head...that is for sure. I am sure that he and the professional help he has around him see what is happening to him far better than I can. Hopefully there is nothing more complicated going on here. The only aspect of his problems that are truly inexplicable are the power numbers. Even when he was overly focused on going the other way, he was no longer driving the ball hard enough to get it over the left field wall. He crushed that HR to center field a couple weeks ago but in that case, he was all over that pitch, bat meeting ball at the optimal moment. To be honest I don't think there is anything deep or mystical going on. I think he is just.....well....screwed up. Not to say that hitting problems are easy to clear up just because there is nothing deep or foreboding going on. The golf swing is probably a bit harder to find once it goes off because of the interaction between ground, ball and club face. However, Agons sort of got here progressively I think. So, the road back may be progressive as well.

The problem becomes a bit unmanageable when you have two guys in a row struggling right in the middle of the lineup. Two guys in a row in the spots where Pedey and Agons are is a black hole of offensive fizzle. Got to move one or both down. I am fine with Pedey staying in the lineup as long as the thumb is actually getting better while he is playing. If it is not getting better then there is no real payoff for his current performance level and we are just pushing a DL stint farther into what might be a more critical period for the Sox.

If Pedey is back to 100% which is what V is saying I guess, that is the best Sox news I have had in awhile.

It is still about who you face and when you face them. This was the first game this month where they really embarrassed themselves. The starting pitching has been mediocre all season long...not great, with many good moments, many truly unspectacular, mediocre performances and a few terrible moments. As for the offense, they have many good hitters but few smart hitters and that has plagued them all season. They pile on the runs when their inherent physical talents are allowed to show through but tend to be unable to buy a run in tight games against good to very good pitching. They fail to even mount a challenge to a good pitching performance. As a result we have a tough time coming out on the winning end of these 4-1 or 3-2 contests. These are generally contests against teams that feature good to great pitching and weak hitting. So these are contests that tend to suggest that we have a weak offense but ignores the fact that the teams we are playing have weak offenses that we don't control. Giving up 3-5 runs against these weak hitting teams just does not get it done. I do agree that this was a game where having guys like Pedey and Agons up in the order like they were tonight is just a mistake. Keep them in the lineup if you must but for crying out loud, not up that high in the order until they are hitting again.

V saying that he thinks Pedey is back to healthy again???? Honestly I thought his bat looked slow tonight....I really thought he looked like a guy that was physically struggling with his swing tonight worse than I have seen from him on other nights with this damn thumb thing. Maybe he is fine....that is what V says.

It depends on whether Ells and CC would have been patient or not. CC certainly is not the most patient hitter on the planet by a long shot. That was as disciplined and heady a performance by a junk baller as I have seen in a long time. But the Sox set themselves up for it by swinging at his junk early in counts early in the game and that sealed their fate right from the first inning. Second time through the order, he went to starting them with that s*** FB and they laid off expecting the junk again and they got behind in the count. Third time through he was back to throwing junk early in counts and the Sox were back hackin' like they had been early in the game. Had they laid off early in the game, the whole profile of the game might have been different. Guys like Nava did the best against him so if he was out of the game for CC, I am not sure this particular game would have worked out to our advantage. We may still have lost to this guy on this night. However if they were a little smarter at the plate, we might have at least gotten to a tie late in the game handing it over to the bullpens. I hate losing games like this cause it just points out our weaknesses relative to other teams...Starting Pitching and poise at the plate. Don't mean to knock the guy especially since I don't know who they could have put in there to do better at least tonight but Pedey really did fail in some big spots tonight.

The sox have their lofty run totals and all the rest of it. But it is games like this where our starter does not hold down a weak hitting team and our offense simply allows itself to be abused that drive you completely nuts.

No question the guy pitched a great game...but it is no secret what he does on the mound. If he is on you get the guy we got. The Sox have enough hitting talent to at least put up a better fight against a guy like that. For the most part we just let him abuse us.

Watch...the Braves will get the f***in' run back now.

At least it was a good plate appearance by Pedey...just don't think he can get it done right now. I wonder if he can take a game or two either side of the all star break and if that might be enough. I wish we knew more about what is really happening with that damn injury.

Gotta be willing to take what the pitcher will give you...not force the issue. Difference between the way Mike went at his at bat and the way Nava went at his was right there.

Aviles tried to hit a four run homer with one man on. We needed a hit there mike. This game would look much different at 3-1 and one out and one on.

Damn...Kalish crushed that...another pitch up and in the middle of the plate

WMB hits a hanger.....thank you WMB

One of the more disconcerting aspects of the Sox this season is that except for the most patient of them....guys like Nava, they have given in to s*** like this stuff we are seeing tonight. If the guy is hitting spots with that junk you can't swing at it....you just can't and you have to wait for him to hang something or wait on that s*** FB and tag it. It it gets to two strikes protect the plate. That is all you can do. You will not beat him this way. All to often our guys seem to think that they will beat a guy if they stick with this approach and it is just not going to happen or maybe they get frustrated and just insist on being stubborn about the whole damn thing. It doesn't matter which cause it won't work.

Now third time through he is back to throwing his junk early in counts. He is just abusing these guys....they are like puppets on the end of a string.