Kimmi

He has looked better out there recently. He'll never be a Gold Glover, but he should be able to play at a level where his poor defense does not outweigh his offensive production. Until Ortiz retires, I think we're going to have to deal with Hanley in LF for the majority of the games.

Sincere question, since I'm fairly new here. Are you a Cubs fan? The Allure of the Cubs has been overwhelming.

Defensively, Ortiz can hold his own at 1B. He doesn't have great range, but he does a good job of handling the balls that he can get to and he also does a pretty good job of picking the throws in the dirt. That said, while first base is the easiest defensive position to play, it still requires physical agility, especially in those stretches. I don't think it would be a good idea to play Ortiz there regularly, given his age and his leg problems. I agree that it gives us a better line up with the way Napoli has been struggling and it gives us a better defensive alignment in the outfield, but if Papi is overused at 1B, I think it would end up doing more harm than good.

No he wasn't great, but I will take 2 runs in 6 IP every time out.

I don't think some people realize just how bad our production from 3B was last year. For all of the talk of pitching being our weakness last season, and it was a weakness, our offense was as big a weakness. The FO did what it had to do to address that area.

Overpaid? Perhaps. Grossly overpaid? No. I didn't like his deal either, but it's not as bad as you make it out to be.

This has been so maddening. At least last night, he did not give up the lead. That last out in the 4th seems to have really fired him up. He came back with a vengeance in both the 5th and 6th innings.

It's only been one game, but all in all, Porcello pitched well last night, and he has pitched well with Hanigan. Maybe, hopefully, Hanigan is the magic cure for Porcello's troubles.

And he did. You go Thunder! Keep that mojo going into the ASB! A sweep of the Yankees would be awesome!

LOL Yikes, that was pretty bad, wasn't it? I guess I'm not perfect after all. ;-)

If the Sox played in that division, they'd be 14.5 games out, yet surprisingly, there would still be 2 teams below us. As we've said, right or wrong, the Sox are still in the race largely because of the division that they play in.

Smart move on his part. Bowling is a sport that puts a lot of strain on the back, the knees, and the entire bowling hand/arm from the fingers to the shoulder. I injured my shoulder bowling and didn't have full range of my shoulder without pain for over a year.

Because of the division that they're in, they're in 3rd place and 7.5 games out. They would be leading the NL East and they would be only 1 game behind the Dodgers in the West.

It's a big investment and a lot of money if he does end up being a bust. However, if he ends up being the player that most scouts thought he would be, he could end up being a relative bargain. Either way, it's too soon to call him a bust, and too soon to give up on him.

Unless the Sox fall apart in the next few weeks before the deadline, Buchholz stays. We are still in contention. Why trade away our best pitcher? Even if the team does fall apart before the deadline, I'd be inclined to keep him unless the FO is blown away by some deal. The Sox will need veteran starting pitching next season, and as Bellhorn has stated, Buchholz is pitching very well and has a very reasonable contract.

If I had my choice, I would pick strong pitching, mediocre hitting every time over strong hitting, mediocre pitching. That said, even though this team's construction would not be my first choice of ways to construct a team, it is still constructed well enough to win the division if there weren't so many underperforming players, both with the pitching and with the offense. I don't expect the team to score 5 runs every night. I know that is unrealistic. However, if the team had been averaging 5 runs/game all season like they were expected to do, they would have won several more games than they have, and would probably be leading the division, even with the pitching being as bad as it has been.

Thunder mojo is awesome! Keep it going tonight. We can get right back in this thing.

Which of those guys did you expect to have ERAs that high, much less all of them? No one expected all of them to be that bad. The fact that they are is an enigma.

Once again, you can post that as many times as you want, but that won't make it true. In the last 3 weeks or so, since the Sox lost 7 games in a row, they have a 12-7 record. Their ERA over the course of those games is 4.31, yet they are playing .632 ball, which incidentally would be 102 wins over a full season, and 88 wins if they continued at this pace for the remainder of the season. During that stretch of 19 games, they are scoring 5.5 runs/game. The reason why we are in last place is because of the putrid offense that we had in May. I'm not saying that the pitching is good. I even agree that Porcello needs to be taken out of the rotation until he gets it figured out. However, if the pitching can stay in the low to mid 4 ERA range, this team can win games if the offense does its job.

Being 6 games out with half the season still to go, the Sox are very much still in this. Having to catch 4 other teams makes it a bit more difficult, but none of the teams are running away with the division, and there are plenty of games left against those teams. I agree, some moves will have to be made, but this season is far from over.

Sorry for the long winded post. LOL Go Sox!!!

You can post this as many times as you want, but that's not going to make it true. The fact of the matter is, there are 14 games that we lost in which our pitchers gave up 4 runs or fewer. Our pitchers kept us in those games, and our offense didn't come through like they were supposed to, the premise on which this team was built. If we won even HALF of those games, our record would 42-36, mere percentage points out of first. There are 8 games that we lost in which our pitchers gave up 3 runs or fewer. Winning HALF of those would put us at .500, 3 games back. Let's look at it another way. In April, we scored 5.14 runs/game and allowed 5.41 runs/game. This was our worst pitching month, yet our winning % of .545 was the best because our offense scored runs. In May, we scored 2.83 runs/game and allowed 4.28 runs/game. This was our best pitching month, yet our winning % of .345 was the worst because our offense didn't score runs. In June, we scored 4.51 runs/game and allowed 4.33 runs/game. Our winning % for the month is .481. Our offense has been better this month, but they have not scored as many runs per game as they did in April. I already posted the Rangers numbers from May, when they had a worse ERA than us, but they had a .633 win % that month because they scored 5.27 runs/game. In June, their pitchers are giving up one fewer run/game than they did in May, yet they only played .500 ball that month because their offense only scored 3.88 runs/game. Bottom line: If the offense were doing its job, this team would likely be winning the division, despite the pitching being one of the worst in baseball.

Greetings from Las Vegas everybody! It's almost 10 pm here and it's 107 degrees. I see our team still stinks. Bummer.

Well, that's a bummer.

Come on Mookie! Hit one over the monster!