jung

Geez I want to sweep these guys so bad. The Braves have injuries to their rotation now and the Jays rotation is decimated. We could get a nice run of wins here.

I would be kinda' surprised if we could not get more runs off these guys and Miami is not scary enough as an offense to make me believe we can't hold them here.

Looks like the worst we are going to get is Zambrano out of the game...maybe tied and into their bullpen. 100 pitches in 5 innings!

Yard Salty Yard....not front porch buddy

Time to go yard Salty

My biggest concern for Pedey like this is that the thing throbs all year long and does not allow him to really play like we know he can. To 700's point even as he is, Pedey is about twice a Punta and about half the Pedey we need.

Thanks BTR. Wondered if that was a 1st inning kinda' deal.

Damn just walked in the door from the golf course. Barely saw that sac fly by Aviles...that was a nice job there. Have not seen anything else yet though.

We had some discussions on this board about Lincecum and that whipping action he used to throw the ball. How he really did leverage his arm against his body in order to generate velocity and whether he could continue to do that for long at his size. Now I wonder if in fact he really can't do that for very much longer. The other discussion that is sort of league wide at the moment is how hard guys throw right from the very start of their ML careers and whether or not they can really do that. Should be interesting to watch.

For my part I never thought 2 runs in 5 innings were that big a deal. You might want to take a look and see how many walks Bard was giving up in those same 5 innings because that is where I would have had problems with Bard in a 2 run 5 inning stint. He was very often giving up as many as three walks in those same 5 innings...in instances giving up three walks in less than 5 innings. When a SP is doing that he is just walking on eggs. Might get away with it this outing but more times than not won't get away with it.

I think just the fact that we are comparing Nava to CC is to funny. No wonder JH tied a knot in the purse strings for a year. He is probably thinking "I don't know what exactly is wrong but something is wrong and I am going to put a lid on this thing until LL or Tom or I figure it out."

To be honest I did not want Bard inserted into that 5 hole. However once they put him there I did not see a way to get him outta' there until dice was ready or maybe Cook as ready. So I wanted them to go a different way but once they went Bard, I thought the Sox were pretty much stuck with that decision.

The Yankees might pick him. Who knows....some deals (in this case the CC deal) are so bad that it takes years to get over them. As I stated above, every word JH uttered on the topic of the CC signing was worth a chuckle at least. For long term ramifications, the CC signing makes the Lackey signing look like a stroke of genius. Offering Ortiz arbitration was another real boneheaded move. The Sox could have had Ortiz wrapped up for two years at reasonable money and had some money left to sign some additional pitching. That arbitration offer ended up having ramifications but they are relatively short term when you compare them to the CC signing.

Whether Ells wants to stay or not is at the bottom of the list of issues relative to keeping him. The Sox have no way out of the CC contract and can't be expected to allocate over $45M just to hold down two outfield positions. Unfortunately, CC has the money Ells should have and then some. The Sox should get younger. One of the biggest problems it has is the imbalance between long term big money contract players and cost controlled players. Ells is a bargain at the moment. CC is a rip off and from a practical perspective is being so grossly overpaid that he will likely never be able to provide the Sox with enough performance to make his contract even remotely paletable, particularly since his first year was a bust and he has yet to take the field in his second year of what is a seven year deal. However what may be the worst thing about CC's contract is that it is the first and last thing that Ells famously tough agent will bring to the table in any negotiation with the Sox for Ells services.

Let him walk as in trade in another 1.5 years of his services and get nothing for him at the end of that? That is why trading him might well make some sense. The Sox are boxed every which way there is on Ells. If they let him play out his contract they get nothing for him. That makes less sense than anything. Granted they made this mess for themselves. It makes JH's comments about the role he had to play in this even more stupendous. Ultimately I do think the Sox are left with no choice but to trade Ells and get the most they can for him. I just don't think Ells and more importantly his agent will leave them with an option.

Why trade him...cause the Sox have no way to get him back into a Sox uniform at the end of his current contract. The cost of the CC contract creates the utter lunacy of paying upwards of $45M per year just for two outfield positions. This is particularly true as it becomes more and more obvious that post the steroid era ML baseball regresses back to a game even more dependent on pitching and defense. If it plays out this way losing Ells ends up being the final payment for the stupidity of the CC deal.

Well I have not really even thought about this but the Sox have a huge problem when it comes to Ells that is not going away. They really can't justify paying Ells and CC and in any contract negotiation going forward Ells will just be able to shove CC's contract right down the Sox throat. If CC is getting $21M per year from the Sox what do the Sox have to pay for Ells based on the value represented by those two players? Do they have to pay $24M per for Ells. Do we really think the Sox are going to pay $45M per year to nail down two outfield positions? I don't see it. Yet the Sox have no way out from under the CC contract and Ells has no reason to give the Sox some sort of home town discount or anything like that. If anything he may prefer to go elsewhere. So trading Ells may not be as far fetched as all that regardless of what chances we have at a championship. It is the last of the ignominious remains from the CC deal.

The Braves have had a recent spat of pitching a bit over their heads....they are not better than decent generally but have been a bit better than that of late. Of the teams we have to play going out of the month, they may be the only team that at present could take 1 or 2 games out of 3. None of the other teams we play going out of the month should even get a sniff of taking a series and should in fact be ripe to be swept.

Well if they just release Youk he could end up anywhere with the Sox paying 100% of his salary. That has implications that will have me looking to get all sharp instruments out of my house.

This would be a great time for the Sox to finally pull of a series sweep. Braves, Blue Jays and Mariners coming up. Braves have decent pitching. They could present a bit of a problem. Blue Jays have mucho injuries in the rotation. That could be the death nell for them. Mariners should not be much of a problem. As someone said earlier I think the key will be sweeping some of these, as opposed to even 2 of 3 or 2 of 4. We need to sweep some of these series. The way the AL East and AL in general is going there is a big dif between going 9 for 9 instead of going 6 out of 9 especially if you are the Sox at this stage of the game.

Home plate ump has not given anybody anything to complain about either. He has called a very consistent game. What kills you is that you are often left asking yourself...what the hell is so hard about that? If they can't see the damn pitches what are they doing there? Not saying he has called everything perfectly but, he has been very very consistent and that is all these guys really want unless you "consistently" call something a foot off the plate a strike.

This has been a decent night for Youk...perhaps the best kind of night for him to have...teams interested are not going to face A grade pitching every night. Youk hit the ball hard at least once...looked pretty good running around the bases...etc I just think that the overarching issues for Youk govern any decision a team is going to make on him. I think that the prevailing view is that nobody is going to pick up salary AND give up a prospect. So either the Sox pay his salary to get a player or leave some salary for the team getting Youk to pick up and don't get a prospect back. Realistically I just don't think there is anything Youk can do at this point to change that picture to any degree worth talkin' about. The funny thing here is that if the Sox are going to pay 100% of Youk's salary anyway if Youk can take his fate in stride, is it really that big a deal to just keep him till the end of the year. That would make no sense at all if a team were even going to pick up half his salary but so far nobody apparently has been willing to pick up any salary. I think the other part of the problem is that nobody can envision any kind of a bidding war for him. In other words, analysts appear to be having a hard time seeing a situation where even two teams want to bid for his services and without that, the Sox are stuck with all of his salary I fear. Would it be a complete surprise if the Sox do end up keeping him simply because they can't get anything at all back for him plus have to pay his entire salary? If so would we be completely surprised if Youk contributed something important in a stretch run? I know none of this is optimal from a Sox perspective but if they are going to pay the whole damn salary, maybe keeping him is the right move. Food for thought.

Geez Jerry why don't you just marry Don and get it over with.

I was hoping we would see another shot of Oz in the dugout. Keep waiting for him to finally just lose it.

Would have liked to see V turn Punto loose on that 3-0 count just to try to get him going. Sox are way ahead and poor little Nicky is the only guy without a hit.