Kimmi

Like I said, I've missed you. The Yankess elimination from the playoffs will be all that much sweeter.

The game threads when the Sox are losing usually tend to be a lot longer than the ones when the Sox are winning. I get the frustration on the game threads. I really do. I just can't deal with so much negativity.

The Sox currently have 9 pitchers on the IL including 80% of the originally projected starting rotation. It appears to have caught up to us. Our starting pitching is currently not getting the job done. Neither is our offense, although I will point out that the Sox had 13 hits last night compared to 14 hits by the Yankees. Clusterluck anyone? The good news is, we should be getting some guys back soon. It's amazing how a team can go from looking so bad, to looking so good, to looking so bad again. Keep the faith. The good times will be back soon.

I haven't even opened up the game thread section of this forum in a long time. I can't deal with it. LOL

Obviously, I'm not talking about excitement surrounding all our guys on the IL. I'm talking about excitement surrounding some of the young guys we have waiting in the wings.

When our offense doesn't hit like we expect it to hit, the pen ends up pitching a lot of high stress innings. There's a lot of pressure in trying to preserve a starting pitcher's good or great start. The relievers are likely trying to be too perfect. Or perhaps we just don't notice or remember the pen giving up a few runs when we have a 5 run lead.

It's interesting that you show up in year when the Yankees are playing so well. I've missed you the past few years.

It seems to me that you post something pretty similar almost every year about how the Yankees rotation and bullpen will have an advantage in the postseason. When it comes to any kind of a short series, throw all bets out the window.

Thankfully, we have some pitching reinforcements coming in the way of players returning from the IL. Regardless, it's still exciting times for Red Sox fans.

Gallo is in the lineup because the Yankees have no need or urgency (currently) to replace him in the lineup. If the division were a tighter race, he'd likely be gone.

I think that our bullpen could use a little help, even after the return of Whitlock. But I agree with you that the bullpen situation is not as bad as most people would have us believe.

In baseball, any team is likely to beat any other team on any given day more so than in the other sports. It is difficult to sweep series, even against the bottom teams. Nothing should be taken away from the Sox during their nice run since mid-May. As I said, they did what they had to do. Considering that they play each other 19 times each, I think that it's impressive that 4 out of 5 teams from the AL East would currently be in the playoffs. I agree with you that Baltimore is not the doormat that they used to be. They have a pretty decent bullpen. I like to look at run differential. Every team in the AL East besides Baltimore has a positive run differential. In the AL Central, only Minnesota has a positive differential. In the West, Houston, Seattle, and Texas have positive run differentials. Based on that, I am more inclined to think that a team from the West might sneak into one of the wildcard spots over a team from the Central, but I still like the chances of all 3 wildcard teams coming from our division.

Our rotation, compared to our Opening Day projected rotation, is in shambles. And yet, the rotation has been holding its own. It's way too soon to know how these youngsters will do, but these are exciting times for Red Sox fans.

The importance of defense is too often overlooked. IMO, a significant part of the Yankees success is due to no longer having Sanchez behind the plate. Not to mention the vastly improved defense overall. While on the subject of vastly improved defenses, we should also give a shout out to our own infield defense.

Nice post Max. Thank you for seeing the positive in what the Sox are doing.

Yes.

Yes, the Sox played against mostly sub .500 teams, but they did what they had to do against those teams. It will be be a tough month of baseball coming up. I don't expect the Sox to continue the record that they have in June. I do, however, expect the Sox to hold their own and to stay in contention.

Many teams would have folded after a start like that.

Cora was good enough then too. That's why the Sox are back in contention.

Yes, it could. But it won't with the Red Sox.

It could, but it won't send the Red Sox reeling. Cora is too good for that to happen. The Sox have lost a series. It was bound to happen. It was against a good team on the road. I'm not concerned. Heartbroken over last night's loss, but not concerned.

I am in agreement. Also, as has been pointed out, we may need to limit Whitlock's innings.

It takes a lot of inner strength to follow baseball daily. LOL Games like last night's are the worst in terms of emotions. However, as I've said many times, it's really a far better sign for a team to lose a game like last night's game than it is to lose one like Monday's game. One run losses are a coin flip. Five run losses are not.

A lot depends on who gets healthy and when they return. I have a feeling that if everyone gets healthy, Whitlock will return to the pen. While I think he could eventually be more valuable as a starter, he was so effective out of the pen last year that I think Cora would put him there over Hill. We need bullpen reinforcements more than we need SP reinforcements.

It was a devastating loss last night, exactly the type of loss that we really didn't need to see under that circumstances. Shaughnessy and others are having a field day with this today.