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Sox have not posted their lineup for tonight yet. Cubs have. Hope V is pondering Kalish. Hope V plays him.

Yankee game is hard to watch. They are only up 2-1 with both runs on 1 run homers. Have left a bunch of guys on base but have moved runners along...have basically played the kind of game we rarely see from the Sox lately. Nova has not given the Nats much to hit. I hate this!

Yea I don't think you could get Garza that way either....If the discussion is Bard or Bard and Lars which I guess was how that original post got started it would take Bard plus Lars plus maybe couple somethings from AA if you did not want to give up any more AAA guys. Garza won't come cheap and teams are already lining up to grab pitchers. Really not sure what combo would work for us to get a Garza. You are onto something there SFF. I don't think Lars adds much if I am on the other side of that deal and might even think more of two prospects from a lower developmental level that had better long term potential....that might even be more attractive to the Cubs.

I really want the Nats to win this game today....mainly because Sox/Cubs is a night game so the Sox for the umpdidy-umpth time this year can show us something like some of what it takes to dig out of the hole they have dug for themselves. Will we get the ole' faithful...."Yawn, first inning....no sweat guys we got time" or will they come out and fight from the first swing of the bat? Last night we got the usual first inning..... Papi trotting around the base paths until whoops, I could get home......NOT!

Damn Yankees are already up against the Nats....only 1-0 but it should be clear that the Rays and Yanks have the bit between their teeth NOW. Sox.....huh....my alarm clock did not go off.....hey man....not my fault!!

I assume you are talkin' about Hamels next year SFF. If so then I don't think signing Garza takes them out of the running for a top of the rotation guy next year. Not sure who it will be cause I think there might be a couple to look at. I do think that either Beckett or Lackey or both are OUTTA' HERE next year. Beckett has pitched solidly this year to date. However injury concerns are starting to creep back in and if I had a choice I would not want either Lackey or Beckett around my young ballplayers. It does not appear to me that Beckett wants to be here and we should just accommodate him. I don't think he will make his 5/5 thing an issue as long as we don't want to pack him off to the Alaska Polar Bears or something like that. Even just the last couple days he has been up to his usual standards for ********. Beckett told the media he would give them some time to discuss his DL stint and then disappeared on them. So Josh-like. Really the entire season hinges on 1,2 and 3 in the rotation. Josh has been the most consistent of them although Buch is coming on. Josh goes on the DL....tells the media he will hold a presser and then hits the road. Even just a pandering to the fans comment like "going to try to get back on the mound as soon as I can" comment would really have been worthwhile for the fans that foot the bill and live and die with this team and as a means of doing some repair work on Beckett's image around here. Then again, why should Josh care. Guess he doesn't care. Thanks as usual Josh...just hope you didn't miss it to make a tee time. As for Lackey...I would send Lackey off to the Siberian Tundra Cats if I could.

Sweeney has a "toe issue". Please....lets see....what part of the Sweeney's body is basically hidden? His toe! Funny thing is that since the news is really Kalish up not the corresponding move to put Sweeney on the DL to make it happen, the articles all just sort of cut a line into the piece so that there is at least something there on Sweeney. However I think they could have written that Sweeney had gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel and nobody would have noticed. I hope Kalish goes right into the lineup. Lets see what the kid has got!

Garza for Bard+Lars sounds to good to be true. There must be a hitch. "Lets see, I will take your head case, failed starter that cannot recover his velo even at reduced work load plus this other guy who looks like he will always be this other guy for my front line starter who might be underperforming some but isn't getting much run support here and might also be suffering from being away from the highly competitive environment of the AL East (who knows really). Anyway I am good with that deal and don't think I would have to look back worried about where Bard and Lars ended up.

I think we will be thanking our lucky stars big time if it turns out to be a precautionary stint for Beckett. I would not think that Inflammation is both the cause and the effect and that has got me really worried. It might still be something that Beckett can live with for a season but an overused part that shows signs of its overuse is a worn part if we are hoping Josh has just overused the shoulder some. The way the modern baseball player (other than Pedey who may in fact be the very description of a throwback) handles injury, this could easily be an issue that causes Beckett to miss more starts this year. While Bard's less than satisfying stint in the rotation is not really a disaster or a base that the Sox can't cover with dice, anything that involves performance lower than their best or injury in the top three in the rotation are things for which the Sox just don't have an answer. Cook moving up to the 5 hole with dice the 4 and Felix the 3 with Buch and Lester at the top is not an answer for a team with post season aspirations. That said there is a real chance here that Buch is hitting his stride. It looks like injury would be the only thing that would hold him back at this point.

Maybe the silver lining on Punto will be how easy it will be to dump Punto to bring Iggy up. Hell of a silver lining huh!

Yea but that is not setting much of a mark for a guy making $20M a year. He could hit the mark you have set for him easily and still be hideously overpaid. I don't think anybody thinks he will continue to be the colossal flop he has been so far. However he has got so far to go to even begin to scratch the surface of a $142M commitment over seven years and has already burned through a year and a third contributing close to nothing. What is a guy that depends on his legs to contribute going to look like at the back end of these seven years? By rights you would have expected CC to contribute most effectively at the front end of this deal not the backend and he is burning through the front end pretty quickly. I don't buy the "he will supplement speed with power as he ages" argument. CC could easily hit the "contribute in a positive way once he is healthy" mark and still be the worst way to spend $20M a year anybody ever heard of.

Thank God.....Kalish.....finally. With any luck, he and WMB will both be lineup regulars for the Sox in short order.

I think you are correct Bellhorn. While it does seem clear that FSG upper management felt like it had to tighten the purse strings this year, they made that bed for themselves. They spent like drunken sailors or allowed the money to be spent that way on moves that Theo now acknowledges as being "sizzle" motivated on the one hand or were moves compelled by the need to feel like you are "doing something". So there you have it...from the horses mouth. The purse strings got tied off because we made bad moves....moves motivated by the wrong incentives and that is why we are in the mess we are in today. They have yet to redeploy the Scutaro resources more effectively....their stated reason for getting rid of Scutaro and it does not look like they are going to do so. They left themselves so vulnerable in the SP that they now look very much like they are in the same boat they were in last year. The only difference is that the names have changed. Lackey and dice went down to injury last year. Bard has failed in his role this year and to date Beckett has lost the most time from the big 3. He will miss at least two more starts now having lost one earlier for a total of three so far. Their SP is still to inconsistent for a team with post season aspirations regardless of what happens with the everyday players where they have gotten remarkable performances from replacement players. The SP is better than what it was at the start of the season but it is still found lacking when compared not to themselves but to the starting pitching they have to face around the league and in inter-league play. Eventually they will live or die, not with the return of Ells or CC or Ross or even Bailey but with the quality of their SP. Currently, they just don't have enough. If they did we would not be seeing Frank Morales taking the mound tonight. To be frank, I don't think they will have enough even if Beckett comes right off the 15 day DL right back into the rotation.

That play in RF the other day was the Sox one shot at playing Russian Roulette with AGons. They pulled the trigger and fortunately there was no round chambered. He could very easily have been injured and then this whole thing would look just like the gamble it has been all along. Agons is a GG 1st baseman and an accident waiting to happen in RF.

At 3 for 34 and 0 for his last 18, all the Sox can hope for is a team is willing to pay part of Youk's salary. Even if he goes on a mini-run, it won't change anything at this point. Crawford's contract is in my view unmovable. The contract itself is that bad.

Well Morales has been terrific when he gets to start clean innings and almost scary at the times when he can't start clean innings. Maybe he will see the 1st inning as just another clean inning to start.

In fact, yes he has.

Why don't you people make up your mind. One of you wants to talk about Lester having pitched well tonight and somehow thinks I believe he had a particularly bad night. One of you wants to talk about how frustrating his season has been and apparently thinks he has earned his frustration. I don't think he has a single reason to be glaring out of the dugout AGAIN tonight. He pitched pretty well. He gave in on that dinger pitch and that would be the only thing he should have reservations about tonight. Not something he should have done and in other circumstances, easily the kind of thing that could cost him the game. However: He had a pretty good night I thought (although maybe he did not think so) He was not pulled early V had every right to come and talk to him before pulling him the ump was not squeezing him to any great degree Whether the issues that he himself has admitted to leaked into his game in that last inning is something I cannot divine. I do know that he himself has publicly admitted that he has attitude issues and he no longer seems to even recognize a good outing from a bad outing...no longer enjoys himself out there on the mound and has not found a way to get past this stuff yet. Way more than 95% of Lester's starts are going to end with him being pulled at some point. So hopefully that is not an issue for him. If Lester cannot draw enough positive energy from what he did on the mound to keep from stewing around the dugout like a caged bear that is truly a shame. Not sure when or how he is going to resolve this stuff but I repeat....I do not have to guess about whether or not these are issues for Lester. He has already publicly admitted that they are and has publicly admitted that they effect his performance on the mound. You people are the amateur analysts. All I have to do is listen to the player himself and watch.

Your not listening. All you have to do is listen to player. He has already admitted these issues are causing problems on the mound. I don't to have to guess about whether they are causing him issues on the mound. Lester has already told me they are. He just has not found a way to deal with them yet.

Well given the importance of an insurance run, it might have made sense to just have tried to move the runner up one spot even at the expense of an out and see if we could plate the run. Even if Punto got a hit, it was very unlikely that Mike would score from 1st. We are leading in this game so an insurance run would be really really helpful.

You can't be serious. I don't have to be an expert on human behavior. Just need a pair of eyes and a pair of ears in Lester's case. It is really common knowledge at this point that he won't let it go and is causing himself way more problems than he would have if he would just do so....has admitted it himself but can't seem to do anything about it. I do think you might be onto something "Pal" as Lester was not like this at all a few years ago. Although it would not surprise if the combined influences of Lackey and Beckett may be an issue for Lester.

That was an interesting situation with Lester. He really did give in there. You don't want to walk another guy but you can't just grove a pitch like that either. Lester glaring in the dugout again and I just don't know what he thinks he has to glare about: Not happy that V came out and talked to him Not happy that V pulled him I will just about guarantee you that it is not "pissed at himself for having given up the dinger". Clearly that is somebody else's doing. Did not look like he was getting squeezed, not more than at any other time in the game. Lester really seems to have gotten himself all turned inside out.

And that is what made McCarver's comments about Ortiz early in the game so ridiculous. "Ortiz handles down and in and up and in." No David does not by his own admission. Up and in is a huge problem pitch for David and he is desperately trying to lay off of it. He either pops it up or misses it completely. Those are the two most common results when he swings at it. Love down and in and actually loves any pitch on that lower plane inside or outside.

Pods has done a great job as has Nava as outfield replacements.

Holy cats, how does McCarver keep a job?