jung

Wow that looked like a strike

Poor D-mac looks positively frozen out there

Comic relief

D-mac...dribble...dribble....dribble....out

No amazingly Ortiz does not look at all different...down and in that year was death to pitchers then as well. When he is really on...he crushes virtually everything thrown in there.

Gone....Ortiz is an offense all by himself

Maybe Youk's BB magic is back

Damage limited...first inning SP ********...hopefully no prob

Damn it that was a s***** pitch...I coulda' hit that I think

By By K Man..Hey I like that

C'mon Dan...get this guy

Pedey pissed off after that one

D-mac is just about wearing a parka out in left

Geez 30* with wind chill..nasty night for baseball.

Tazawa would not be available tonight but as soon as he is again, I would give Tazawa a shot at the closer role. I guess if they need someone tonight they would toss Aceves out there again. I want him outta' that role ASAP, for his own good as much as anything else.

I would actually be very tempted to try Tazawa there and in fact I thought to some extent that is what V was testing a bit by having him go to the finish. I thought Aceves had made progress when he went from just throwing in Detroit to pitching in Toronto and then he had a couple of bouts of aiming the ball mixed in with just throwing never ever going back to pitching again. Now I am no longer confident that Aceves will be able to adapt to the closer role. Now I am actually worried he is going to screw himself up so badly that he won't be as effective in the role that he dominated last year. All by way of saying if it were me, I would have to try Tazawa in the closer role at this point and then I am still worried about how I would get to him. The Sox still seem to have so few effective pieces that even once somebody seems to be closing OK, you worry about how to get to him. That is why I am really lighting candles for Aceves at this point because I think he is close to screwing himself royally as he continues to try to find himself in this closer role. I really want him outta' there now. Once again I guess we will disappoint him as he wanted to start...then he took the on the closer role. Now I suspect we are going to disappoint him again if we move him outta' there but I don't know what else they can do at this point that makes sense. One of my biggest fears is that they will have all of them screwed up by the time this is over.

This is probably not the place to have this discussion but it started here. Here below is the best statistical data I can find for my impression of AGonz when the Sox really needed him in 2011. These are the splits for Pedroia and Agons for game situations when the Sox were ahead vs game situations when the Sox were behind. Agons is being mentioned in the same breadth with Pedroia for his production when the Sox really needed clutch performance in 2011 and I think this data below says otherwise. By the way, you should not expect to see the numbers total to 162 in the "G" Games column because Games here represents Game Situations when the Sox were either ahead or behind. When I first looked at Agons stats it made sense that his stats for game situations with the Sox leading should be better than they were for the Sox trailing. However, should they be so wide? AGons total stats are as good if not better than Pedroia's in many categories. However the stats clearly show that AGons was collecting most of his numbers by a very wide margin when the Sox were already ahead in games. Pedroia was collecting almost as many of his numbers when the Sox were behind as when they were ahead. Look at BA, OBP and SLG. Pedroia's numbers are very close, easily within range of the simple difference between the number of times the Sox were leading in 2011 vs the number of times they were behind. In fact in some cases Pedroia's numbers were better when the Sox were behind than when they were ahead regardless of the fact that Pedroia came to the plate more with the Sox leading than trailing. Whereas Agons numbers are widely disparate and always much better when the Sox were leading than trailing. Look at BA, OBP, SLG and OPS comparisons for example. This is exactly the impression I had of Agons performance vs Pedroia's when watching them play. Pedroia was just as effective when the Sox needed to come back as when they were ahead. AGons was collecting a good many of his numbers when the Sox were ahead and the comparative difference when the Sox were behind was huge. The first data set below is for Pedroia and the second is for Agons. Split AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS Ahead 231 73 16 0 8 37 27 316 382 489 0.871 Behind 197 58 10 2 9 33 30 294 389 503 0.891 Split AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB BA OBP SLG OPS Ahead 225 88 15 2 12 54 35 391 477 636 1.113 Behind 208 57 11 1 9 32 18 274 332 466 0.798

You would just about have to package Youk with somebody to get anything back. If they gave up Doubront as part of that package they better get back a real deal pitcher that has his head screwed on straight. There is so much s*** going on within this team at this point you need a scorecard just to keep track of the clubhouse and off field stuff courtesy of LL and his hand picked manager V. Teams have ugly incidents (like the Marlins recent issues) but usually they are between a player and the law or a player and the community at large or a player and MLB (like HGH kinds of things). Ours are so often within the team or organization itself. Unfortunately you never get the impression that it is one of those "straw that stirs the drink" sort of deals either. More often is just seems like the most recent train wreck.

Doubront's first win...forgot he had not gotten the win yet until tonight...good for him....Gotta really help his confidence.

Late in games when they really needed an hit or an RBI to stay in the game it seemed to me that Scutaro and Pedroia were the only guys that were "dependable". Seemed to me that AGons was always able to get it done early in games but disappeared late with the game on the line. His stat line was fine but if you tell me you saw him coming through late in those games then we were lookin' at different games.

Lets see what happens when crunch time comes around this year...since he already s*** the bed last year when crunch time came around

Great pitching jobs by Doubront and Tazawa. Hopefully this will allow V to use Taz more cause I just don't see why not with the issues in the pen.

He didn't disappear down the stretch last year...I know, he was tired, his shoulder hurt and God made him do it! I forgot.

AGons has always been first pitch happy....at least as long as I have seen him in Boston. I think that is in part why he disappears in high intensity situations when the pitcher is really amped up. He is 0-1 in the hole all the time, never even evens the count and ends up swinging at a pitchers pitch to make out.

Now this is an interesting development. V hides Tazawa for a few games and then won't take him out for anything! Son of a gun....he did find a way to make him long relief, set up man and closer.