jung

Bard has been up in the zone to often. On the other hand this dink ump has not given him anything at the knees.

Oh comeon this ump sucks

I can't believe it has taken this long to get some jackass off the field.

Damn that pitch was up in the zone and down the middle with an 0-2 count. Did that a few times in ST also. Wish Salty was more help than he is also. Geez he is a tool.

Go back and get your bat donkey!

I really think Youk was more effective as the kind of hitter he was before. I don't think he can really be one of these 250 power hitter types. I would like to see his walk totals up there as well.

I don't know if I would say Bard is all over the place at this point.

That was a yukky half inning. What is up with this ump though. Its a strike..... its not a strike.... what the hell is it? I would be OK with it if he would just give Bard that s***

Bard is so much better when he mixes in his pitches. Just needs to gain some confidence in that stuff.

Salty strikes again!

Why isn't this ump giving Bard that pitch on the corner? Comeon' Ross do something before Salty comes up.

Youk finally....thank God

Major league umps are almost but not quite as bad as basketball refs. Interesting the way Bard has pitched to these guys in his first start. Looks much like some of his ST starts. He seems to lull himself into trying to knock em' down with heat and it often does not matter how hard you throw if you put the ball in a bad spot....like up and not far enough in to the righty and up and not far enough in to the lefty. If he would just not be so FB focused early on I think he would do much better. I like the way his stuff looks though. Go Bard!

Sweeney is not a typical 5 but he is going so much better than Youk is right now and he would be lefty against righty. I suspect you might be right about Youk getting one more shot this high in the order and granted he is being dropped a spot already. Dropping him further might take some pressure off of him. He looks as frustrated with this as anybody else might be.

I see that Youk did get dropped a spot. A little surprised that they did not drop him behind Sweeney given the pitching matchup and the way Sweeney has hit so far.

Wow, the Cincy fans would likely take a lotta' flak playin' Philly if they were throwin' marshmallows. They might have marshmallows outgoing and see flashlight batteries comein' back.

the extra innings might have contributed to Paps not being able to stem the tide at the end of the season. Tito was trotting him out there in the 8th more times than normal once Bard started to have trouble and you could literally see Paps wilt with the extra work. Not saying they should have signed him for all that money but I think that he may well have been spent just like the rest of the bullpen was spent last year when it came to those last few games with Baltimore. I think if we looked it up we would find him coming into the game in the 8th much more at the end of last season than at any other time. I think he even came into the game in the 7th one night and I know he got extended in at least one extra innings game where Tito just did not take him out.

Frankly I would like to see "Sweet Caroline" head outta' town. I liked it much better at Fenway when we had traditional baseball music throughout. It was one of the parks around the league where that all felt right and at least for me all this other junk feels wrong. and..... I have never liked intro music for pitchers or players anywhere for anybody other than a guy maybe playin' an organ. Again Fenway was one of those parts where that felt right to me.

Hey it there anybody on the forum that lives east of the Mississippi but west of New England? The Boston Ground Crew must be pouring on the irrigation for that field with games coming up. I am north of Fenway but not by much and we have gotten no snow all winter, other than that flash October storm. We got no snow or rain all of March and nothing here yet in April. We had three days in a row above 80 degrees in March (unheard of for us). Yet after that it has been really pretty cold with no precipitation. It has been so cold that the irrigation companies will not come out and turn on systems. I finally broke down and got out the hoses and sprinklers. The plants are just starting to really suffer from the lack of water. There is no ground water cause there was no snow and no rain comein' down. Anybody west of New England getting any rain coming our way?

Josh has not hit 97 in recent years. 97 was where he was topping out early in his career.

So what does this mean though...after having made those three blunders, they would not be guy shy? While the Sox are never going to tell us they made a mistake (although I guess JH got as close to saying they made a mistake on CC as any owner is ever going to get) I think they likely acknowledge to themselves that even without the benefit of hindsight, those three deals were hard to justify. The Paps deal is not the only deal the Sox have been gun shy on since the last of the screaming ugly deals...CC. I would say Ortiz is the only deal they have done that is a big money deal since then and again even in that case they are committed to one year only. As I have said before to have thought that the huge amounts of misspent money of the last few years was only going to result in a few heads rolling was naive I think. BC came out and told us they were not at least for the near term going down the big money road. Some guys are going to get caught up in that net in all likelihood and in that environment, I don't think the Sox were much willing to play along with Paps. In addition, most teams get to and though a WS paying their closers far less than $11M per. So it stands to reason that you can get to and through a WS without paying a closer that kind of money.

UN is correct and that is one of the differences between dealing with a guy that has something of an agenda (Paps determination to sign a record setting deal for total $$ for a closer) vs a guy involved in a "normal" negotiation (ie you want my services, I want this money). Paps wanted to set the market...either for his ego or because he thought he owed the players union something...whatever...but he was determined to set the market. So if you wanted him, you had to play along. I can't really blame the Sox for not wanting to play along even with the Bailey injury.

Agreed.....Bailey had his own set of risks attached....looks like the Sox choose less money over less time and still got burned! What torques me off is that Bailey went charging over to 1st base on that meaningless ST play and that is how he got hurt. Why........????????? It is ST kid. We hired you for how we thought you would pitch not for how you got over to cover first on infield plays. How many of those plays is he going to see in the 9th inning of games? Arghhhhhh

I am pretty sure that the big fear for the Sox was injury and as durable as Paps has been I do think that is a valid concern. Very few closers have gone the number of years that Paps will have gone if the Phillies contract goes to term without having been bitten by the injury bug and I think that is the risk the Sox were unwilling to take.

Paps was a case of time more than money. I think I would be confident in saying that if the money were the same for Paps but the term was 2 years, the Sox would have competed to keep him. Four years at that kind of money is what nixed the Sox trying to make a bid for him. Now I am sure there are some of us that think even two years at that kind of money is to much for any closer who's name is not Mariano. That could be a valid argument as well. Since we don't a choice anyway...I think if we give this some time, I think more of us will in retrospect be inclined to think the Phillies overpaid for a closer. I was not ready to believe Aceves was going to get his head out of his ass and start to pitch in the 9th inning as opposed to just throw in the 9th inning until I saw it...last night he accomplished that and he did much better. I think it is reasonable to think that Aceves will not revert to the guy we saw in the first two close opportunities in Detroit. If he does not revert, we may be just fine. Look most of baseball, by far the preponderance of teams go forward with closers in the $5M or less price range and do so very successfully. Just because the Sox have the money does not mean they should spend it on a closer.