jung

I do not believe that Mags will be blamed for this mess and if he is blamed it will be a monster injustice. I think there may be some things Mags could do better but I can only say that because there are things the Sox do not do that I think they should do. However I cannot say with any confidence that they don't do them because Mags does not focus enough attention on them. It would actually be really foolish for the Sox to make a scapegoat of Mags. That would be a transparent move designed to blame somebody. By rights it should be the kind of move that should anger the fan base even more.

It is tough to tell from afar but it seems to me that the Sox start these games, business as usual and in their case that means at a leisurely pace. Lets have a nice stretch here in the first inning. Ya' know lets sort of ease into it. After all, we have nine innings to play. Isn't this one of my crusty old Red Sox vet entitlements?????....might even be in my contract come to think of it...where is that thing! I would like to see them for once start the game like it is going to be a close hard fought game. I would like to see them working their outs every inning in an effort to push runs across the plate. If an actually big inning busts out in the middle of it all....fine. If not, get me a run anyway. Push one across. Fight every inning. Every time I see one of them daydreaming on the base paths I want to walk out there and kick him right in the junk. Wake the f*** up for crying out loud. I do think they have been pressing but they are playing the game in the usual Sox fashion and it is so contrary to the kind of baseball they need to play to win games like these. Sure every once and awhile, they will bust out and score enough runs in one game to have won the last five. Big deal. Seen that act to many times already......any year....any game we can do that with ease. But fight hard for a win....oh no....you are disturbing my beauty sleep. Now they must be up to something like 2-26 in games that they are behind by the sixth inning. Working to surpass that outstanding record they compiled last year.

Maybe somebody has been watching Manny more closely but I am guessing this is an effort on Manny's part to try to hook on with somebody that might have more of a use for him. I did see a short piece of film with some audio that was saying that Manny has just not had any pop in his bat and has turned into a singles hitter.

I just hope that Sox management does make some moves here for all our sakes...whether we have been thinking they are a shoe in for the post season or have been thinking the Sox were really going to struggle, it would be hard to support the idea that they can just go on like this and make it to the post season even with the extra WC this year. I think management will rightfully deserve our criticism if we keep having to endure Youk in the lineup and no moves made to bolster the pitching. Although I have always thought a mid-season move for pitching was going to be very difficult this year, this is the position they left themselves in. As for the site activity the last couple of weeks...this has been a tough team to watch these last few weeks. If one mostly wants to come to game threads to cheer victories, I can see having a tough time lately. I love to talk about baseball, especially about the games in progress. So I enjoy that even when things are not going to well. But there has not been much to cheer about lately. Heck what has there been to cheer. The Sox have not even made a contest of some of these games. Come out of the dugout...drop their pants....lay a big turd out there on the diamond and head back to the clubhouse. Some of these games have literally gone that way. I would just like to see them play better baseball. Losses are one thing. Geez just give us some better baseball. V pinch hitting Nava today with WMB sitting there was like chalk across the blackboard for me. Granted WMB would have made it righty against righty but we needed a HR at that point and Nava was not going to get us one. He was completely overmatched.

Could almost see the devil whispering in Theo's ear. "Take Carl Crawford Theo....take him, he is just sitting right there for the taking....take a bite of that apple....I mean take Carl Crawford.....if you don't the Yankees surely will".

While there are many talented Sox players individually, they don't really play well as a team. That really does seem to be something that has an impact when they can't rely on somebody or a bunch of somebodies to bang out three run homers. If this team has to push runs across, it is almost like a constipated effort. It seems to take enormous effort for them to squeeze out one stinking lousy run. How many times just in the past week have they been daydreaming on the base paths. Sweeney got picked off the other night. Aviles got caught wandering off second when he was already in scoring position today. AGons was napping over at first a few nights ago when he could easily have taken second base. Did not have an eventual impact on the game but he still should have had second base breaking up the force play. So not only is their pitching not up to the task, they just don't play baseball the way it needs to be played in low scoring games. They rarely pull off successful sacrifices, rarely make smart plays on the base paths, are not good at situational hitting as has been discussed in the past. It is just not a cohesive team effort. I wish it was but wishing it won't make it so. So no question in my mind that they have to get another pitcher at least. Don't know what will happen after that but they have to pitch better and then have to find way to keep pace with what frankly is often a pretty anemic effort by the teams they are playing. While you could say that three runs should have been a deficit that the Sox should have overcome, today was a good example of what can happen when you cannot keep pace by pushing runs across. Did the Sox not look like they were trying to hit a 4 run home run all day long, even when they did not have more than one runner on base?

The Sox have not built a team with sufficient starting pitching. That is not dice's fault. However they are being beaten by teams that if anything are weaker offensively than they are. Those teams do however have better pitching. Their pitchers control our hitters sufficiently to prevent runs. Our pitchers do not control their hitters sufficiently to prevent runs.

Given where they are compared to who they have to beat they have to sweep teams like the Cubs. We are just allowing ourselves to be lulled into the trap of just pushing the responsibility to get wins farther downstream. "Its early....we have time....etc etc. We really had to do better through the period before June because the schedule was not much of a ball breaker for that period. Basically we let that go by without making ground. Now we are stuck playing teams that while not being great teams feature pitching and that is tough for the Sox. We don't have good answers for teams that feature pitching. As I said earlier at least to me, at this point it boils down to better starting pitching and now I think that means not only must the SP we have pitch better relative to the pitchers that they face, but the FO must make a move that gets the Sox another good SP. I don't at all like all of this emphasis on scrambling to get out from under Youk's contract. It is petty and short sighted and not really what they need to be trying to do if the goal is winning. But then again we know that winning is on the list of goals but it would be hard to claim that it is at the top of Sox management's list.

Outside of Ells I am not convinced that getting these guys back is going to make much of a difference unless the pitching improves relative to the teams they have to play. Unless his injury lingers on I think Pedey will be better. I think Ortiz is just pressing at the moment but he will turn that around I think. However if we keep getting out-pitched another hitter one way or the other is not going to make that much of a difference. I know it seems like it should but out-pitched is out-pitched. If you are not able to string together hits you can't rally unless you are good at manufacturing runs and the Sox have not really ever been good at manufacturing runs. I have to believe that to have any kind of shot the Sox have to make a move that brings them a front line pitcher. Probably would have to get pretty lucky to get a front line pitcher only trading away pieces where they are strong. So it will likely take giving up something that will hurt to get it done. It was the issue going into ST and it is still the issue today. Really interested to see what management does...how much they are willing to sacrifice to win or have a post season shot. To me, Sox management is going to have to have more willingness to sacrifice than they have shown so far this season.

Based on the way baseball is going I think you have to think twice about trading away pitching and take advantage of anybody stupid enough to trade you pitching.

Not sure if they actually think Youk has something in the tank or not. Right now he is such a hole in the lineup and there is no financial commitment to him for next season. So they are talking about what they might save in salary for the remainder of this year, coupled with what they might get for him. On the surface it does not appear that there is much that they can expect to gain by continuing to run Youk out there to be a big hole in the lineup.

Who knows anymore. There is likely more than a grain of truth to the Ryan comment. Many of us were saying that there were really many more underlying problems to this team and more to the September collapse than met the eye. We should have expected that it was going to take more time to recover from the last of the FO mess we were left with and I just think in general we have been in denial regarding how much of a mess that really is. Couple that with the way management has decided to handle this season and instead of treating post season play like it was a sure thing, it really was always going to be less than an even bet. Anyway I still think this month will tell the story and have thought that for a long time now. They still have time to turn the month around but they won't at this rate. Just losing to many games.

Well honestly, not sure we could have expected all three of the top starters to have gone all season healthy. Just have to hope Beckett does not have to be out for longer than a start. Soreness in the shoulder does not sound good though. Will be interesting to see if the Sox actually pull the trigger for pitching before the deadline. I think it very likely that they will get somebody. However the kind of pitcher they trade for may tell us a good deal about what they really think they can do with the remainder of this season.

Both of the remaining games have weird start times for weekend games so you want to be wary of that if you want to watch. I think ESPN has one of them but not sure if ESPN has both. NESN is done for the weekend for sure. Think one start might be 7 our time and the other might be 8.

Honestly Jacko...this is a Sox board...not a Yankee board. We tolerate a good deal of your obvious Yankee fandom on this board but that was over the top. Go wanna' post that kinda' crap....go post it on a Yankee board.

Sox just cannot buy a hit in a critical spot. Now they are all pressing so hard it is ridiculous. They have been trying to hit 5 run home runs now for days. Yes they are being out-pitched. Improvements by Sox pitching has not changed the overarching dynamic. On a relative basis, teams have better pitching than we do. How often have we seen this now. "Oh he settled in after the first few innings" Well the runs we give up in the first few innings are enough runs to lose. If they have to play Agons I want him dropped in the order. Can no longer afford to have him right in the meat of the order....enough already!

I hope not but we may be looking at the turning point in the season right here in GD Chicago. This is one of the things I hate about inter-league play. I would completely obliterate inter-league until baseball has the balls to deal with the DH. This is STUPID.

s*** here comes that f***ing slider

Well, after all that has gone wrong at least this is a shot.

Nava was a bad choice there. Way to concerned about getting overpowered in a big spot.

Even though this guy is a RH pitcher I would have preferred WMB for his HR capability.

OK, seems to me only shot we got is for somebody to knock one out right here. Nava up...I will take a hit if he can deliver one.

Best throw of the year by Salty. One thing I think I have noticed that may actually be a key to his becoming a competent defensive catcher. While that little hesitation in his throw down was exaggerated....when Salty is not rushing everything and trying to recover everything at lightning speed he seems much better. Remember that play a couple weeks ago where the ball clanked off him and rode up his right shoulder and behind him. He turned so quickly that he turned right past where the ball was and could not find it. Maybe if he would just play with a little more cool back there he might turn out to be much better.

Watch this insult to injury. I can just see a GD insurance run coming right here. That aught to seal the coffin.

So much for the meat of the Sox order...more like the potatoes of the Sox order. I do not want to see Youk in another game. This play him to trade him s*** ...is just that...s***. He is not helping his trade value and it should be clear to the Sox that he is not going to. It is not like the Sox are on the hook for salary after this year. Give it up for God's sake.