jung

WMB tweaked that hammy again BTR. They took him out barely favoring it though so they are clearly trying to prevent it from being a full blown pull.

OK Dan ya' got a lead and things are workin' good....lets not over-think this thing now....strike 1 please

d-mac looks disappointed in the dugout. His line was fly out, pop out and he was working on his own version of the cycle. All he needed was ground out, strike out

Geez is Ross blind or something? Does he think every pitch they throw him is on the inside part of the plate?

Atta boy Dan.....

Lets see if Bard can remember there is a baseball game in progress.

Actually I think Bard and Duffy are going to have a pillow fight on the mound to settle it

C'mon Pedey

Well now I think we are going to have to get the top of the order to go yard a bunch even if they are solo shots. I don't know how this lineup can possibly sustain a rally.

Well the bottom of this lineup suddenly looks completely anemic.

This is almost to funny watching these two pitchers try to get out of the way of their training wheels

Well at least it is still early in this game. If Bard can get out of this inning I am sure we can score more runs. Hopefully he will settle down. Bard has looked like this before so far this year just not this bad. It is almost like Bard goes out for these innings like he is still working on his game as in Spring Training and before he knows it, he has got guys on base...he has not established a rhythm of any kind, he has not established a single pitch from his repertoire and he has a game on his hand. All that ******** with the base runners was just ridiculous almost like "Oh s*** now what do I do...maybe I can catch one of these guys trying to sneak to much of a lead."

Wow...Bard is just imploding tonight. He created all of this all by himself.

Sometimes Eck can be kinda' trivial but he is right on his game tonight. Bard is just all over the place.

Please do before Salty sends me to my grave

Wow how I wish Shop could do anything against RH pitchers...just anything

I have never seen enough of Ross until now to even have any kind of shot at seeing what he tried to do at the plate. He seems pretty intent on pulling the ball. Even with two strikes at least so far I have not seen him try to just protect the plate and take the ball the other way. That last at bat, he has Ortiz on second so a base hit is a run but with two strikes, he is still looking for a pitch on the inner half. Fine if you get it but what do you do if you don't get it. Well I think I can answer my own question. We just saw what happens when you don't get it. I am less concerned about the issues he has with RH pitchers cause he should not be there. He needs to take advantage of his opportunities against LH pitchers though and sometimes that is not a HR.

Why pitchers come in there on David is beyond me. They should just give him first base if they are going to come low and inside like that

Youk's return is going to create an interesting dilemma for all of them. I suspect the only way WMB will delay Youk's return to the lineup would be if he is still hitting at a torrid pace. However I think that will just be V waiting for a convenient moment as in the minute WMB goes 1/4 for example. However even at the point of WMB coming down to earth, if he is still hitting pretty good I don't expect Youk to even be greeted by YOUKKKKKKKsssss. I expect the BOOOO Brigade to get cranked up pretty quickly. Not that the BOOOO Brigade should decide the lineup but what does V do if Youk is still not hitting and V just took one of the few guys that was hitting out of the lineup? That is going to be a rough spot and in truth there is no reason to suspect that Youk will just come off the DL lacing the ball. At best I would think that he might start a gradual return. That is unless between now and then Youk figures out why he is not seeing those low, outside cutters and sliders from RF pitchers. Everything falls apart for a hitter when suddenly there is a location for certain types of pitches where he is just meat. He knows it better than anybody. So since he is sure that once the pitcher gets two strikes on him he will just drop that pitch on him, he gets anxious and starts swinging at pitches early in counts trying to get a hit before the pitcher gets two strikes. At that point, he is dead and right now or at least before he got hurt, Youk was dead to RH pitchers, a complete reversal of his early years as a hitter when he was at times more effective against RHer's than LHer's. In fact, maybe if V uses his head, assuming that V can't find a way to have both WMB and Youk in the lineup at the same time, it might make sense to start Youk back first against LHer's so that he is not confronted with the whole RH pitcher issue as soon as he comes off the DL.

It is a pretty tough lineup to put together right now I think. While he has been hitting, nobody as yet will really respect the rook, WMB and the way Agons has been going of late, pitchers have been pitching around any dangerous hitters that have been hitting ahead of him. Pedroia was getting nothing to hit when AGons was right behind him. So at least this lineup got AGons away from Pedroia and Pedey started to get some pitches that he could drive finally. Pitchers still would not give Pedroia anything on the inner third but at least they were not pitching around him completely and Pedey was at least getting some pitches that got enough plate so he could do something. I would not want AGons behind Ortiz right now either as in that case pitchers will just pitch around Ortiz like they were pitching around Pedey. Ortiz is hitting everything he sees lately with the exception of a really short stretch at the end of the Boston home stand when he started pressing a little and started swinging at some pitches he can't handle. Ortiz is hitting both LH pitchers and RF pitchers at the moment. But without Youk and with Agons not going great at the moment, it is a tough line up to string together. Even if AGons is doing his singles, doubles thing, pitchers are going to protect what hurts them most and that is a guy that can score a run or runs with one swing of the bat. Lately that is not Agons and while WMB is hitting home runs, tough for a rook to get any respect.

Have a prospect in mind to package with Youk? Do you think that Bard is going to stay in the rotation for the entire year? I have really wanted the Sox to keep Bard going as a part of the rotation once they started down that path. However I always felt that they would insert Bard into the position in the bull pen that I think you are talking about here once dice came back. I think the biggest hole in the Sox pen at this point is a swing and miss guy that can come in and get the Sox out of jams...the traditional fireman's role which I think is a more difficult spot than closing in the sense that you have to get between 1-3 outs without giving up anything....no hits....no walks...no nothing. Padilla did it the other night but he is a real crapshoot in that role....any pitcher is in reality but Padilla probably has more of a chance of failing than he does of succeeding. Anyway do you still want to go that route presuming the Sox intend moving Bard into that role when dice returns and do you have a prospect in mind to mate to Youk.

I don't think we should even be looking to trade Youk as I have said in several posts here. Sure in reality everybody is available to consider for the right deal but under the circumstances Youk is more valuable to the Sox than anybody they would likely get in a trade. There are simply to many questions that are open about Youk at this point and those questions would all be considered as risk elements to any team considering him a) Last Youk was playing he was not really hitting He is injured, has progressively been playing fewer games each season and the injury he is out with now is his back...an injury which generally is perceived as carrying a pretty high risk factor c) He is something of a defensive liability at 3rd base so teams would likely be looking at him as a DH or possibly 1st baseman d) as far as I know Youk has not had a history of weight training which he apparently did extensively this off season. While he came out of that "stronger" I guess, it is not necessarily a positive for a baseball player and might in fact be a negative in Youk's case.

I don't know why we would think anybody is going to trade pitching that we would want for Youk. Pitching is just to valuable and for the rest of his career teams will be concerned with how much Youk can stay on the field. Never mind the concerns teams would have for whether Youk will hit or not....even if he can hit the injury thing will work against his value. Who knows what this back thing actually is for one thing. Look what "back issues" did to Oswalt's viability and the number of teams that would either give him the money he wanted or the job he wanted.

Yea I wanted Agons either in front of Pedey or farther down in the lineup. I would not be surprised to see V put Middlebrooks where Ross was cause they are going to see more LH pitchers from KC. I don't think you want Gonzo behind Ortiz right now cause it will just entice pitchers to do to Ortiz what they were doing to Pedey...pitch around him to get to Gonzo. They still did not give Pedey much on the inner third tonight but Pedey definitely got better pitches to hit and they could not just pitch around him tonight which they have been doing lately.

No doubt pitchers will find WMB's weaknesses and work to them. But that is the way it is with everybody. I don't expect him to fall completely apart. This kid is a player at least. He has a nice stroke and some real pop in his bat. If he had been some AAA fluke I would be much more worried about his downside but he has worked his way up to here....made progress the whole way and this looks more like a natural progression than anything else. Sure he won't keep this up but I think he is for real.