jad

After zero Ks last night, he seems to have found his groove again: 2 for 2 tonight (so far).

I don't know. If you take away the two cheap infield hits, and, well, the hit-batsman, the triple, the smash off the wall, the bad throw ... it really wasn't all that bad.

Really? Wow. I never thought of that. Who knew?

Well, you don't want your relievers walking guys.

2 Ks tonight, so far. 1 for 2 on Ks yesterday, 4 for 5 the night before. That's 7 in his last 9 AB. He needs serious help from coaches .... The RS do have coaches, don't they? (Edit: Make that 3 for 4 tonight, thus 8 for 10-- that's more or less my definition of "lost"). (Leon spared him from striking out with the bases loaded to end the game). (Edit: 2 for 3 tonight--so far, thus 10 for 13).

0 for the last three games. 2 hits for the last 7 games. 0-5 with 4 Ks last night. How is that not as bad as it looks?

JBJ is definitely not fine. Multiple strikeouts and weak ground balls to the right side. A year or two ago, this is what got him sent down. Time for the 'legendary' RS hitting coach to do his job. (By the way, he's had three back-to-back 0-fers this month, and is hitting .182, w/ 4HR, and only 2 doubles. That is again, far from 'fine').

Didn't see it, but this is how it was described on the radio. Why didn't Farrell or any of the coaches know the rule? (Or did the umpire rule that it was intentional?)

Well, that strategy worked well.

I know he does. That's why I think it should be correctible. The same thing happened to Ellsbury years back-- surely there must be things that hitting coaches can do to shake someone out of such slumps. One tactic I heard from a coach--forget who it was--was that he would simply make something up (you're not watching the ball, you need to kick higher, you're gripping the bat too loosely), and have the guy focus exclusively on that, nothing else. It was complete b.s., but it jolted the guy into focussing on one thing, letting the natural ability do the rest. (The same thing of course works in golf, which is why everyone has a thousand golf tips they have tried and firmly believe they work: they're all useless, but concentrating on any one of them will generally 'get your mind right' and result in improvement). Maybe players are so sophisticated now that they're beyond being 'tricked' effectively in this way.

Since the RS are paying a hitting coach, who got a lot of credit earlier in the year, why don't they ask him nicely to do something to correct whatever has happened to JBJ? It can't be that the league has discovered a flaw in his swing, since the same thing happened last year: for a while he hits everything. Then falls off a cliff.

"Gay"-rod. Wow. I get it. That's so funny! You must be a professional. Either that, or you're 10 years old. (Did you know he was Hispanic? I'll bet you could come up with something really good based on that too.)

Not all a-hole 15-year-olds are a-hole-racist/anti-Semitic 15 year olds who need to get laid.

Exactly: the best definition of a clutch hitter (since several posters have noted that we all on some level believe in the existence of such a thing--as fans we can believe whatever we want) is a hitter who doesn't choke. There was in fact a quantifiable study on this, that began with a couple of assumptions (1) that you could define 'clutch' situations, and (2) that a presumably 'clutch' hitter (that is, one who performed better in those situations) would do that year after year. But they didn't (that is, the fact that someone would do better in clutch situations one year was no guarantee of doing so the next year). i.e., what looks like 'clutch' hitting is pure chance. Now obviously a .350 hitter is better in the clutch that a .250 hitter. That's why Ortiz is so good: his performance in clutch situations is the same as elsewhere. Another one who would fit this is Manny, who seemed never to give a crap what the situation was (probably the best attitude for a hitter to have). (For you duffer golfers out there, this is why you can hit provisions so well, or why you play so much better when you don't keep score! ... did I mention my hole-in-one two weeks ago on just such a shot?)

By "baseball needs to learn," you mean the players' union has to completely give up what it has negotiated for and turn over power to the owners?

Still, upstaged by Lester's walk-off in the 12th. (Obviously, should NEVER have let him go.)

Exactly

Oh, I watch when I can too. But doesn't 'this season is better than the last two' only mean "They likely won't end up in last place"? That's astonishing given the years of Betts, Bogaerts, Papi!, JBJ, even Pedroia and of course Leon, as well the unexpected improvement of Hanley (none of them were expected to play as well as they have) and the acquisition of two of the best pitchers in the league.

Finally! Got the hitting to match the pitching! It really sucks to lose 2-1 or 9-8, and to waste good hitting or pitching performances.

As long as once league-leading hitters swing at 3-2 pitches that bounce in front of the plate, he should be fine.

Didn't see it, but it must have been awful to inspire a string of subjunctives and conditionals like that! (If we had some ham [hitting], we could have some ham and eggs [wins], if we had some eggs [pitching]) Glad you survived it.

The other problem is that, contrary to popular belief, the air is lighter on humid, drizzly days, so a pitch like a knuckleball probably doesn't move as much. Might be true of curves too. (It's also true of hits, although announcers persist in describing moist air as "heavy", which it is not.) It would be easy enough to check stats on this, although I don't know if anyone has.

Taking the bat out of the hands of a .400 hitter in order to bunt is the kind of Old School move that has served the Sox well in 3 of the last 4 years.

Wasn't this week a time (we were told) that the RS could 'put some distance' between themselves and Baltimore? Well, at least in that, they have succeeded.