Bellhorn04

Yoshida is certainly not being platooned, but he has sat against some lefties I believe.

The disappointment does come a bit cheaper now...

Just looked it up and the Sox have a team option on Refsnyder for 2025. Have to guess they bring him back but not O'Neill.

Interestingly enough, there's a lot of talk that Mookie is going back to the outfield.

Even if they can, can they hit it nearly as well as Refsnyder?

Yeah, not even Cora can figure out how to juggle 6 outfielders. Seems like it would behoove them to bring back either O'Neill or Refsnyder to balance the L-R thing a bit.

Abreu hitting a bomb off a lefty yesterday was certainly nice to see. Cora said he got a little hunch-y there, had a good feeling about the AB and decided to let Abreu face the lefty.

More about Pivetta and Cora from The Athletic: ARLINGTON, Texas — With one out in the bottom of the second inning, Boston Red Sox starter Nick Pivetta hung a sweeper that Texas Rangers designated hitter Josh Jung crushed to left field for a solo homer. In the next at-bat, left fielder Ezequiel Duran smoked a 103 mph grounder to third that Rafael Devers couldn’t handle cleanly, leading to an error. Pivetta, who doesn’t hide his emotions well, was clearly frustrated, as the Rangers led 2-0 and were threatening for more. His velocity sat in the low 90s and he didn’t have his best stuff. Noticing his pitcher was rattled, manager Alex Cora made an unorthodox move early in the game and ran out onto the field. He met Pivetta and catcher Connor Wong on the mound and did all the talking for roughly 20 seconds, but it was clear he had a message. Pivetta didn’t say a word, just nodded. Cora went back to the dugout. Pivetta got two quick outs to end the inning and retired 10 of his final 11 batters. The lone baserunner after the mound meeting — a two-out walk in the third. It was a small moment in the midst of a 7-2 win for the Red Sox, one in which outfielder Wilyer Abreu crushed two home runs the day after his grandmother passed away. But if not for Cora’s timely mound meeting in the second, the chance to secure the win later on might not have arrived. It highlighted the urgency with which the Red Sox are playing and Cora’s feel for his players. “Sometimes you got to remind these guys that they’re good,” Cora said of his message to Pivetta. “He gives up a homer and you saw stuff today, it was like 90-91 mph. But at the end of the day, he’s one of our biggest competitors, and regardless of the stuff, he’s still good enough, and then it was a reminder of like, ‘Hey, bro I know you probably don’t feel great right now, but you know how to compete and we need you here. … Just keep grinding.’ He gave us enough today.”

SoSH offers answers on the Pivetta hook timing: No one knows for sure but Merloni referred to a conversation with Cora earlier this week where he said now that he has a loaded pen with more guys on the way that he'd be more aggressive. Essentially "playoff Cora". The top of the order was coming up for the third time, including 3 out of 4 LHB, and one of them was Seager who already had 3 home runs in the series. It was time for a southpaw.

Agree with all that. What I question is that Cora would be the one solely charged with the decision to put Criswell in the rotation or the pen, to go to a 6 man rotation, stuff that impacts games over a period of weeks or months.

I just think "how to use Criswell for the next 2 months" has to have been a group decision thing. He's not being paid much but he is a somewhat important figure in the pitching staff at this point.

Yes but the Rangers also have deGrom, Scherzer and Eovaldi on the payroll, so they have already allocated a ton of money to the rotation. Compare their investment in the rotation to the Sox investment.

Grady constantly ignored data that was presented to him. Theo met with him before that game and showed him the data that Pedro lost effectiveness after 105 pitches or so and had to be removed at that point no matter what the game siutuation. It's covered in the book "Feeding the Monster" and I have the book, but am too lazy to dig it out right now.

That one is pretty questionable LOL

They don't allocate enough budget to starting pitching. To me that's been the biggest problem for several years, whether it's being cheap or being stupid or a combination thereof I can't say 100%.

What happens to Sox managers who ignore directives from above and make in-game decisions based on their own hunches? See Little, Grady.

But this is about in-game usage over a period of weeks or months. It's about what they think is the best way to utilize Criswell the rest of the way, game in and game out. It's about a plan, not a decision in one game.

Yeah, I have to think Bailey and Breslow also have a lot of say in these moves.

It's as simple as that. And it's becoming habitual.

And that is by now a rather familiar refrain.

So...moronic works, doesn't it?

In this case "they" was supposed to refer to the PBT (Pitching Brain Trust) - Bailey, Cora, Breslow, whoever else is involved in these decisions. Henry is never just an innocent bystander, though.

Seems like they decided they desperately needed a reliever that could pitch 3 inning stints, and Criswell is that guy.

Yeah, as a poster on Sons of Sam Horn put it when someone else argued the 2024 team was in a much different position from the 2023 team at this same point: The 2023 Red Sox were relying on a 34-year-old Canadian left-hander that had shown warning signs for weeks before completely collapsing over the final two months. The 2024 Red Sox are relying on a 35-year-old Canadian left-hander that has shown warning signs for months— totally different.

I don't disagree, but at this point it sounds a little like moving to a different deck chair on the Titanic. We don't know if Houck or Crawford are going to benefit from extra days off or not. They're in uncharted territory either way. As Criswell keeps putting up zeroes, though, it does seem weird not to give him some more starts.