jung

What's jurjens doing in his glove... building a baseball before he throws it?

One hit was the change up in the zone which is why you cannot through the change up there. The hitter can be completely fooled and as long as he can keep the head of the bat in the hitting zone...good chance to get a hit.

Well it is not like he is not giving up pitches to hit. He has got his change of speeds crap going a bit tonight and Sox hitters are a little out front. Need to get ahead in the count and jump on his FB when Jurjens has to throw it.

Its HR's Native

This is sort of off topic but all these inter-league games had me thinking about this recently. I wonder if Albert's problems with the Angels have something to do with how aggressive AL pitchers have to be because of the DH. Maybe Albert is just not used to pitchers coming after him because he is the great Albert. It just does not matter in the AL. Pitchers have to go after these guys cause you just cannot pitch around everybody in every situation. Not only that but often you are left as a pitcher having to go after somebody no matter how great he might be. Anyway had not thought about that until these inter-league games reminded of the difference.

Geez is AGons actually putting on a little weight here mid-season?....Maybe red is not his color:lol:

Actually asking Bard to go think about it and deciding both sides would get back together and compare notes is not the same thing as giving Bard the responsibility to decide what his role would be. I fully expect they would have heard Bard out if he had come to a different conclusion and may have even considered his wishes in their final decision but in the end it would be their decision, not Bard's.

As stated earlier I agree that in large part the issue is a determination of whether or not Pedey can heal playing like this. If he cannot heal (a different issue than whether he will hurt himself worse) and we are stuck with this Pedey, would we still just want to play him? My issues is not that this Pedey is twice a Punto even now. My issues is that clearly this Pedey cannot give us what we need from him. I am not sure that will fly even with Ells and CC coming back. Pedey has not only produced for this team. Pedey has produced under pressure. CC has not produced under pressure. Agons is not producing. Youk is on the way out of town and not producing. Aviles has not really been under the kind of pressure Pedey has thrived in for years. The kids are doing great but have no experience in high pressure situations. Do we really want to depend on Ortiz to hit a HR every time he comes to the plate? We need Pedey to be Pedey. If he can't heal playing, then that would be the arbiter for me of whether he should be playing or not. The Sox really have to many moving pieces all moving at once in my view. While I still think this will boil down to having enough Starting Pitching I think they need Pedey to be Pedey. And No, I don't think dice gets us what we need in Starting Pitching. dice gets to replace Bard and not much nore than that. A bunch of 4's and 5's are not the answer when your real issues lie in 1,2 and 3 in your rotation. As it is at least 5 has fallen back into the "not sure what we have" category. But that is not unusual for a 5.

I don't understand people being do dead certain that Crawford will even come back to his career numbers. He was a complete bust last year and has been on the shelf all this year. That basically accounts for 1.5 years of his career for a guy that has made a living in part with his legs. I do think that talent is talent. Crawford is the more talented player without question. The Sox so far have not found a found a way to unlock that talent and now Crawford is a year and a half older. I don't think they will baby him but I do think they will be careful with him. I don't think they will attempt anything that smells like whatever they might have tried last year because whatever that was, it did not result in simple failure. It resulted in a player that got progressively worse through the year going from bad to basket case. There is the track record that they hope for (not here so far) and the track record they have (here). Clearly they are going to hope for the one that they acquired. However I would not expect them to simply go about business as usual or go back to what they were doing or not doing last year. They have to much money tied up in Crawford and no way out. It does not matter that this is baseball. Go to your boss to discuss with him an employee or a program that failed that fabulously last year and tell him that you are just going to do the same thing again this year and see how far that gets ya'. We might get some idea what they plan on doing when we see if they put him right into the 2 hole, the spot that he has petitioned for (ridiculous to begin with and not what you would expect of a confident player) or whether they start him out elsewhere. It would be hard to believe that the 2 hole just so happens to be the best the best place for him on day 1 unless his stay in rehab is inordinately long.

The play of the super subs is what is in part what is allowing the Sox to take their time with guys like CC and Ells. I simply do not see the Sox rushing CC back into every day play especially since he is clearly slow recovering his ability to throw. I think they will want him to see some ML pitching and I also think they will want him to ease his way back into playing Fenway's left field before he is fully ready to throw from there and that will mean putting him into games before he is ready to play every day. That might also provide a soft landing for CC into the lineup. He will not have the same sort of pressures that he succumbed to last year hanging over his head every day. Need I remind us that he never really beat those pressures last year but instead just kept playing worse until finally he could no longer field as well as hit! While we all seem to be ready to accept that he succumbed to those pressures last year I for one am not willing to accept that he can and will beat them this year. I would prefer to see him eased back into the lineup since we already have the result for simply throwing him into the deep end of the pool. We threw him into the deep end of the pool last year. I have no interest in repeating that experience. The only difference is that we had games in hand last year and could afford to play CC every day regardless of how well he played.

You guys are all assuming that the Sox will hold CC out until he is ready to play every day and I doubt that will be the case. I suspect that they will work him in because they will want to get him going before he is ready for everyday play. Hence I think they will play both players if Nava is still playing well. For one thing I think they will want to get him out there before he is really ready to throw from the outfield but will want Aviles to meet throws in the outfield. That will get Crawford seeing ML pitching before he is really ready to play full time. If they do hold CC out till he is ready for everyday play then I think you will see Nava in Center again presuming he is still helping the team win games with Kalish and Ross platooning in Right. I don't they will just insert CC into every day play right off the bat....particularly if Nava is still helping them win games.

Last nights was a terrific win and makes a run of six more very possible given the state of Braves and Jays starting pitching.

Presuming everybody is healthy when CC comes back and lets say Nava performance is at about 3/4 of what it is today I would say that CC will play couple times a week to start...maybe three times per week. Nava might play a bit more than that depending on Center Field but I think they will both play and playing time will depend on who plays best and how CC does coming back from injury.

I agree with this. I just have not seen anything one way or the other that indicates what we are really dealing with here.

Well the point about the embarrassment of riches is the one spot where the Sox do not have an embarrassment of riches, the most important component of all....Starting Pitching. The Sox in my view will have to trade on some of their riches to get Starting Pitching.

Well CC was one of the worst signings I have seen in my entire lifetime. The result being that nobody would touch that contract with a 10' pole. Fortunately, we don't need to make some of these tough decisions on players right at this moment. However when the time comes, CC will play. Just don't tell me I have to be a believer in CC when the guy has not proven a single thing here yet. There is no reason for me to be anything but skeptical because it simply does not matter what CC does at least as it relates to his contract. He is never going to live up to that contract in my view. However I am quite confident that there are posters here that will want me to just be beside myself with happiness and completely satisfied when and if he just sort of turns back into an average, run of the mill, outfielder as opposed to the train wreck he was last year. I can definitely see that day coming and can read the posts in my head. But it hardly matters. CC is going nowhere thanks to the wisdom of the Red Sox brain trust circa 2010-2011. What has been exposed now to the point that anybody with a pair of eyes can see is something that the forum has been discussing as a general topic for a long time now. The number of players that the Sox just sit on down in their system is unbelievable. Granted, Kalish has been injured. But Kalish aside where were some of these other guys. Teams bring up players that have not proven themselves completely yet all the time. Not the Sox. You just about have to be a ready made all star to make your way up and given the choice between bringing in some vet with all of his baggage and take a chance on somebody in their system, the Sox will bring in a vet, baggage and all every single time. Therein lies what I think should be the eventual answer to some of these questions. Again the only guy that is not part of a potential answer is CC cause nobody will touch that contract. However, the Sox will likely have to explore what they might be able to get for Ells if only because he is one player that can bring you Starting Pitching, still the real need on this club and it is hard for me to see Ells and CC continuing on the same team....yet another aspect of the depths of badness on the CC deal. I would strongly consider keeping the guys that have been in the Red Sox system over the guys that they have brought in even if that means Sweeney is traded or Ross is traded. The Sox get the best of both worlds with guys like Kalish and Nava. They are such a refreshing change from the usual scowling crotchety vet we get around here or guys that are so set on playing the game their way that even when that is not working, by God they are gonna' play it their way. That is not to say that guys like Sweeney and Ross have been problems. Are you telling me that you don't want to see more of guys in Red Sox uniforms running around the bases like Fenway is a playground and the opposing team is just a foil for their playfulness? You don't want to see Nava's and Kalish's up with the big club even if they are not the everyday players for it? Those decisions between the players that have been in the system and the players that have been brought in are probably where the rubber meets the road for Sox Management. To have the developmental players stay and the players that were brought in traded will be the final acknowledgement that Sox Management does in fact sit on these guys down in their system. It will be final acknowledgement that it is and has been a bad business decision, a bad system decision, a bad player development decision and a bad team building decision. Even the ever understated Mr. Remy made for him a resounding comment on the "refreshing" nature that these guys that have been toiling down on the farm bring to this club. I think the one part of the Bill James concept of depending on matrices that gets lost is that it tends to guide management to the things that make these contemporary matrices most valuable. They allow you to find value that is sitting in somebody else's system. Unfortunately I think that also means that you end up ignoring value that is sitting in your own system. Maybe the truth is that other than in SP, the Sox have an embarrassment of riches. If they are smart and certainly smarter than they have been, they will recognize that they are heading into an era where pitching and defense once again rule baseball. I think at this point the only thing that will stop that is rule changes prompted by MLB deciding that their product losses some of its luster if guys are not bashing the ball over the wall every 10th plate appearance. I suspect they are going to have to use some of their riches to secure better pitching. I do wonder if Sox Management will have the guts to be as honest with itself as it will need to be.

Isn't the larger issue here whether or not Pedey playing does not allow him to really heal leaving us stuck with this Pedey instead of the Pedey we really need?

Boy hard to pull Nava out the way he has been getting on base. However, he has been so hot that it becomes hard to believe that he stays that "on" up till the point that both Ells and CC are back and have steadied. So I would say, the best thing would be to just enjoy this run. Let Nava continue right were he is for now. I just don't think you can make a decision on Nava at this point. If they don't keep him here and keep guys like Pods and d-mac instead, then that is going to piss me off.

To be honest I don't think I will feel comfortable with what CC does until he is doing it. He does have a year here now but it was a year of abject failure that somehow got worse and worse as the year went on until it got to the point where he could not field any longer as well as not hit. I would also feel more comfortable with CC if he had not gone through that campaign for his spot in the batting order earlier this year. That did not sound like a confident player to me. I am going to go absolutely out of my mind if the Sox hold onto d-mac and let go of Nava. Pods should be outta' here before the Sox have to make a decision on Nava as well as the injured return. I do think the posts we are seeing recently regarding Ells are interesting. He has a guy land on his shoulder just at the point where his shoulder is sitting over the 2nd base bag like a stick that you might lean on a log just before you break it in two with your foot and he now fragile. I do think that given the circumstances the Sox find themselves in with regard to Ells they need to explore the possibilities for trading Ells. I think you still want Nava in your hip pocket if you are going to explore what you might get back for Ells.

One disturbing aspect about this thing with Papi is that there is the very strong possibility that this is all about his desire to have a longer commitment in the form of a contract which he probably could have had at the right price. Can't have max dollars and term at the same time. Papi has an agent. They could have negotiated. This always looked like a situation where Papi and his agent left the Sox to negotiate with themselves. Both sides erred I think....the result being arbitration. Now he has max dollars and is still not happy. If he had $20M over two years from the Sox would he still not be happy because it is not $14 per over two years for a total of $28M? The money has totally gone to these guys heads in my view and none of them seem to be happy anymore. I am not restricting this to Sox players at all.

C'mon Salty..gotta frame that better...that first pitch was a strike.

Agonz is so fouled up at this point it almost looks like he needs to sit down just to rid himself of all this muscle memory he is building up for the wrong s***. Don't take my observation literally but man is he fouled up right now.

Here Remy blurt out "youthful enthusiasm". When Remy knuckles under and lets you know he sees how different the team plays...that is really saying something.

Did WMB put a charge into that or what! I think he has just pushed all his chips to the middle of the table tonight. Just about daring the Sox to sit him on the bench.

God Damn it...do not let these bums up by three.