FredLynn

Its certainly possible. Far more likely than winning 93 games as someone else wrote here.

Its June. If we are 7 games out in August I would agree, but its too early. I have never given up on the whole season, not yet. Get 10 games out and I will, even in June. A lot can still happen. I will say this: its time NOW to start fixing this team. We cannot wait until the trade deadline. By then we will be too far out of competition for the postseason if nothing is done.

Because there isn't a lot you can say about this game: Red Sox lefthanded reliever Rich Hill has a strained flexor muscle, an injury that will not require surgery but will cause him at miss at least a month, according to manager Bobby Valentine. Dr. James Andrew examined Hill today. The Sox feared that Hill had injured a ligament, so a muscle strain is good news. In other news: • Daniel Bard will pitch in relief for Pawtucket tonight. The idea is for him to try and get an adrenalin rush. Bard seems to think that will help. He's only going to go an inning. • Aaron Cook threw two innings in extended spring training on Saturday and on Wednesday will pitch for Lowell in a scrimmage game.

Yes

Yankees 3, Atlanta 0. Lose this game and we will be 7 games out in the lost column to both the Rays and Yankees.

Song for the day: "Slip Sliding Away"

Needed a big game from our ace: he lays another egg.

How to fix a slump: play the Red Sox. Can we play ourselves soon?

Sloppy baseball.

You can't be referring to our ace, right?

They are very tough to watch. Only die hards keep watching them. No one should doubt the level of support ANY of us have for this team, ever, if we are still here, watching this team lay an egg night after night.

See your pms. Probably not game thread material.

Lets put it this way: it was one of his better ABs of late. Saw 8 pitches, got to 3-2. Its a step up...and I am no Gonzalez fan, as you know. Just keepin it real here.

I was there. I don't recall anyone saying that, but I will check. I recall a lot of people commented on the kind of baseball we are playing right now.

Who claimed the season is already over?

When was the last time a player unequivocally criticized the attitude or performance of another player in the media? Its very very rare. If they are asked to comment about their fellow teamates, the cover for them. I am not saying thats a bad thing; in fact, I think its a good thing. But you've got to read between the lines and look for other sources of information when it comes to who is having a bad effect on the team, like Lackey and Beckett had last year. Never once heard in the media any player criticizing those to buffoons about what they did to destroy the club.

Not quite sure where to post this. Mazzarotti has expressed my viewpoint much more eloquently than I can do it myself. Its all about the pitching, and while ours has improved, its still behind most good teams. By Tony Massarotti, Boston.com Columnist From Roger Clemens to Pedro Martinez to Curt Schilling and beyond, the Red Sox always had an answer. But when it comes time to match up now, with the entire major leagues undergoing an ongoing detoxification, the truth is that the Red Sox simply do not match up anymore. So while the Red Sox continue to blame the umpires and most anyone else (but themselves) in the wake of a weekend sweep at the hands of the pitching-rich Washington Nationals, the evidence suggests a far more worrisome problem. When it comes to premier pitching, the rest of the major leagues has passed the Red Sox by, which might be the biggest reason the Red Sox have not won a playoff game since 2008. From Clemens to Martinez to Schilling, after all, the Red Sox did not merely have an ace at the front of their rotation. They had a legitimate, bona fide front runner for the Cy Young Award. That was true even in 2007, the year of the last Red Sox championship, when Josh Beckett appeared to take the baton. But now? The Red Sox don't have an ace anymore, not a true one, not like Stephen Strasburg. Or maybe even Gio Gonzalez. Or maybe even Jordan Zimmermann. The very best starters in the game now reside in other cities - from Justin Verlander to Jered Weaver to David Price and Clayton Kershaw - and so there is no one the Red Sox can really turn to at the most demanding of times, when the other team has an elite pitcher on the mound and there is no room for error. Blame the offense if you'd like. But the Red Sox almost never outpitch anyone anymore, and the weekend series against the Nationals seemed a prime opportunity. The Nationals left Boston late on Sunday ranked first in the majors in pitching, 26th in runs scored. The Red Sox were almost exactly the opposite (28th, third). The Nationals went 3-0 while the Red Sox went 0-3, which we might attribute to the individual matchups were it not for the bigger picture. This season, the Red Sox are 9-17 against teams that currently rank in the top 10 in the majors in pitching. Boston starters simply are not capable of shutting down opposing teams anymore, even a club as relatively inept as the Nationals. (Washington averaged five runs per game over the weekend.) The Red Sox really have not pitched consistently well for more than a few years now, their starters ranking eighth (in 2009), sixth (in 2010), ninth (in 2011) and 12th (this year) in ERA since their last postseason win. At the same time, no one from among the group of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, or Clay Buchholz has been good enough to carry them, which means the Red Sox have a collection of Nos. 2 and 3 starters (or worse) at the top of their rotation. How the Red Sox are where they are is a story far too long to tell in one sitting, but there was a time when the Sox seemed positioned for long-term success. When the Sox signed Beckett to a four-year, $68 million contract at the start of the 2010 season and then locked up Buchholz in the spring of 2011, the Red Sox had their front four starters (including John Lackey) under team control through at least 2014. Most of us deemed that to a be a good thing (and not a bad one) at the time, which raises myriad questions. Are the Red Sox to blame here for foolishly and prematurely locking up pitchers destined to fade? Or are the pitchers now coasting after having secured tens of millions of dollars each? Lackey got an $82.5 million contract and hasn't pitched well since. Beckett got his money before the 2010 season and ranks 53d among the 84 major league starters with at least 350 innings during that time. (Lester ranks 30th, Lackey dead last.) Since he got his deal in 2011, Buchholz ranks 133d out of 185 pitchers with at least 100 innings. And before anyone suggests that the starters have been pitching well of late, let's all agree on something: good pitchers perform well consistently. They don't have a good month every now and then. Rather, they go through aberrational slumps. Not the other way around. For certain, the Red Sox at the moment are dealing with an array of issues. Jacoby Ellsbury's absence and Adrian Gonzalez' relative impotence has made the Sox extremely vulnerable against righthanded starters that make up the majority of all major league pitchers. (The Sox have a losing record of 18-21 against righthanded pitching, easily the worst in their division.) If and when Ellsbury and Carl Crawford return to the lineup, there is certainly the chance that will change some. Nonetheless, at a time like this, especially, the Red Sox need their pitching to carry them. Since the Red Sox last won a playoff game, the Red Sox have scored more runs than any team in baseball but the New York Yankees, yet Boston's only trip to the playoffs resulted in a three-game sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Angels in the fall of 2009. Some people will tell you the Red Sox didn't hit in that series. Others would tell you the Sox got outpitched.

Just because players have each others' back does not mean that the effect a player is having on the clubhouse is not a negative one. They should, to a large degree, be a brotherhood of sorts. My guess is that had you asked Pedroia and Youkilis about Beckett and Lackey last year they would have covered for them too, but its pretty clear that some of the activities those two (and others) were engaging in were deleterious to the team.