jung

JBJ must have the cleanest helmet for an everyday player I have ever seen since...... well Helmets

Tito does not do much challenging. Saves it for later in the game if he really needs it. If Farrell were managing the Guardians he would not have even waited for the video. "Challenge, challenge, challenge goddamit."

I would say Rafi and X. Mookie frittered away his leadership role on this team this year. Not sure he ever really cared about it. JD never had it though the media tried to give it to him. X is now the leader of this team. It sure as heck ain't Pedey and I can't think of anybody else it would be. Plus we have to come to terms with the knowledge that Rafi had not learned very much about fielding at the ML lever in 2017 or 2018 and was as goofy footed starting the 2019 campaign as he was in 2018. X took over the role of mentoring and tutelage and Presto chango...Rafi the ML fielder.

I think so. This whole "Opener" thing is such a THING that you can imagine Managers viewing it a million different ways. Cora I guess wanted to start Nate today if he thought he could. Did Nate pitch so much last night that he could not pitch in for an inning today....could it be the 1st inning? Who the f*** knows. I hate the opener thing for what it says about MLB pitching. I like Slasher's line....makes me feel icky at least. Actually now that I think about it Cora commented a couple days ago that he would want Nate to go 55 pitches in a start. He is not going to get 55 out of him today. So it must be BJ.

Sorry for your loss moon. Going through it now for what is the 5th dog and 6th pet for me. This one is hitting me hard as it is touch and go and this one is particularly poignant for me. Raised him from weened and raised him to be a little clown, to make everything and everybody around him better and happier and for him to benefit from it. The dog really tells you what his owner wanted him to be, not the other way round. Sure enough, a little clown he became....smiling all day long, wagging his come play with me flag all day long. Fearless when confronting another male dog with bad intentions many times his size there has never been a dog he ran into that he would not have playing with him within about 2 minutes tops. Now he knows there is something wrong and my inability to do more than I am doing to try to pull him through is ripping me to shreds. To own a dog that confronts everything life puts in front of him with courage and love has been a privilege for me and one I am desperately trying to extend. PS. Just to clarify my comment above about dogs with "bad intentions", dogs don't have bad intentions. They simply respond with more or less skepticism about a circumstance that confronts them and can be dangerous if not properly handled or not handled at all for that matter.

Well we won last night. So the Sox get the extra burden of having Jung wrapped around their axle again. I don't think the Sox have announced a starter, ah' make that an Opener yet. Guardians have Shane Bieber going. Might not matter who or what we cobble together to try to get to 9 innings in that case. Remember, 1:00pm start time today.

Geezus....Did any of you guys just see DD on the field in Cleveland clutching at Mookie. He looked like he was trying to sell Mookie a used car and he had just about that much attention from Mookie.

We have to go 31-12 the rest of the way and on of the two teams we are chasing have to go 21-21 for that to happen. The Sox themselves are acting like THEY have thrown in the towel. But you are fan and every fan should be able to get out of a season what he wants to get out of it. If I were to guess, I would guess that the teams we are chasing are well capable of going 21-21. But we are simply not capable of going 31-12.

I would keep Beni before I would keep JBJ and I am not particularly a big beni fan. If you could as one poster suggests, non-tender JBJ and then sign him for less than the expected arb number for this year (I have heard as high as $10-$12M) and less than what he made in 2018 I would be fine with that.

Our boys in Red Hose have been holding a season long Whaaaaaaaaa fest from start till now. Watch how much further downhill this gets before this season mercifully ends. I absolutely agree that a team that is holding a season long Whaaaaaa fest was just waiting for an excuse to completely fold up and Price plus the trade deadline gave them all the excuse they needed. X and Rafi have been the only really bright spots in an abysmal season. I thought a repeat highly unlikely. But being subjected to the usual lawn chair el foldo that the Sox are actually pretty famous for is a bit more than my old, weak stomach can take.

Fine...but comparing Chamberlain with the coddling and pampering that has gone on here since Tom Yankey simply won't wash. And our intense PR effort for many of these players is just part of the coddling and pampering and it plays into the eventual prideful bunch that folds like a lawn chair we often end up with. How often do the Yankmees fold like a lawn chair?

Other baseball PR departments don't anoint their young, have not proved a darned thing yet baseball talent Baseball Gods until their is some reason to do so. Do they promote them? Yes. Do they elevate them to the levels that the Sox PR department does with a panting fanbase just dying to believe it. "He is so cute....I just want to hug him. Don't you?" Frankly I don't care who is most to blame. Tom Yawkey is most to blame if you want to know as he started this "tradition" of pampering and coddling. But there is simply no ignoring the record. Nobody folds up like a cheap lawn chair and starts polishing its golf clubs faster and with more gusto than the Boston Red Sox. I will say that guys like Rafi and Sam have had to earn their way because they don't have those GQ cover good looks that drives the PR department to new heights of hyperbole.

I would say he will again, especially the first tier tax. I think it unlikely he will break the second tier anytime soon and may NEVER as owner of this team approach breaking the third tier.

Thread title: Countdown to Playoffs - 2019 edition Playoffs!......PLAYOFFS!!!!!!! I should add that one thing our younger fans will have to get used to if they have not yet this century.....nobody but nobody folds up like a lawn chair like our Boston Red Sox. They are a prideful bunch, not a proud team. That is mainly our fault and the fault of the Sox PR department that proclaims them Baseball Gods as soon as they put on the Red Hose. We fawn over them like nesting chicks that need our nurturing every minute. Have as long as I have been a Sox fan. I was glad to see some boos come up from the Fenway crowd end of the last home-stand. They deserve to be booed. Might do them some good.

Except for a couple of instances mainly provided by the Guardians and one instance by Rafi in the field this was yet another intensely boring MLB game, so much so that I did not even watch the last few innings with any real attention to detail. Again two pitchers that simply could not pitch were mainly responsible. This is not football. Yes, in football you can keep shoving your running back through the 2 gap until the defense piles up so many bodies in the 2 gap that there is no room for your running back and you have to find your offense elsewhere. Pitchers are so lame these days that if they find one pitch or a couple pitches at the same velo that they appear to be able to throw, they just keep throwing them! ERod kept landing his Change, a Curve (from somewhere in his repertoire) and cutter at virtually the same velo. You can just watch the hitters getting used to the timing and at some point it does not matter how good the pitch might be, the hitter is right on your velo and you are toast. Then after a HR blast got the Guardians score to 5, genius LaVangie comes out and gets Erod to mix in some FB's which he throws so tentatively at the start that the only thing that saved him was the Guardians shock at seeing FB's. Plesac for his part just kept throwing Change after Change after Change. Well if you keep throwing the Change like that ITS NOT A CHANGE from anything. its just an off-speed pitch. Both of them stumbled and bumbled through it probably driving Willis and LaVangie just out of their minds. As soon as the bullpens became active I knew the game was over, we lose. One of our boneheads was likely to give it up and even if one their guys gave it up in the top of a late inning we would have given it right back in the bottom of the inning. The entire Red Sox Pitching staff SUCKS, top to bottom SUCKS.

Kinda be surprised if Perez stays in this game. That is going to hurt more 5 minutes from now and its going to hurt more 5 more minutes after that.

Oh man...that got the big bone of the hand and that carries an aftershock to it that is almost as bad as taking one in the nuts.

Well now we have a shot in this contest of pitching futility because their idiot has to come out and pitch again.

Guardians are going to get a hold of one of these FB's and send it to Mars.

New plan for Erod. Four seams at 93 right down main st.

If I were the pitching coach for either one of these guys I would have already lost my mind and been beating them with a stick in the dugout. In fact, I fully expect Willis and LaVangie to simply agree to switch and coach the other guy for a couple innings because WHY NOT! MLB PITCHING SUCKS now.

Ding ding ding ding ding....Erod at 60 for 3.

Erod tries a two seam at 94. Here....let me try this. If he thought he could throw that pitch 94 he should have broken it out before giving up 5 in 2 and 2/3rds.

This does not get better from here. It can only get worse until Cora gets him outta there.

That was only a matter of time.