FredLynn

HAHAHAHAHA A fitting judgement from The King.

Injuries aren't the reason this team is bad currently. As you said, pitching is. However, when people try to say that a team with a payroll like this should be able to weather the storm of bad SPs, I would say that is where the injuries are the problem. The injuries represent a fail safe. They are the Titanic's second, third and fourth water holds that were supposed to make sinking impossible. On the one hand you wrote that " Injuries aren't the reason this team is bad currently. As you said, pitching is." but in the next sentence its "However, when people try to say that a team with a payroll like this should be able to weather the storm of bad SPs, I would say that is where the injuries are the problem. The injuries represent a fail safe. They are the Titanic's second, third and fourth water holds that were supposed to make sinking impossible.". I agree with the first part about the pitching, but come on, all teams have injuries. The Rays are now 4-2 since Longoria got hurt. The Yankees are without Rivera and they are still winning. What I object to is using "injuries" as an excuse. Certainly if we had all our guys healthy our record would be better. What team cannot say that? Occasionally a team has an inordinate number of injuries, and that happened to us a couple of years ago. I do not believe that is the reason for our failure to perform this year: its mostly lack of pitching talent.

I agree with most of what you wrote except for two things. First, Valentine was handed a pile of s*** and told to make a filet mignon out of it. He hasn't been given a fair shot IMO. He has made some mistakes, but the players he has now do not have the talent to win many more games than they are winning. And second, I am more optimistic about 2013 than you are. Youkilis will be gone; hopefully Beckett too. If things work out right we will have a lot of cash on hand to buy a couple of premier SP. Its uncomfortable to be more optimistic (long term) than anyone here.....:dunno:

I concur. Thats the problem: they don't care any more. They are just going through the motions. Hard to blame them in a way. It must be pretty demoralizing to be behind by five runs nearly every game.

I am not buying that our problems are because of injuries. Thats a convenient excuse that could be used every year we fail. Yes, they do matter somewhat, but every team has injuries. Our problems are because our pitching stinks. Beckett (4.45) has been mediocre. Lester (4.62) less than mediocre. Buchholz (8.69) stinks. Doubront (5.19) and Bard (4.38) have not done the job either. Our bullpen does seem to be improving, but our pitching overall is next to last in the AL. Aside from our closer, which PITCHING injury or injuries do you think has been responsible for our record? The offense is scoring runs regardless of the injuries, so they aren't so important.

Why the hell are they walking FOUR TIMES a guy hitting less than .200?

Wow.

This post was not to dispute your opinion about Buchholz. Clearly something is f***ed up with him right now. We can disagree about the reason behind that (you may say he just sucks, I may say there's something that is wrong with him). My post was more about your comment re: fans "being led to believe" certain things. You insinuate all the time that people here are just being dragged around in their beliefs like cattle with rings through their noses. It's demeaning and makes it hard to care about anything else you say. Ahh. I see. Sometimes I write things that can be misinterpreted. In no way do I really think that people on this board are gullible tagalongs who are incapable of forming independent opinions. On the contrary: people here have a very large assortment of such opinions, some of which are based on facts, and some of which are just opinions (which is also fine). It would have been more accurate for me to say that the FO is feeding us material that THEY would hope causes us to form the opinion that they want. Some examples: the "sellout" nonsense and the statement that Valentine made that indicated that he is satisfied with the current pitching staff, among other examples. In other words, the FO is trying to lead us to believe certain things, but people here are not as gullible as they would like.

All in all, the bullpen has pitched very well in this series. They have been called upon to do a lot. Now lets win the damn game already!

Anybody else locked out of MLB.COM?

Oh goody....Morales is warming up in the bullpen.

One would assume that swinging would also be called for. Damn MLB.COM...lost the video.

You gotta make contact in that situation.

Marlon Byrd is going to win this game with a walkoff HR right now.

Thats how that play is made Salty.

FaultySalty owes us here.

Ross is a good fastball hitter....

Pinch run for Papi?

Three more feet up and that was gone.

Technically, no. But with the Orioles bullpen the odds are not with us. It sucks that FaultySalty is still a member of the team while he performs like that-and Lavarnway is waiting.

Thats the game. FaultySalty cost us the game today.