jung

Well V has Sweeney in the new spot he has tried with RH pitchers lately. I actually think it would make sense to try 700's lineup from the other day and stack Aviles, Pedey, Agons, Ortiz. Then to be honest I would stick Sweeney ahead of Youk.

Ya' I hate the Yanks bullpen. Then again since I hate everything Yankee i guess it does not matter what it is.

I agree that V was the wrong guy for the job hired for the wrong reasons. However that is not V's fault. Once again the ever PR conscience Sox organization which oddly enough can't make a good PR decision to save its skin right now screwed this job up. This is a spotlight that LL will simply not be able to avoid either. This was clearly LL's doing. That said, I would give V between a B and a C. He has made some mistakes, particularly in game management mistakes but he does not deserve to be fired for them at this point. If the fire him now the ever pampered players will feel like they had one battle with V and won the war! They don't need to be made more comfortable than they are already.

I was saying before he showed up that this was Tito's opportunity to thank the fans and for the fans to likewise thank Tito and for both to give the Red Sox organization the big middle finger. Tito taking his Red Sox jersey off as he was leaving and tossing it into the crowd spoke volumes to how pissed off Tito is still.

Well to some extent it is a balancing act and both have to show up at least to some extent for every game. However, against Garcia ya' have to think there is a chance that the line up shows up today and noticeably improves over recent performances. In part this is why I have been suggesting that the way Doubront and Bard have been showing, our edge if one has begun to show itself so far, might be in our 4 and 5 against the bottom of the rotation for opponents. We should be able to do some damage against Garcia, get him outta' there and get into the pen. This match up should allow us to at least stay even with or lead the Yanks going into the second half of the game which would be a welcome change in itself. With either our 1,2 or 3 in the rotation, we seem to be losing games for the most part before we even get to the pen. With our 4 and 5 out there, these are games when those concerned about our pen likely get to have their day in the sun because the pen is likely to be given the ball with us in a position to win. Less concerned about Aceves than earlier in the season when he had not figured out how to pitch in the 9th but everything up to Aceves could be an issue. While we pile up these early losses, we don't seem to recognize what they mean. If we lose today and go to 4-10 just to win 92 on the season will require that we win at a .596 pace the rest of the way. That is 3 out of every 5 games or 6 out every 10 the rest of the way come hell, high water, Texas Rangers, NY Yankees, Detroit Tigers, Angles, Rays or anybody else you might have in mind. What the hell do we think 92 gets us this year. I would say that it should get you into the wild card but may not. It sure in hell won't win a division. It would take at least....AT LEAST 98 total wins to win a division and that would require a .662 pace the rest of the way, closer to 7 out of every 10 games no matter who you face. In either case that also includes the interleague games which have not really gone well for the Sox of late. As critical as Ortiz has been to this line up it sounds like he better warm up a glove for the interleague games. Which glove should that be? If it is a 1st baseman's glove where are we gonna' put that graceful ballerina Agons? I guess we put him at SS since we think anybody can play SS anyway. then again who knows, maybe David is a budding Catcher.

Well to some extent it is a balancing act and both have to show up at least to some extent for every game. However, against Garcia ya' have to think there is a chance that the line up shows up today and noticeably improves over recent performances. In part this is why I have been suggesting that the way Doubront and Bard have been showing, our edge if one has begun to show itself so far, might be in our 4 and 5 against the bottom of the rotation for opponents. We should be able to do some damage against Garcia, get him outta' there and get into the pen. This match up should allow us to at least stay even with or lead the Yanks going into the second half of the game which would be a welcome change in itself. With either our 1,2 or 3 in the rotation, we seem to be losing games for the most part before we even get to the pen. With our 4 and 5 out there, these are games when those concerned about our pen likely get to have their day in the sun because the pen is likely to be given the ball with us in a position to win. Less concerned about Aceves than earlier in the season when he had not figured out how to pitch in the 9th but everything up to Aceves could be an issue. While we pile up these early losses, we don't seem to recognize what they mean. If we lose today and go to 4-10 just to win 92 on the season will require that we win at a .596 pace the rest of the way. That is 3 out of every 5 games or 6 out every 10 the rest of the way come hell, high water, Texas Rangers, NY Yankees, Detroit Tigers, Angles, Rays or anybody else you might have in mind. What the hell do we think 92 gets us this year. I would say that it should get you into the wild card but may not. It sure in hell won't win a division. It would take 98 total wins to win a division and that would require a .662 pace the rest of the way, closer to 7 out of every 10 games no matter who you face. In either case that also includes the interleague games which have not really gone well for the Sox of late. As critical as Ortiz has been to this line up it sounds like he better warm up a glove for the interleague games. Which glove should that be? If it is a 1st baseman's glove where are we gonna' put that graceful ballerina Agons? I guess we put him at SS since we think anybody can play SS anyway. then again who knows, maybe David is a budding Catcher.

So you would keep Youk because you will get nothing for him but not pick up his option for next year, which means he would be dead wood by then anyway. However you would trade Middlebrooks instead. But wait....maybe we can trade Lavarnway. The two positions on this team that are performing the worst are Catcher and 3rd and you want to trade away their immediate replacements? For what and for what purpose...for this year? Wow

Ya but it is hard to call the Bard experiment a failure at this point. It does look like they are getting a legitimate 5th starter and maybe more out of Bard. Just cannot underestimate what is happening with Bard in that starters role. In fact Doubront and Bard at 4 and 5 are looking like the plus signs in this rotation as they have every possibility of being regularly better than the 4's and 5's they will face. The uncertainties are in 1, 2 and 3 in that Lester has never proven to be a legitimate 1. He certainly did not last year when that was expected of him. Beckett is likely a solid 2 but he is not better than that and Buch looks like a blend of a 3 and a 4, that is if he makes it through a season....finally.

If Youk continues like this, the team will need to get Middlebrooks up here. They are not going to get much for Youk now or later. Does not matter. But they may just need to get Middlebrooks up here one way or the other.

What....what has Salty ever done to suggest he is a "talented" catcher? Youk has gotten progressively slower each season and clearly has tried to bulk up which looks like an effort to fully turn himself into a 240-250 batting average power hitter. That seems to have backfired. The king of walks no longer generates walks. When you are getting slower and bigger each season at some point you just run out of seasons. Just like we made a bunch of assumptions that have so far not worked out to well, we are assuming that Ells and CC will just come back and be fine. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. Even if they do, this team does not appear as strong as last year's team. As for those two...Ells has suffered a big joint injury, not a small joint injury. He will likely come back slowly this season. CC will come back under tremendous pressure as soon as he steps on the field. We know how well he responds to that now don't we. As for playing smart and playing like a team, Agons swings at just about anything they throw up there....runners on...no runners on...does not matter. Never met a first pitch he did not like. So even when the team needs to pull together because it is not strong enough to make any headway offensively especially with these injuries without getting into bull pens there is AGons hackin' away as usual. Even Pedey made a mental error at the plate today and since he is so damn good and really about the only guy with a history here that makes you confident that he will bring it every day, every time he makes any sort of mistake it sticks out like a sore thumb. If not for his play, this team would look laughable. Ross has played well or at least as well as was expected and Ortiz has been the absolute star of the show at the plate. and then..... There is Baseball Genius V who has already made more mistakes from the managers perch in two weeks than you would have expected in half a season. Myself this was game 1 of my 10 game Sox watch. If the black holes in this line up are still black holes by game 22-24 fully 15% of the season in, I think they will have to make some serious changes. That is about as much time as I am willing to give them. Joe G gave Salty a break today bringing in that scrub pitcher in the 9th allowing Salty to get a seeing eye single. Had that been Mariano, Salty would have gone down in flames again. But absolutely none of this excuses this team for playing stupid, selfish baseball. I don't see a team with enough talent even with CC and Ells to do that. I can tolerate just about anything except for stupid selfish baseball. Pedey needs to get these *******s in a room and set them straight....if he knows how and can.

It will be interesting to see how CC responds. This will unfortunately be yet another year where the very first instant he puts a spike onto a field he will be with a great deal of anticipation and under a great deal of scrutiny and pressure. We have already seen how well he responds to that.

Are they going to rub some genie's magic lamp and suddenly pitch better in the rotation and make better plate appearances? I would agree that they could hardly do worse but they are playing with their heads stuck up their asses and I don't see any indication that they have figured out that they are not talented enough to just toss their gloves out on the field and get a win. Did you see how that Rays pen pitched? Atch has pitched well. Morales has pitched well having simply been left in a game where he had no business being. Aceves has pitched well since figuring out that he must pitch and not just throw in the 9th. Tazawa pitched well today. Padilla has pitched well. This is not a pen that will respond well to being called upon in the 5th and 6th inning of every game but I do not know of a single pen that will or can survive that if you throw it at them every game. Melancon has been a complete bust and it took some time for Aceves to figure it out. Thomas probably has no business being there and Albers has only had one good showing so far. Other than Melancon I think they have done pretty well.

The pen hardly ever gets the game with a lead or even tied. So it is hard for me to spend much time worrying about the pen. These games are in the main lost before the pen gets the ball. Ya' can't play every game from behind. I think if Aceves and Melancon had not blown up in the first couple of games of the season it would be hard to point to the pen as an issue of any kind to this point of the season when you compare it to the way they have performed at the plate, in the rotation and to some extent in the field.

I am sorry but I just cannot get that wound up about the pen when the pen never gets the ball with a lead. The starting pitchers have given up 5 home runs twice in two weeks. That is hard to do in a whole season! Their location with the FB particularly has been abysmal. However I still say the the one element that has disappointed the most is the offense because this team was constructed to win games with offense....not pitching. They have a golden opportunity here to learn how to win games as a team even against teams with more talent and they are squandering it away and chalking up lost game after lost game in the process. I am already getting sick and tired of seeing them drag their asses up to the plate, make a stupid, plate appearance where they accomplish nothing only to see them back on the bench laughing and grinning like a bunch of idiots oblivious to what they are even doing.

Even with the injuries and the black holes or maybe because of them, I cannot believe how stupidly this team is playing at the moment in all phases of the game...at the plate particularly where they have been incredibly stupid and selfish. However the plate is not the only place where they have played stupidly and as far as I am concerned Baseball Genius V has not been in the building yet.

Youk is a definite possibility with WMB actually trying to bash the door in. However with the roster sort of weak as it is currently they need to play smart baseball. If they continue to play stupid baseball with a relatively weak roster against stronger teams they are going to just go on out there and chalk up more lost games. They can play better than this but they must play smart and play as a team. They can't rebuild in the way that some teams just trash the entire roster and build for four or five years to get someplace. On the other hand, if ten games from now, some of the black holes in this lineup are still black holes, guys like Youk and Salty then I think they are going to have to get some of these guys up from Pawtucket.

They are not playing scrubs. You are right UN which is why it is so frustrating to me to find them not playing smart baseball. They are not going to beat these teams on talent right now and may not beat them on talent alone at any time this season. So here they have a golden opportunity to play smart, play like a team which is the only way in my view it is going to win particularly fielding what is kinda' weak for a lineup against strong teams and what do they do? Go about things like business as usual in Red Sox World. "f*** the rest of ya' this is he way I approach my plate appearances, this is what I do. I am not going to work with the rest of you to burn out the starting pitcher. You take care of yourselves and I will take care of myself." Never mind that with this roster they are not strong enough to generate offense without getting to bull pens early and never mind that they may not be strong enough to do that at any time this season. Nobody is going to care if they have not made the post season that they had a few injuries at the start of the season. They can't just put on their uni's and go out there with their heads stuck up their asses with the roster they have right now and just chalk up another lost game. Worse than that, they may not be strong enough to do that even when Ells and CC come back. So they better learn to work together and get it done as a team.

They are not playing smart baseball and that really bothers me. They have some injuries so the offense is going to suffer from that. However even when Ells and CC come back, Ells will be battling a large joint injury and CC does not do well under pressure as we all saw last year. What do you think? Ya' think CC will be under some pressure as soon as he steps on the field? Even with that there are bottomless pits in this lineup and I think the Sox will be forced to do something about that even if Ells and CC do reasonably well upon return. But back to the top. They aren't playing smart baseball against some of the best teams in the league. What do they think? Did they think these teams were gonna' just roll over and die in the face of the mighty Red Sox? They need to work the opponent's starting pitcher to death and get him the hell off the mound so that they can get to bull pens early. They certainly are not going to get any offense generated with subs and with the way Salty and Youk are hitting unless they can get to bull pens. I don't see this team recognizing where it is and playing like a team in order to win games. Agones goes up there hackin' away at first pitches with guys on base, without guys base, does not matter...hardly sees a first pitch he does not like. Pedey has been pretty selective although even he had a lapse at the plate today. The rest of them are hackin' away like .......like......like they were the latter half of last year. They are making mistakes on base paths, mistakes in the field, mistakes and lack of concentration by pitchers, mistakes by V. It is getting ridiculous. Nobody was going to roll over and die just because they threw their gloves out there on the field and frankly that was a lotta' the way they played last year as well. So the players have basically taken the team away from V already. So now it is on them. Pedey is going to have to recognize what this team is doing and pull them together. Merloni was saying today that their team leader was Mo Vaughn and that Mo knew when it was time to call them to task and he knew how to do it. I am not sure Pedey does know. However he clearly took the burden on his shoulders. He is going to have to be the guy and it will have to be something more specific than "C'mon guys buck up". He will almost have to do a coaches job and very specifically point out what they hell they need to do to win games under the current circumstances.

Go for it pumpsie. These young ra-ra guys ain't gettin' it done and I am close to slitting my wrists.

The real critical spot at this point is Youk's. Ells and CC coming back will really help. Salty needs to sit. I am pretty sure I will be done with him after my ten game Sox watch. If Youk does not come around that is to big a hole. We will have to deal with that as tough as it might be...especially with Middlebrooks banging on the door.

Well that is game 1 of my 10 game Sox watch. That went well. If I don't see some major improvement with some of what has looked like dead wood so far this year, I will want to see some changes.

An ugly ugly day...Yanks not doin' that well. Come in here and we make em look like monsters. I'm gonna' be sick.

Take notes Buch...that is a cutter!

Joe G heard ya'....Did ya' have to type so loud!

Oh my God a Salty hit...be still my heart