jung

My continuing disappointment with Bard is his lack of concentration with 0-2 counts.

If Bard was in the strike zone with that FB he would be in serious trouble even with the toothless Rays. I have to say there have been a couple of places where it has actually looked like he was trying to change their eye level to come back and get them with the breaking ball low. However it is more likely that he has just been fortunate in most cases to be out of the zone with the FB.

Go back and sit down ya' fat tub Molina. Complainin' about goin' around on a pitch.

Crap...if Agons had made 2nd they stay out of the DP.

Walllllll Ballllllll....that is where the wall hurts ya'. Anywhere else that is at least extra bases for AGons.

The only thing saving Bard at this point is that he is pitching against the toothless Rays. While they get to play half their games in that Florida dungeon which does help them...I think we might be lookin' to adjust our expectations for the Rays. They can't hit and their bullpen is made up of arsonists, not firemen. Starting pitching will only take you so far.

Doesn't look like D-mac could hit if they gave him a door with a grip to hit with. d-mac is one of my disappointments so far. Read somewhere he played some winter ball....had a decent spring. Convinced myself that this could be a natural progression and here he is squirting out his usual horse s***.

Maybe Bard is determined to show the FB but not throw it for strikes. Whether intended or not he sure is not throwing it for strikes and using slider and off speed as out pitches. He is up in their eyes with the FB and then getting them with breaking balls down. That would be a classic approach from a seasoned pitcher. Probably wishful thinking for Bard to be going about it that way.

Geez Dan, why are you getting behind the RH hitters?

Patriot's Day game is a great Fenway tradition. However it is more of an "enjoy the sunny day" kind of a game. Even the the crowd is not awake at this point.

Neither team's hitters appear to be awake for this 11:00 AM start

Bard gets through Pena and Longoria. Not sure where these Rays would be without those two guys given the rest of their lineup and their bullpen.

Go back about four pages in the Valentine's Big Mouth thread and pick up the first posts this morning and just update yourself from there. Not all that big a deal as it turns out.

In fact, a whole cottage industry has grown up out of this "I am a bigger ******* athlete than you are" ********. That is one recent aspect of professional sports that I have not enjoyed.

Actually in a lot of ways I think this is going to work out to the Sox advantage. There are going to be some bumps in the road. V is not Tito. We have all wondered for example if Pedey would step forward a bit this year as the unofficial captain of the Sox. For one thing, V is very terse in his comments. For the amount of times he opens his mouth (often) it is not like he explains himself very well. It's like he expects people to jump into his head and figure out what point he is trying to make. In this case, that Youk was not showing signs of going off every time he has a less than positive plate appearance and that V thought it was a good thing. Maybe they will all give each other a little room here which would actually be a good thing. People are reminding us that Youk went off on Ells couple years ago for going to Arizona for medical servicing when in fact the FO told Ells to go to Arizona.

Well apparently (according to NESN) V has apologized to Youk "if there was a misunderstanding". V now saying he meant it in a positive way in that Youk is not throwing his helmet and generally going nuts every time he has a less than positive at bat etc etc. V does have this cryptic way of talking and so far there has been two or three instances where it appears we just don't know what the hell V is talking about. I guess nobody knows but V. The problem I have with the way V expresses himself is that I don't think anybody would have been ready for a comment from V about how Youk is handling his recent performances. I would more likely guess that media types would first ask about the performances themselves. So if in response V decides to make a point about how Youk is handling it....well.....we are going to all need a V code ring to figure out what the hell he is saying. Come to think of it, given V's propensity for making a buck, I fully expect a V Code Ring to be available at your local sports memorabilia shop any day now.

While waiting for some of their injured players to come back it would be nice if they had at least one more outfielder besides Mac that was not at risk of injury trying to catch fly balls. Repko was close to dropping every ball that came his way today. Ross could not remain upright attempting to catch fly balls and Sweeney is often close to causing himself serious injury out there in right. I fully expect him to bounce off the foul pole any day now. I can see not being able to carry a late innings defensive outfielder when you are not able to carry more than three replacements including a backup catcher. They have got to trim back on the pitchers as there is no logical way to use that many pitchers anyway.

As I said in some other thread I would really like to see the Sox dispense with carrying thirteen pitchers at this point. Seems to me that the staff does now have some definition which should allow them to cut back on the number of pitchers. That should then give then the opportunity to balance out the bench players so that V actually has some options.

Don't have to steal signs when the ball is always ending up in the same spot (right down main street) and the velocity is the same. Does not matter whether the catcher has put down one finger or two.

I don't know if you could see the reply on the jumbo screen from where you were sitting but on replay, the ball was not high enough to make case that you could not tell one way or the other. That ball went past the pole not over the pole and it went past it on the foul side. The NESN announcers said that Pena was absolutely sure (I guess from body language) that it was a home run but it clearly was not.

Funny that one of the few negatives today was a V negative. If we had lost this game we could very well have chalked this one up to V not having Repko taking on that 3-1 count with the bases loaded. I have no idea why he left it in Repko's hands when he could have just given him the take sign. As it was he swung at ball 4, which would have put him on first, driven in the run and left the Sox with only 1 out in that inning. Every possible factor that you could think of pointed to having Repko take there so it is not like it was a 50-50 sort of thing. At least I don't think so. Worked out that we win this game but I would love to know why V did not have Repko take in that spot just to know how V arrived at that decision in that spot. As I said at the time, if V was not going to give him the take sign there, when is he ever going to give a guy the take sign and under what circumstances? We are fond of counting the loses per season purported to be chalked up to Tito. If we lost this one that way, V would have gotten the credit for this one.

I don't know if Aceves figured out for himself that he had to start pitching again instead of just trying to pour the ball past hitters cause it was the 9th. Either he figured it out for himself or the coaches told him that was what he was doing wrong but the difference has been night and day. Helps that Morales is pitching well in front of him and Atchison and Padilla are pitching well in front of Morales. If Melancon would just come around then Morales can become the lefty specialist out of the pen.

Yea Aceves...OK can we stop with the closer stuff for awhile...Let Bard pitch without having some dink reporter ask him if he thinks he should be closing!

Repko is really kinda' scary out there. Two of them are going to run into each other and both go to the DL at this rate.

Where the f*** was that!