jung

Nate cannot nurse the ball over the plate. He looks worse doing that than ERod looks doing it. If you are going to pitch like that Nate, its time to consider your next career move.

Agreed. In baseball terms DD has aged before our very eyes. Time to go Dave. Keep Cora, Ax Lavangie. Managing a pitching staff is extremely complicated now based on the direction MLB has taken. Even if pitching returns to a more traditional approach it will be years before this nonsense works its way through the system. Oh by the way, even if it does return, I don't want an ex-catcher as my pitching coach. That has worked all of one time that I can remember.

1. Jonathan Villar (S) SS 2. Trey Mancini ® DH 3. Anthony Santander (S) RF 4. Renato Nunez ® 3B 5. Jace Peterson (L) LF 6. Hanser Alberto ® 2B 7. Chris Davis (L) 1B 8. Stevie Wilkerson (S) CF 9. Chance Sisco (L) C 1. Mookie Betts ® CF 2. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 3. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 4. J.D. Martinez ® RF 5. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 6. Sam Travis ® DH 7. Christian Vazquez ® 1B 8. Sandy Leon (S) C 9. Chris Owings ® 2B Will Cora never learn? Why JD in RF,....WHY!!!!! Its my one and only real complaint specific to Alex. Putting JD out there is just dumb as dirt.

We are forgetting that Managers no longer have the sort of control over day to day decisions that they once had. The Spread Sheet boys have much to say about it now. That said, from what I can see, I really don't have an issue with Cora. I would be willing to bet some of the in game decisions are coming right off some computer geek's data and forced on the Manager. As for the pure rest days (not driven by a game matchup), that IS likely Cora and as much as they might frustrate us, how many key injuries to everyday players have we had in the last two years? Pearce, Moreland, Pedey, Holt this year....Pedey, Holt last year???? How important are any of those players? JD is about the only guy I can think of that is important to this team's efforts that has had some injury issues this year. I would hope Cora has learned his lesson about JD in any OF position that is a challenge, like ANY Fenway Park OF position for example.

I didn't put the words in Henry's mouth him. Again, if they wanted to extend....then EXTEND....not five years on a guy that was clearly showing signs of wear especially into the rather obviously changing MLB dynamics effecting pitching (breaking down too often, throwing beyond their physical means and their technique, the Manfred Missile).

I would say that 5 years is what made it "significant" and given where Sale has been headed, the Sox would likely have been wiser to have given him more money for a far shorter term. 5 years is really only an extension because he was already under contract. But in truth we really signed him for term as long as it would have been for a new contract. Frankly, I think the way the Sox handled the Sale contract was another instance of valuing the 2018 contributions of a player to a WS too heavily and paying for it through the nose. Nate was that, Fat Ass Pearce was surely that and Henry literally came out and said that was a factor in the Sale extension. Whether Sale has TJ or not, none of what we have seen with Chris suggested a 5 year added commitment to him. IMO these rotation signings (most specifically Nate and Sale) have sealed our fate on Mookie. As it stands right now it appears hard to imagine we will be able to pitch with any truly competitive team in 2020 which kind of makes a deal with Mookie for really big money extraneous. Its not just Mookie projecting himself as a top dollar contract in this case either. We are almost pushing Mookie out the door.

Does anybody remember if Sale had closed the door on negotiating during the 2019 season? I don't remember if that was taken off the table. There are instances when either the player or the organization does that. But I just do not remember if that was the case here. It should have been obvious just from the last couple seasons that Sale was wearing down. Wearing down is not injury but it is wearing down and that has consequences. I had posted several times mainly in game threads that Sale in the last few starts was overthrowing to hit velo that he hit naturally before this season....suddenly BANG....there goes the elbow. His motion basically sucks for throwing hard over an extended career. It just does. Same for his physical characteristics.

The way this news was framed and offered by DD and then Cora is not encouraging at all. Sale is not even being allowed to talk to the media and nobody but nobody would think getting a second opinion from Dr Andrews is good news. You go to him when the initial opinion is not encouraging. With Porcello going, Nate as fragile as a carton of eggs, Price sort of iffy physically and Sale more than iffy, 2020 will be gone anyway if in fact Sale is headed for TJ. It might be gone at this point even if Sale does not have TJ. If it were me, I would keep Beni and get everything I could get for Mookie. Mookie IMO is not staying here anyway and Mookie won't lift us to a reasonable 2020 run without the pitching to get it done.

Nate gets the start....I suspect for something like 55 pitches. Piece it together from there. 1:00 start today.

This was a real good start for ERod. First time he had a FB in three starts. That to me was was the biggest deal of the night.

I know....I back doored into this thing because as I have always posted....I will only start a game thread if its game time and nobody has started one yet or to adhere to forum protocol. Now they haven't lost since the last time I did the "just in time" thing...So we are on a roll!!!!!

Unfortunately Manfred does not know the dif between the steroid era and what it did for MLB and the idiot changes he has brought on and what it is doing to baseball....never mind the fact that this is NOT WORKING for MLB even in the way Manfred had hoped whereas the steroid era did.

This mercy rule s*** really has me irritated. So what does Boone or OB think, that all of these runs and specifically all these HR's are some phenomenon attributed to the excess "quality" of ML baseball players? Give me a break. Yaz grandson has a 3 HR game and its orgasms galore. Any idea how many dingers Yaz would have had playing with THIS baseball and these sludge pitchers? So MLB destroys the pitching and brings us the Manfred Missile thus creating multiple blowouts and running through sludge pitching staffs like crazy and Boone wants to have a mercy rule to prevent so many everyday players pitching????? How about you tell the company that manufactures the baseballs that you now own MLB TO GO BACK to making a reasonable baseball and then stop driving pitchers toward velo and spin rate that is beyond their actual talent level. Then we can dispense with idiocy like a mercy rule.

Which made him very effective because if there was one pitcher you did not want to get drilled by...it was that guy.

Had to go to EEI for audio. Another night where OB is hard to take.

OB yammering about Boone's comments regarding bringing the mercy rule to MLB. Frankly I don't want to hear OB yammering about changes until they resolve the rocket ship. Until they take care of that mess, I don't care about mercy rule, pitch clock or any other BS idea somebody has.

Sale to the 10 day IL with left elbow inflammation. Brasier up from Pawtucket. Nate the probable starter for the Sunday game.

So its the pitching matchup that IMO bears watching in this game. Asher Woj exhibited far far better command of his breaking pitches than we see from either your run of the mile MLB starter these days or even you so called quality MLB starter these days much less you basic journeyman pitcher. Can he somehow pull off what would on the surface seem like a miracle again? Can Erod put together another good start now that his FB has been deserting him or will he recover his FB? Beyond the pitching matchup, the O's hitters are not as good as our hitters by a long shot and they are not great defenders either outside of one or two. While our pen is suspect, their pen is a laughing stock. 1. Hanser Alberto ® 3B 2. Trey Mancini ® 1B 3. Anthony Santander (S) RF 4. Renato Nunez ® DH 5. Jonathan Villar (S) 2B 6. Pedro Severino ® C 7. DJ Stewart (L) LF 8. Stevie Wilkerson (S) CF 9. Richie Martin ® SS 1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 3. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 4. J.D. Martinez ® DH 5. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 6. Christian Vazquez ® C 7. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B 8. Brock Holt (L) 2B 9. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF

So this could be an interesting matchup. O's are pitching Woj, the virtual journeyman that dominated us last time we faced him. ERod going for us. Its a 7:00 start. Just wanted to get the thread up while I had the chance.

I have no idea how Brooks got as far as he has gotten throwing like this and not just in this game but in general. Maybe it just says the O's have just nobody that can throw. I know their pen is a laugh.

Brooks has been pretty lucky tonight as well. He has no breaking pitches that he throws well. Has no Change and if it were not for the thundering elephant he has in RF, he would have been in pretty good shape.

So just for fun I went to look at O's splits. Just for the record they have few injuries that matter. Trumbo is not playing at the moment. They are 39-82 overall....39 and 82! Of that they are 18-43 in their little shoebox stadium and 21-39 on the road.

I am beginning to think that tiny little ballpark in Baltimore does not do the O's much good. This is three years running at least that they are the absolute kings of launch angle nonsense to the point where everything they swing at goes in the air and more often than not is a pop up. Pitching is a weakness for them. But you don't lose this many games on pitching alone.

Stewart does not look like he was designed to run 127'.

All Brooks has is FB's, 2 seam and 4 seam. He throws underneath (or some people call it throwing around) both his slider and his curve which is just like putting them on a tee unless he jerks the pitch off the plate.