Maxbialystock

In retrospect, it's pretty awful, I agree. But, when it happened, I think most people on Talksox were happy to see the back of Chris Sale. After two excellent seasons in 2017 and 2018, the wheels came off in 2019. indeed, despite Sale's terrific ERA in 2018, he only pitched 158 innings. in 2019 it was 147 with an ERA of 4.40. Then came tommy john surgery which caused Sale to miss the lost season of 2020--great timing!. But then he basically missed 2021 and 2022 with a combined 48 IP. In 2023, he pitched 103 innings, but his ERA was 4.30, about the same as his 4.40 in 2019. No way, no how do I think Grissom was intended as a meaningful trade for Sale. He had played just 64 games for the Braves in 2022 and 2023 combined and his WAR in 2023 was -0.7. Yes, the Sox gave $17M to the Braves to pay Sale's 2024 salary, but that was because Sale wanted a 3 year deal after the 2023 season, The Braves agreed to do so. At that point, the Sox (Breslow) decided "good riddance" and agreed to the $17M while the Braves are now paying Sale $38M for this year and next. The simple fact is that the Braves saw something in Sale's 2023 season that the Sox did not. They also found it easy to ignore 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 because of the elbow and bike-riding injuries. The Sox, on the other hand, agonized over those same 4 seasons because they were paying Sale a lot of money. (which was actually chump change by today's standards). And this. Tommy John surgery is insanely popular these days because it doesn't just fix the elbow, it makes it stronger. So 2023 was Sale's first real season after TJ, and the Braves thought they saw the good Sale emerging even though he was 34. The Sox thought exactly the opposite. They thought "older is never better when you're over 30."

Enough with the flops talk. On second thought, as our nattering nabob of negativism, maybe you are morphing into the master of reverse mojo.

That was a bonafide dinger by Mr. Bregman~!!!!!!!

That run scored by Eaton was unreal because he scored from 1b on a single that was fielded cleanly and followed by an excellent throw to home plate.

You are completely nuts if you think the fans, the ones who basically pay for this franchise, are clamoring for a new owner, a new manager, and not going to the postseason. I share your frustration to some degree, but I also appreciate how this team developed this season despite 13 freaking starters and 33 pitchers and--wait for it--playing 7 rookie (Campbell, Mayer, Anthony, Narvaez, Tolle, Early, and Garcia). The Sox had several excellent winning streaks, especially 10 in a row right before the ASG when the Sox pitching was superb and the hitting just good enough. Less than a month ago we were all thrilled when the Sox took 3 of 4 from the Yankees and the 4 of 4 from the Orioles--at terrific road trip. Then the wheels came off right after our best hitter Anthony went on the IL--while Bregman stayed in his slump, ditto Rafaela, and the pitching started giving up more runs,. So of course we're disappointed, but that does not mean this team hasn't given us a heckuva season completely unlike 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Might work because the 1st inning is against their top of the order while Bello has yet to have command of his pitches.

Tough matchup tonight even with Crochet. Rays' Rasmussen has a 2.74 ERA and a 10-5 W-L record. Some lineup tweaks-- Duran LF OPS vs righties-- .876 and last 7 days-- .914 Story SS .768 and .942 Bregman 3B .801 and .574 Yoshida DH .631 and ..536 Gonzalez 2b .683 and .350 Eaton RF .878 and 1.192 Lowe 1B .853 and .730 Narvaez C .737 and ..491 Rafaela CF . 684 and .377 That's 3 lefty bats and 6 righties.

Neat!!! Thanks.

I'm all for making the playoffs with the no doubt vain hope that the Sox pitching can make a difference. I think both Early and Tolle are good additions. I also think Sox hitting will continue to struggle without Anthony.

Anthony was called up because Abreu went on the IL and absolutely not to replace Devers. Devers hated losing 3b, and it took Cora a while to get him to embrace DH, where he excelled with an OPS of .905 without missing a single game. The time to move Devers to 1b was spring training when Casas, a lousy fielding first baseman, could have been moved to DH. I hasten to add that keeping Devers at DH for this season would have been smarter than making a big public show of how he refused to play 1b--including having JH fly to KC to talk to Devers about that situation. Funny thing, but Devers is playing 1b for the Giants, so to me it's obvious Breslow was heavy-handed.

The Sox already had a pretty good outfield with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu plus Devers was the DH. I believe Anthony was called up on June 9 because Abreu went on the IL. When Anthony arrived on June 9, the Sox had already played 3 rookies--Campbell, Mayer, and Narvaez. Heck, all 3 were starters although Campbell was sent back to Worcester on June 19. Plus Campbell and Anthony already have long term contracts. And rookie starters Early and Tolle are active right now. My point is that I do not think the Sox have underused their rookies this season.

I think John Henry opted out of arms races after the 2019 season when the Sox highest payroll in MLB didn't make it to the postseason. Plus fixing the 2019 pitching was going to cost even more. This year the Sox payroll is 12th highest in MLB, but that was/is enough to spend big on Bregman, Crochet, and Chapman--plus Buehler, Yoshida, Story, and Giolito, all of whom are around the $20M/year salary.

Absolutely was not on Cora who in fact was instrumental in getting the one win, 5-4 in 10 innings, with his adept handling of both the bullpen and the lineup substitutions. Last night was as much Story's fault (2 errors, 2 unearned runs) as Bello's. Plus of course the weak hitting. And the game 1 loss, 1-2, was entirely about the weak hitting. I still think Anthony going on the IL Sep 3 was a crucial loss. The pitching has been this team's mainstay all season long, but you still need to score runs, and without Anthony the Sox lineup has struggled. And that's despite the fact that Story has been incredible in September with an OPS of 1.023!!! The Cora baiters on talksox remind of the Francona baiters of yesteryear when every single loss was entirely his fault.

Exactly. Well said.

It's why they call themselves the Athletics and not the Sacramento Athletics.

He certainly has in September.

He has indeed. I think the DWAR guys screwed him with a +0.4 when he leads all MLB SS's in assists and is 2d in PO's. His June, July, and August OPS's were all over .800 and in September it's .952.

Horrible 1st by Bello, who obviously wasn't ready to pitch the 1st in which he threw a bunch of meatballs.

The A's took advantage of Bello throwing a lot of pitches right down the middle.

You seriously saw not a smidgen of irony in my conclusion, especially when I have defended Cora til the cows come home?

Gotcha. I left out Casas because his OPS for 29 games was .580 and his WAR was -0.9. I thought my real point--that Sox injuries played huge part in their struggles this season--and that Cora actually has done a good job with his lineups. The loss of Devers and then Anthony were major. I think he also did a great job with the pitching staff.

To play 75% of a MLB 162 game schedule you need to play in 121 games (rounded down from 121.5). Right now the Sox have 3 players--Duran, Story, and Rafaela--who have played in 148, 148, and 146 games. No other Sox players will get to 121. No other AL team has just 3 players assured of playing in 75% of the games. The Jays, Yankees, Tigers, Astros, and Guardians, all have 6 or more players sure of playing in 75%. And the Mariners have 5 who, however, have played in 151, 150, 149, 148, and 130 games All 5 are very likely to play in at least 85% of the Guardians games. Here are the names and OPS's of 6 Sox players not playing in 75% (121 games or more) of the Sox games: Devers .905, Refsnyder .863, Anthony .859, Gonzalez .821, Bregman .820, Abreu, .811, The top 3 OPS's will all finish having played in less than 50% of the Sox games this season. I think it's pretty obvious that Cora gets the blame for the lack of good hitting on the Sox. He simply didn't play his best guys.

Great bunt. Pitch was high but Narvaez persevered.

Wrong again on this game and on Cora and Bregman. While I think the Sox are still very much in the hunt for the postseason, the hitting scares me.

Agree.