jung

Elk, far to often the Sox hitters show about as much in quality plate appearances as they did today. The "inmates run the asylum" in more ways than one down at Fenway and I just really don't know what to think anymore. But we have said it for a long time now and I think it will be an issue even when Ells and CC and the others return....this is a poorly constructed team as far as its ability to gel as a real team. Yet it is actually run by the players. So you have basically 25 player/coaches that don't seem to give a rats ass about each other as a team and other than the younger guys, they do as they please, play when and as they please, make the plate appearances they want to make and pitch the way they want to pitch whether the approach is optimal to an opportunity to win or not. When you have that much baggage underlying everything you are doing I am not sure a guy's OPS makes much of a difference. Maybe they will go somewhere this year....maybe not but I don't see much "want to" in this team. Sure the Nats are a team constructed from the bottom up but if you are going to get as unbalanced as the Sox are and as top heavy in big contracts as the Sox are, you better make damn sure you have a mix of guys that have a bunch of "want to". I just don't see it and have not for a long time now. Unfortunately, as I said the other day, they are stuck with many of these big contracts cause nobody is going to want to pick them up at their full weight of salary and the Sox don't want to pick up the remains. However, while not wanting to pick up salary, management won't give a manager even an outside shot at grabbing those asylum keys back from the inmates. As for building from the bottom up, I am not sure that anybody has such a crystal ball that even with draft picks outside the top guys, you could build more of a team by developing players to their full potential instead of trading them for the next Agons or whatever. That may especially be true of pitching. I just don't know why this team never seems to get the message about pitching. However I have been watching it for many years now and really can't find many times in its history when it even tried fully developing pitching talent. It is always easier to put fannies in seats signing the next slugger and hoping nobody figures out that you don't have enough pitching to really win and I suspect this team reflects that mentality.

Boy this was a tough game to watch. All the Sox weaknesses on display today: - mediocre pitching (although what more to expect from dice today) - Aviles range going right (can't move more than 6 inches that way) - lack of timely, situational hitting - not enough quality plate appearances in general against good pitching Gio is having a great year but he did give up some opportunities that the Sox did nothing with. Can't rely on pitchers to just make mistakes all day long. Gotta' take what you can get sometimes but won't do that if you are to greedy at the plate.

What the f*** is wrong with these fans down the right field line...is it dumb as s*** fan day! Throw that ******* out too, regardless of how late it is.

Mike, news flash....can't hit a 2 run homer with nobody on base.

Seriously, I put smilies at the end of my post on why Pedroia is not on the DL but in fact that is probably exactly why. He is Pedey and he wanted the shot and how is V going to argue with him after V got put in his place. Unfortunately now Pedey is showing every possible issue you would have not wanted to see in what may in fact be his current condition. He is alternately pressing (which I did not think I saw much of till today), seemingly having issues of timing, and maybe even showing signs of a physical issue that at the end of the day looks like a timing issue. His defense is great but if he wants to play every day they may have to drop him in the order.

Cause that is not the way we do things around here:D:D

At alternate points this season so far, Buch looked like he might go down and spare the Sox pen from having to decide between its three LH pitchers. Then Buch turned it around and Bard became the guy that had to go down to get straightened out. If not for that, in order to make room if they wanted to try more arms currently in Pawtucket one of the LH relief pitchers would likely have been the choice. At this point, I am still not sure that I would value Morales over the other two cause Morales has seemingly only done well in these very low pressure situations. Still doing himself some good relative to the other two. I think it looks like V is avoiding bringing Franky into high pressure situations and if that is the case, that will play into the decision if it comes down to one of the three LH relief pitchers again.

This is the second time in a row Morales has come in with the Sox down big time and needing innings. He is another guy I do not like to see in pressure situations but he seems fine when they ask him to come in already down 4 and 5 runs.

Cut the lead....lets see if the pen can continue to keep them at 4

Two outs Green light to turn it loose Pedey

The "second" Gonzalez looks quite vulnerable.

The point is that I cannot call a performance where a starter leaves his team in a pretty tough spot and gives up enough in walks and hits to have dug a 4-0 hole in 5 innings a dominant performance. However I just don't know why we would have expected a dominant performance from dice in his first ML start back. Gio has pitched very well and the Sox hitters have not so far taken advantage of the opportunities they have had. This is something that has really been tough for me to swallow all season. If a guy is going pretty decent, you might get one, maybe two pitches an at bat that are worthwhile...pitches a hitter can do something with. You have to see enough pitches to recognize them and get your opportunities at them and then you have to do something with those opportunities. I won't go over Ortiz last at bat again but he got two pitches that were right where he likes them. He fouled off one and did not take a cut at the other. I am not going after Ortiz particularly because he does wait for and recognize his chances for the most part. His at bat just provided a good way to explain the issue. In to many instances, the Sox don't make good enough plate appearances to recognize good pitches to hit, and don't do enough with them when they get them. Guy's going pretty good are not going to give you more than one or two good pitches to hit an at bat.

I think to put dice in perspective you have to take into account that this is his first start back. In truth he did not control the other team's offense as weak as it is enough to prevent them from scoring four runs. If a team can string a walk and some base hits together they are likely to score on you.

Well that was not much of a bid for a base hit by Agons....more of a nothing that died on the edge of the grass. Not sure why Ortiz could not pull the trigger on that 1-1 pitch. He loves pitches there. Once Gio had him 1-2 here came the breaking stuff.

Packing some hits into one inning is exactly what the Sox are not doing.

I knew I would not be liken' this month.

I would like to see where strike 2 was.

Maybe Dmac can draw a walk and Shop can poke one out

Sox lookin' kinda' desperate here.

What do you want WMB? The ump has been calling that strike all day long.

Another message to Red Sox RH hitters...this ump knows where the bottom of the strike zone is.

Told ya' he would likely be gone...

That guy might get his ass tossed out of the park for that

Gio so far not making the same mistake Matuzs made to Agons

On top of everything else we got totally bailed out of that inning. By rights dice would still be toiling out there trying to get outta' this thing. Well..... on the offense now.