Kimmi

^^Wise man.

Bases loaded with no outs, and the Sox can't even push across one run with Mookie, Moreland, and Bogaerts coming up. That about did me in.

Confirmation bias, I believe.

Save percentage averages to date in 2019: AL 70.65% NL 68.71% MLB 69.68% In 2018: AL 66.43% NL 65.66% MLB 66.05% These count the dreaded blown saves in all innings.

My man Joe Posnanski had a very good article relating to the effect of closers on teams winning the game when leading entering the 9th inning. It turns out that the % of times a team wins the game in this situation has remained remarkably consistent throughout the years (95% overall, but he also broke it down into 1 run leads, 2 run leads, etc.), regardless of the changes to late inning pitching philosophy. Here is his summary: "But I just find it fascinating that no matter how much everyone tries to fiddle with the last inning of a game — closers, match-ups, specialists, pinch-hitters, whatever else — those overall ninth-inning win percentages just do not move. I would guess that teams with great closers having great years might help a team squeeze an extra win or two in a season. Maybe. But I do wonder if all of the ninth inning tactics are about as useful as rearranging furniture." Full article here: https://joeposnanski.com/the-closer-you-get/

I'm not sure who is on the arb panel deciding these players' salaries, but if they're basing the salaries on the number of saves a reliever gets, they need to be replaced.

Agree. I'd choose catcher if I could only have one.

Yup. Both Papelbon and Kimbrel, while very good, created far too much drama at times for my liking. My nerves can't take it. LOL

Red Sox Stats @redsoxstats · 20h A truly team effort s*** show. Nothing more to be said.

Beni is not getting it done leading off the game. His batting line as the first batter of the game is .061/.184/.061/.245. It's a small sample, but to me, it just doesn't seem to be working. Far too often, it seems like the Sox go down 1-2-3 in the first inning very quickly. Either that, or JD gets a hit as the #3 batter but it goes wasted because there is no one on in front of him.

It's not like you really need him.

Now that everyone has caught Chavis fever, where is Marco going to play?

My guess is that Cora will split the duties roughly 60% for Vaz and 40% for Leon. That said, he catching position is not on the Top 10 list of problems with this Red Sox team, IMO.

The best part about Koji closing is that he did not mess around. No 9th inning drama. I wish him the best.

I very much doubt that keeping their salaries in check has anything to do with the way Cora is running his pen.

I fully endorse The Notin Method.

Why? We're not going to keep them out of the playoffs any more than they are going to keep us out of the playoffs. The Sox need to beat the teams that they should beat, which they have been doing, after the slow start.

It makes sense that it would be. This was point #2 that struck me from Miller's comments.

No need to pull up the old posts. I remember very clearly asking you to come back in a month. Thanks for remembering to do so! Things are looking much better for the Good Guys than they were a month ago. I have the utmost confidence that the Red Sox will be playing postseason baseball.

Fair or not, I have a feeling that Nunez will be the odd man out.

You learn something new everyday.

I have not read the article, but I find this quite interesting. I have experienced phenomenon in everyday life.

Thanks for the recommendation. I've been a big Lindbergh fan since he was a practically a baby. LOL Did you know he is only like 30 years old? And he's been around a while. But I digress. Knowing that I probably won't get around to reading the book any time soon, though it sounds like something I'd really enjoy reading, I read a little about the book and read some informative comments from Miller. Two points that stuck out to me in my very brief reading: 1. Though they are stat geeks, the two personally did a lot of scouting, including scouting the upcoming opposing pitcher and charting every pitch he threw in great detail. Point being, stat geeks are not just about the stats. 2. They both stated in one way or another that where they failed was in not getting the players and the manager to buy into what they were doing. It became a sort of an 'us versus the stat geeks' mentality, and the players presumably 'rebelled', even when a decision was based more on a non-analytical reason. The guys realized the error of their approach after it was too late. The 2nd point stands out to me because one of the first things Cora did when he came to Boston was hire a guy to do just that - relay the data to the players in such a way that they would buy into it. Anyway, good stuff.

Koji was the man. I thank him for his time with Boston, particularly 2013, and wish him the best.

The line up was kind of frustrating, but they had guys on base. They just couldn't get the timely hit. The Sox did not play nearly as bad as the series outcome suggests. Cora said it best. The Sox basically had 2 bad innings and lost the series.