jung

There certainly has been no lack of Sox promotional gimmicks this year. There seems to always be some newfangled thing to buy....a new cap every 10th game it seems, different jerseys, bricks, bats, kitchen sinks.......Holy Mother of God.

Zimmerman.....JHC, these guys just keep coming at you. this guy is no bargain either.

Good point kaps. Lester spends so much grimacing and frowning and glaring that his face is going to take a permanent set that way.

Seeing the Nats playing the Sox has been a little rough on the eyes. "Pitching and Youth"...hmmmm....Who would have thought those would have been worth anything?

Even the speculation about why was probably generated out of the Sox having such a lame rationalization for moving Scuts in the first place...."we thought we could eventually deploy the $6M better elsewhere?" Well....where, you must have an idea?? "Actually we don't as yet but that was our thinking........Next question."

Hate to see Hill go but it is sort of ironic how these things sort of go their way. Seemed like we had to many LH relief pitchers for this club. Bang...there goes Hill. People wanted to see Melancon get another shot....Bang....enter the aforementioned Mr Hill.

What???? Blasphemy!!!! Would it really be the Red Sox if they did not have a preponderance of overpaid stars stretched out on their lounges with bathing beauties hand feeding them their grapes. Tongue in cheek again but the Sox make themselves such an easy target.

There is the notion that there will be more SP available in this coming FA season than there has been in the past and while I am sure some or even many will be signed to their old teams especially in the era of two WC teams, there will still likely be more guys available to choose from this coming off season. That was likely part of the thinking that lead to postponing any additional activity on a SP this season. That is fine as far as it goes. The point is the Sox are in something of a spot as far as their reliance on three guys that are not exactly bastions of dependability and really don't have an answer if one of them fails for some reason. That had to play into your thinking in the off season if you were trying to gauge the Sox and their chances this season.

So if the Sox had gotten an additional pitcher at the point in time when Lackey came back/comes back, the Sox can not then make another trade if they have an abundance of pitching at that time? When is one additional decent starting pitcher ever an abundance of pitching by the way? Had they gotten a pitcher in the off season, lets say a 4, Bard would not have gone to the rotation. dice is done after this season. So hard to toss dice in the mix and say that the Sox would have been out to lunch having brought in another arm. Not even really sure what they are going to get out of dice this year. It really does for the most part boil down to trying to stay under the LT cap and the original Lackey deal is probably the real fly in the ointment if you want to restrict the discussion to the money the Sox have tied up in pitching as it relates to the LT cap although they have moved the Lackey money around a bit as I recall. Nobody was twisting their arm though. These are decisions they are making.

I did not lay it on Cherington... not even sure I would lay it entirely on Theo. I have never bought into the idea the Theo ever really got out from under LL. May have gotten more leeway but I just don't think LL gives up power other than giving up just enough to have a whipping boy if he needs one.

At the time trading Scutaro was hard to fathom mainly because of the way it was presented. However with Aviles now in hand you really can't look back at it with remorse. Punto in my view was a bad deal and I have said so in passing in the past. However, they needed to have somebody fill that role and I am not sure about filling it internally. You don't want a young player riding the pine waiting for something to happen so he gets a chance to play. The younger guys have to play to develop. So, I am not defending the Punto deal as much as I am saying they needed a utility infielder....Punto ended up being the guy. I wish they had put more thought into it and done otherwise but it is just not the sort of thing that has me wringing my hands.

Lowrie and Reddick are everyday players. The Sox at least concentrated more effort in pitching depth this year which is what I said before discussing the pitching. So that was the tie to Lowrie/Reddick. I am glad that they got pitching even if it cost them everyday players which is what the trade off was here. However while they concentrated more effort in the pitching and rightfully so, they still left it lacking in my view as part of what is likely/hopefully a one year sabbatical on spending. Lackey was gone way before this season started and Bard was always going to be a question mark going in but a #5 question mark. The Sox needed 1,2 and 3 (Lester, Beckett, Buch) to pitch at or near their career potential numbers for the bulk of the season and stay off anything past a stint on the 15 day DL or the Sox had no answer. The Sox could have brought in another pitcher....Lackey's situation had been known for months. They decided not to do that which simply put more pressure on 1,2 and 3 to do as I suggested. I don't think you can really add Lackey into the mix for this year cause it had been known for a very long time that they were going to get nothing from Lackey this year and could have replaced him. The Sox surely had time to do something about another pitcher had they decided to do so. The fact that they don't have one, really putting the burden on the three guys at the top is on the Sox. Beyond their actual performances, the Sox have no answer to any of their 1,2 or 3 pitchers in the rotation going down to injury for any period beyond the 15 day DL. The reason I think their exposure is somewhat more severe is that I think that would be the one thing that would kill their season. Many teams would struggle if their 1 went down. The Tigers would be in a hell of a mess without Verlander for example. Rarely are teams so exposed relative to their top three that an injury to any one of them likely creates a critical situation. As for the general situation regarding Lackey...I never thought the Sox should have brought him here in spite of what they had gotten from him before his injury and as it turns out the Lackey deal is one of the deals that seems to be a contributor to the Sox having tied off the purse strings for this year. I did not think he would be worth his exorbitant salary pitching in the AL East and I think the fact that they found out about his elbow before signing the deal and still ended up signing him at exactly the same number negotiated to that point tells you something about how fast they were playing with that money. "Oh, your elbow is in disrepair. Well what the heck. Pitcher does not really need an elbow anyway. Sign here!" I say that tongue in cheek but the point is, I would not have signed him to that deal to come here if he was healthy.

How quickly the tide turns from abundance of assets to shortage of assets. Did not have enough pitching last year to keep Lackey and his limp arm and Wake at his advanced age from starting an inordinate number of games while overextending the pen. This year the team at least has pitching options but has really had to rotate them in and out to make it work. Thought we had enough outfielders and they went down like flies. However, you would still prefer the Sox to focus more effort on pitching and less on the everyday guys. While the Sox still needed to do a better job with the pitching, when you think about how many question marks they had there, it could have been much worse. There pitching has not been stellar and it looked like a stretch that it was going to be stellar right from the start. However there was also the possibility that it would go right in the tank and that did not happen either. Bard was a more then adequate 5 until he just fell apart. Felix has been a terrific 4. So far at least their backend plan looks like it may pan out even with Bard's earlier than planned exit. The front end has been totally reliant on three guys that have that their "issues". They had to pitch at or near their career bests for the bulk of the season and that has been the bigger gamble and the one that in the end may be their undoing. We talk regularly about their good moments and their bad but beyond those, if one of these three guys goes down to injury that puts them on the shelf beyond a 15 day DL, the Sox really don't have an answer.

Cherington tends to get dinged for what he has not done but what was he supposed to do with no budget...I know....demand that his bosses spring with some cash!!! Ya' that was going to work...if he wanted to be unemployed!! Punto seems like a piece that does not have a real place on the squad....can't say that he hits well enough here to be that sort of asset and does not really field well enough to be that sort of asset either. That said the team needed a utility infielder....how much do we really think we get from a utility infielder. You are talking about a player that you hope does not play......other than spelling somebody who is gassed now and again. Win or lose do we really think we will be looking at the Punto deal as the make or break deal of the year?

Yea I know they have not rebounded worth s***. They lost so many young legs though....Green, Wilcox even Bradley to some extent if rebounding is the discussion. Even Stemsma was on a bum wheel as was Pierce and Allan at the end of the season.....amazed they were able to play as well as they did....one of the all time great coaching jobs and probably one where Doc will never receive adequate credit.

By the way, hate to think the lose of Bradley after all the injuries the Celtics suffered turned out to be the key but I think the C's could have pulled this off with Bradley. Beyond him, think about the guys they lost that should have been in this game against the the vaunted Heat....Argh!!!!!!

I think Buch has turned the corner and have said so. However if you remember, we were counting on 1, 2 and 3 in the rotation to pitch to their potential and do it for the bulk of the season. I would have to say that it has not to this point happened. I don't see anything in the way that Lester is pitching that I am particularly happy about. Beckett has been very consistent but I don't know from one start to the next if he is going to have his focus waver and toss up a real stinker. That seems to be his only issue. Buch has turned the corner. However now, we are scrambling for a 5, the position we did not fill in the off season. Felix is as good a 4 as you could have I think but there is only so much you can expect from a 4 and we are "hoping" I guess that dice is the guy at the 5. He could be. Just going to have to see. As I have said before I think a good many of these questions will be answered this month and if we are in it by the end of June I think we are in it to the end. Past June I think the only question then will be injury to any of 1,2 or 3 in the rotation. That was another point made all off season. Those three guys had to pitch to their potential for the bulk of the season and that also meant all three of them staying off anything past the 15 day DL as the Sox simply have no answer for that. While injury to SP can really effect any team, in the case of the Sox injury to one of those three would significantly change their chances.

I really don't think the injuries have been an issue. The issues that we thought would bear on this team....things that went neglected as part of the "tighten the purse strings" for a year deal from management for example are really still the things that bear on them today. Can they overcome them or mitigate them or improve upon them to such a degree that they can climb past the teams they need to in order to get to the post season in light of the overall league improvement? I think that will be the story of their season. Hard to blame injuries to everyday players when the everyday players you have have performed at least to this point so well. You can only put nine of them out there per game.

It got him not just in the leg but in the upper thigh and hit him kinda' like a charlie horse would I think. It certainly hit him in charlie horse territory and the way he went down and stayed down made it seem just like that sort of pain.

700, what happened on that play is that the catcher was expecting the FB from Gio and got the curve. As the ball dipped he was completely unprepared for it. Good example of how dangerous it can be for catchers if they do get crossed up like that.

For myself I agree that scoring is not an issue and for a time I did hope for more offensive output cause as the injuries piled up I really had concerns about how we would find enough offense to overcome our pitching. However here they are second in the league in offense. The subs at least to this date have outdone themselves and guys like Ortiz have been other-worldy. So why do we keep looking at the return of more everyday players as if they are going to significantly change the outcome of games? The subs and the remaining regulars have generated offense. We need better pitching than we have and I just don't see enough change there (unless we pull off a trade that brings it to us) to get the job done. This month I think is key. If we are in it at the end of this month, then at least we will stay in it to the end. But it is no accident that we remain in the basement though not that many games back in the division. Ignoring that is really ignoring what this year in the AL seems to be all about.

Well others have now picked up on this as the records start to flesh themselves out in the various divisions but I believe there is every chance that the tough as nails AL East will only send its divisional winner into the post season. Even with two WC teams this year, it will be easier to get there from one of the other divisions. Now I could be wrong. Lord knows I am wrong enough. However if that is the case, I have a hard time thinking the Sox can make it to the top of this division. Myself I have not really concentrated much of late on 98+ or 95+ or 90+. I have been more interested in how the divisional race for the crown in the AL East goes and then how the other divisions do with regard to teams that are second. The one thing I think none of us is used to is how tough it is to make ground even when you are doing well. So 7 games back in the loss column does not sound like much but you have to claw like hell to make up 7. We went on a real run there right and I think we made up 3.5????....maybe 4????? Granted when we sag for a few days we don't lose that much ground but that is why I have been saying that June was the month that scares the s*** out of me. We could go on a few of these 1-3 spurts and those are going to really be tough to come back from if that is what happens.

Is it just uncanny luck that d-mac continues to enjoy the favor of the FO over other OF or is there really something to his skill set that makes him "special" to the Sox? We know it can't be the threat he represents at the plate although I guess he has reasonable speed on the bath paths....doesn't really have afterburners though. I have never seen anything super special about his defense although I guess that is his strongest suit. So is it just uncanny luck that he is available when others are injured enough to stay with the Sox or is there really some aspect to his game that is good enough to deserve his spot on the roster?

Ortiz may not continue for the entire season on the steak of great hitting he was on at the start but I don't think he has issues that are really a concern. He did get into a bit of a streak where he was swinging at high inside heat but he knows that. He won't continue and has cut down already. Look at how often he still has a quality at bat. A guy with his hitting ability that takes that many quality at bats will do some damage. I was worried this off season that he might be losing to much physically and yes he did get overmatched the other night by that FB but that is one special FB. We have not seen Ortiz overmatched by anybody the whole season up till now. How often do you think we will see a FB like that?

More Kalish types would do this team a world of good but I don't think we will see enough of them for enough time to really make a difference this season and then at least for this season this is still a pitching staff that is something of a collection of question marks. Buch is now solid (I hope) and Beckett is....well Beckett but Doubront is a 4 and will have a few outings when he pitches like one. Just so much milage you can get out of the bottom of the rotation.