FredLynn

He is an adequate backup player IMO. But not a starter. He would be platooning with Sweeney if Ells and Crawford were not hurt. And McDonald would be DFA'd

Cody Ross is coming through here.

July?

She likes to complain about people rather than discuss baseball. Thats why I ignore her.

If he keeps making plays like the replay I witnessed, its going to be with me.

Who is first out of the pen tonite? McDonald?

You mean Marlon Buffoon.

I like the effort and aggressiveness. The execution was foiled by bad luck.

Just saw the replay of Marlon Byrd completely botching the fly to center near the wall. Just pathetic.

Hard to complain about being aggressive on the basepaths. Just guessed wrong on the timing.

Thats a base hit??

7-4. Guess the only way we are ever going to win a game is to bludgeon the other team. Seven runs. That gives us a 50-50 chance to win already. Not too bad!

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.