jung

Hate to say it but so far I think we are seeing more the diff between Detroit and Tampa, not the diff between Beckett between this game and the last. His pitches are doing nothing. If this were Detroit there would be holes in the damn wall already.

Oh look, a home plate ump that actually can see!

Rays left side auditioning for spots on the Sox, blunder and give Pedey another chance...makem' pay

Meanwhile Price is throwing heat

Be interesting to see if Beckett can continue to throw the Change at 86. That was one of the things I mentioned his last outing. 91-92 for the FB may not be all that unlikely for Josh as he ages. He can pitch there if there is a big enough diff between the FB and the offspeed stuff. He has the offspeed stuff down at 86 so far today....something he did not do at all in Detroit. However he is having difficulty throwing it for strikes down here at 86. Worth watching I think.

Outta' the 1st....thank God!

So far Beckett's FB is still 91-92

Well that was not an encouraging 1st out. Right on that nothing FB

Well I guess we don't have to worry any longer about these two guys being retired...Wake and Tek....when you are throwin' out the first ball...you are done. Wish they had not rolled Pesky out there. I am sure he was OK with it as well as his family but Geez I hate to see them that old. Probably his last go around at an opening day. Love ya' Johnny.

The league has not exactly covered itself in glory with regard to the whole testing regimen. I hate it when the talking heads of radio, especially the worst of the WEEI lot categorically talk about a guy being guilty. Like it or not, the league is going to have to clean up its act with regard to testing and then hope they can make some headway with the union. The union for its part would love to use the recent debacle and drive it right down baseball's throat in an effort to get all tested removed. Unfortunately, I don't think baseball will ever get to do anything more than random testing although once somebody gets caught some sort of regular testing should occur I think. One thing that might be worth mentioning....it does not appear to me that Bautista has ballooned up. He does not look like some kind of test tube linebacker. If somebody thinks he does look appreciably bigger than he was then I would accept an opinion as being more knowledgable than my own.

I think that's a fair grade Elk.

I don't think Bard was worse than mediocre for a first time out but I also do not expect a pitcher as great as Eck was to give Bard any kind of a break or be much impressed. The biggest problems Bard appears to have happen to be in areas where Eck, one of the best pitchers of his era, excelled. Not surprised that Eck is not much impressed.

I thought the line was that Bard would be the best closer on this team. That much might be true, "might be true". However there is a big difference between would be the best closer on this team and should be the closer.

The Sox only gave V a two year contract. The Sox don't think he will be around for long. So, I don't quite understand why some Yankee fan suddenly thinks he is prescient in this instance. V may backfire. However he has not been brought here as some sort of long range solution. The Sox have backed themselves into a very peculiar corner in that they have so many overblown, long term contracts that I don't think they saw a solution in cleaning out the clubhouse of players. Maybe that was the wrong move as well...who the hell knows. Beckett may possibly be doing a good job of validating those that wanted his ass outta' here. That remains to be seen. Even if he struggles this year, tossing Beckett out on the market in light of environment the Sox found themselves in would likely have guaranteed getting s*** back when the Sox really needed pitching. Hell if this stuff was easy, we would be doin' it! V has been brought here to do a very specific job for a very specific length of time. Starting from the premise that V was brought here as a long term solution is simply wrong headed from the start. Sure V hopes that success will either yield an extension here or a contract elsewhere. However that is not in my view how the Sox made the decision to bring V here.

I agree...those teams had a great deal of talent. They also had a great deal of character and in some cases where characters. Sometimes it becomes easy to remember the character and forget about the talent. I can't say that I like this 2012 team either. However as I said in a different thread, I find them hard to like or watch because they are porous defensively and unless they get some players in here that can throw some glove (and throw the ball for that matter) they will remain porous defensively. Great pitching can cover in part for porous defense but not so great pitching will tend to expose porous defense. I just don't enjoy watching a team bleed runs defensively and then hope that they can bash away enough to make up for it in their half of the inning.

I am not sure the sense of entitlement some fans have is a result of 2004 and 2007 as much as those championship seasons gave rise to the idea that we finally have the right formula to truly compete year in and year out and go all the way some of those years. We are no longer the private playpen of Mr. Yawkey and his oddball take on team building. As dedicated as he was to the Sox he really did not have much else going for him. The ownership groupings that followed and the propensity to act like a bridge to some future none of us could really divine is also gone and goodbye. Here comes Mr. Henry with all his millions and his belief in contemporary baseball metrics. Low and behold, championships! Holy Cow we are spending with the Yanks, toe to toe, mano a' mano and we are beating those *******s. Well we were sort of spending with the Yanks but not really. On a percentage of revenue basis we actually have spent a great deal of money but this ownership group cannot realistically spend year for year with the yanks dollar for dollar. In addition for all Mr. Henry's belief in baseball ala' James, we have not been all that sharp with regard at least to FA talent. Since the preponderance of money ends up going in that direction, the results look like a hell of a lotta' waste. I don't think we were prepared as fans for the reality of shelf life especially for somebody that truly treats a sports franchise like a business as is the case with JH and his cohorts. So as a group we were neither prepared for the Sox apparent ineptitude when it comes to FA signings and even less prepared for JH to turn back the spigot on spending. I can still remember some of the posts right after BC announced to the world that this would be a year of austerity. "They can't turn off the tap that fast" "Its a smoke screen" Oh really! Just watch em'. The whole idea constructed I think by the fan base of having a "formula" for competing with the Yankees now seems ill conceived as the Yankees are only one of our problems competitively, most of the others coming from teams that don't spend as much as we do, never mind the Yankees. So I think what is shattered is the dream of a long term formula that would put us at the competitive pinnacle of the AL, year in and year out. Some of us are pissed about that and maybe rightfully so. When you have this much money and spend it that ineptly you do have to wonder. In fact that is likely exactly what happened to JH cause in many ways it is his money! Whatever formulaic method of team building the Sox have been using under JH, I don't think he believes in it any longer. He may no longer believe in owning this team for much longer. That would not surprise me either. While it has made for great competitive fodder for as many years as I can remember I suspect the sooner we stop concentrating on the Yankees both as fans and as an organization the sooner we step more firmly into the future and the next iteration of this team. We can't do this the way the Yankees do this. It won't work. We may beat them but we are not going to beat them at their own game. Somehow this organization has to find the will to spend its wealth of resources more wisely, to build for the future and care for the present equally. It may take a new ownership group. There may just be to much blood and worse to much s*** in the water at this point for this bunch. Besides, JH has got to be getting antsy about taking his profits. That may be as much the problem as anything else. Notice I have avoided any discussion of the September collapse of 2011...why? Because I believe as Bill Parcells does that you are what you are. We were a 3rd place team that did not make it to the post season cause that is what we were, not because of chicken and beer or the moon and the stars or Tito or some other damn thing.

I think "They bet big" is really the way to think about the whole Bard as a starter thing. They could have made him the closer. That had its own set of risks attached to it as well. Nothing is a sure bet. I think the Sox are less content with their starting pitching than the Sox faithful and less focused on going all the way this year than the Sox faithful. That does not mean they would not love to go all the way but they do not appear to me to be pulling out all the stops this year. We have some examples of teams that believe this is their year to pull out all the stops. Red Sox don't look like one of them to me. I for one don't expect any team to pull out the stops every year and I don't think the Sox starting pitching is that great either. You would think letting Cook get some innings in down on the farm is the equivalent of keeping Sandy Koufax in hiding. Cook will be up at some point this year. I am confident of that. When he gets here don't expect any Justin V like performances nor anything even close. So, I am OK with the Sox vetting Bard as a starter now. The Sox are a frustrating team for me to watch because they just don't play baseball they way I like to see it played. Their defense is porous. The mental and physical mistakes this team is capable of making in the field are going to make them very tough for me to watch cause I not fond of that kind of baseball. Give me a well balanced team that can pitch some and play defense. Not real keen on teams that bleed runs every time they put a baseball glove on hoping that in their half inning they will bash out enough runs in response to stay in the game. But that is just me and who gives a damn what I like anyway.

At the risk of starting an argument I really don't want to start, i have wondered a bit about this post exit stuff. Not sure we see this that often at least not as publicly as some of these instances in baseball. There is some similarity I think between somebody inside the Sox organization deciding to zing Tito after he was already gone and that press release the Yanks made after AJ was gone. I realize that people have feelings. They hold grudges. Stuff happens. But Geez the guy is gone. That is what the team wanted right. The Sox wanted Tito gone. The Yanks wanted AJ gone. As much of a pain in the ass as AJ was "reportedly", as much as he may not have earned his pay (line starts at the left for that one as far as baseball goes) and as much as he must have pissed people off, they got wanted they wanted....AJ gone. Why make such a ham handed effort to tar and feather him on the way out the door. Heck that was a formal, official Yanks press release. While I guess the Sox thing with Tito was a leak, still the Sox wanted him gone and he was gone. Don't know what Tito had done to deserve getting nailed while leaving. Heck it is not like he walked and left the team high and dry while they still wanted him around. I do remember the one thing that pointed at somebody in upper management in Tito's case was at the end, Tito was apparently supposed to play ball and say nothing and he did wonder aloud about whether he really did have the support of upper management. But even there, Tito was talking about the team leaving him a lame duck for the season, which the Sox did do. The only guys that would have been torqued off about that comment were LL and/or JH...more likely LL. I really don't like it. For one thing it smacks of somebody threatening that sort of thing before it happens. "Toe our line or we will not only lock you away but we will throw away the key where nobody will find it". Truth be told, that was the way baseball was in the old days. Maybe in some ways some things have not changed.

I wonder if all that weight lifting stuff was all show or if Youk really did hit the weight room hard. If he did it might have been the worse thing for him. I just don't see him as the classic .250 batting average power hitter but maybe that is the role he has been trying to fit himself into as he has gotten a bit older. It has looked that way for parts of recent seasons.

No, 50 straight FB is not what happened. Bard did throw to many FB in the first inning. The Jays were sitting FB and Bard's location with it was not great. Good lesson in location cause even throwing 97, when the hitters are sitting FB, your location is bad and you have given no indication that you are going to throw anything but FB, you are meat. Bard was throwing his slider along with his FB by the second inning and while he did not throw the Change until later in the game his slider was so nasty that the Jays really could not do anything with it. While Bard was mixing his Slider by the second inning the hits they got off of him even at the point of mixing the slider came off of his FB. Bard threw a bunch of Changes late in his stint. Wish he had thrown it a little earlier but that Slider was nasty. Bard needs more help I think from his coaches and he definitely needs more help from his battery mate as they work through innings and work through hitters in innings. Bard needs to build his confidence particularly in the Change. A good many pitchers would give their left nut to have that Slider. His Change is not terrible though. It is not great yet cause he is not throwing it with quite the same arm angle and the same motion as his FB (the key to a truly effective Change). Very encouraging outing I thought particularly since if you told me he would continue to not be able to work through innings and hitters in innings for a career as a starter I would be very surprised.

The Sox aren't hitting anybody right now. The guys pitching against them all look like the second coming of Greg Maddux and we know they are not that. Hitting can be streaky though. They are not pitching badly unless Beckett comes out and stinks up the place again. If they end up with one good start (Lester) one so-so start (Buch) and one s*** start (Beckett) each run through those three, that is not going to translate into even so-so pitching. Two wasted good starts by Lester. So I expect them to hit. I hope their pitching turns out OK but it is so iffy at this point we will just have to wait and see. Their defense is consistently bad and that bothers me. If Pedey were just an average second baseman, their defense would totally suck.

Where was that ump?

Arghhhhhhh.....

Sox uncomfortable with a lead...back to their comfort zone.

Thames looks like his elbow slipped off the sink while shaving