jung

Taking notes Red Sox hitters!!!!!!

Taking notes Red Sox hitters?

Big K there.....now a DP would be wonderful.

We are clearly going to give up a run here to get two outs.

And that is the side for which Aviles has no range.

Pretty disappointing though to have three RH hitters come up against a LH pitcher and not have enough bat control in the first two cases to advance the runner and inch and then have the third hitter just fail. As I have said before I think many of the Sox hitters have a bad case of getting to greedy. Get me my tie please and let somebody else get the hit that puts us up.

Well they got the double and a free pass to 3rd and still could not get the guy home....not very good situational hitting when you can get the game back to even steven. WMB did not do s*** either.

Nice at bat Mike....would not have taken much to tie the game there but pop up jussssst not quite enough.

Almost surprised Youk even got a bat on that.

Way ta' go David...he loves pitches there and can handle them all day long both inside and outside.

Nice pick Pedey. I don't think hot and cold have much to do with swinging throw so many pitches. We are not used to seeing Pedey swing through so many pitches and they may just be asking a lot from Pedey right now.

At least he sees pitches the way a linebacker would:D:D

Holy s***.....Nats been recruiting linebackers?

Well that was served up there dice.

I can't really tell but it almost looks like he is not as quick in the hands and wrists as we are used to seeing Pedey. We have been saying timing but maybe his timing is fine but he is just not physically able to perform right now. Really hard to tell but the more I look at him the more I think his timing might not be the problem.

dice has a terrific first...that wind up has got to take some getting used to hitting against him. "Is he there yet...is he there yet....whoops how the hell did the ball get here?

Said it three different ways at least...I would not have put Agons and Ortiz back to back today. Might work out fine...I would likely have put another RH bat up there and dropped one of them probably to 5th.

The LH hitters have been put in a situation where they have to perform against Gio today (not that it has not happened before) but if they don't, rally's are going to be tough to sustain.

You just can't argue that he has not been a very effective hitter over his career. I am wondering why the Sox seem to be having difficulty getting sniffs that are reasonable for Youk although it might as much be because teams are all onto playing this game the same way....try to get the player for cheap all the way up to the trade deadline. That might say the same thing a different way though. Maybe none of them see enough value in Youk to jump the gun, make the Sox enough of an offer and try to grab him before somebody else gets him. If I were interested in Youk it would be because I have a spot at 1st knowing that I could use him at 3rd if I had to for some reason. I might be less inclined to offer the Sox as much if the only spot I had was at 3rd. Nobody seems to take into account the strain of throwing across the infield every throw. Your arm is not the only thing that suffers.

Well I am repeating myself here but I still insist that the big change for Salty was going from a more standard approach to plate appearances which really never suited his best attributes very well to swinging for the fences every swing of every at bat. He is the one guy that does not bother me when he is still doing it with two strikes cause that is the best thing he can do for this team. He has got the kind of strength that allows him to dump the thing into the stands even when he does not catch it right as long as he is putting a HR swing on the ball. If the Sox have to depend on Salty for base hits and to run station to station on the base paths the Sox are in way more trouble than the more pessimistic of our forum members think. I still don't know if Magaden got Salty to change his approach at the plate or if V did it or if somebody else did but it has been the best thing anybody could have done for Salty. I do think it forces us to wait till the end of the season to see what the result is cause to the best of my knowledge Salty has never done this before and we should have a different standard to hold him to, one that is less inclined to BA and more to OPS or maybe Slugging. Now his fielding is another story but I think we will have to see how this works out for Salty at the plate over a full season.

What is this lineup? Is this the "I have no confidence in my RH hitters lineup? I would force Gio to face more righties at the top of the order.

It is not an issue of Gio being worrisome as much as he might provide something of a test for guys batting from the left side. Agons always kills Matuzs for example so he really was not much of a test...did not even pitch Agons the way LH pitchers try to pitch him and then could not find home plate regardless of which side batter he faced. Ortiz has been struggling a bit lately...swinging at some pitches he just should not swing at any time and yesterday was just overmatched by that FB. So depending on how Gio throws today, he might be an interesting test for guys like Agons and Ortiz. Much like other pitchers though if Gio just plain sucks today then he won't provide much of a test for anybody.

El correcto I suspect.

Whether Middlebrooks should play or not is a different discussion. The thread is I guess about Youk. Youk should be traded. The Sox have made it pretty clear at least to me that they are not interested in eating salary or are at least interested in trimming as much salary as they can in any deals they might make. They are already actively trying to move Youk so what do we expect? Oh wait I know...we expect that they will make a max effort to win the penant blah blah blah....they are not going to do that. Sorry....that is not who these guy are...so you can bust a gut about it if you want...it won't change anything except you will be layin there with a busted gut. They are going to keep showcasing Youk as long as they think it helps them move him in a way that makes the most financial sense and gets them the most value back for him....frankly right now I would just about prefer they send WMB down and let him play someplace everyday instead of having him sit so damn much. So as you can likely see from my post I don't think this is completely a V decision on youk playing time. We would have to be blind by now to think V has really been given a free hand with this team. I hope you are all so gong ho when WMB slumps because he is going to slump. Back to Youk....at least he has improved from where he way before he went on the DL. He has turned back into the patient hitter he has been most of his career. He is having more trouble with the slider this year than he has had in other years but he has always struggled with that pitch. So what else do we want to talk about? How long it is taking to move him???? That is an interesting topic. I guess the news that the Sox were shopping him came out....two weeks ago....you would think they could have made a deal of some sort...I am guessing the offers have been puke so far. Would love to know how long the Sox are going to wait to pull the plug on Youk or take whatever offer they can get....maybe they need to get more creative about what they are packaging Youk with to make a deal.

Youk has always taken some abuse for being something of a sour sort. However Youk has sacrificed a good deal for this team. Youk should have rightfully stayed at first base for his career. He would have been a gold glove first baseman, would have stayed healthier and would have extended his time as a top level player. Instead the Sox, never satisfied with taking an A grade defender and leaving him at his position, moved him to third. True Youk could play 3rd well but it was not in his best interest to make that move. Youk has never balked once, never complained once and gets basically no credit for it. I think much of his "decline" can be attributed to his having a somewhat brittle body and having been exposed by the move to third. At least Youk has made some progress since coming back of the DL. He is at least back to making good plate appearances again. He may never reach his peak again but I also think the Sox are as much to blame for that as anybody.