Maxbialystock

We can only hope.

Exactly what the NESN radio guys said.

One more time. While I too was outraged by what happened tonight, I have to remind everyone that baseball is a sport, played and umpired by humans. Nobody on the field gets to look at the rectangle defining the strike zone. That doesn't prevent me from getting pissed off at bad calls, but then I remember the rectangle is not real. In this case neither the bad strike call nor the two ejections in the 3d inning prevented the Sox from winning a close game. In fact, the radio guys were saying that winning this game after the ejections might be a turning point.

This is like the 5th time I've listened to the radio announcers and I think they are terrific. They stay focused on the game and have a lot of good comments, stats, etc. More important is that these 2 wins vs the Mets could be the beginning of the big turnaround if only because both wins were pretty amazing--and the pitching, especially the bullpen, was great in both games. The defense, even with Campbell in CF, Hamilton at 2b, and Sogard at 1b, was excellent tonight. Also neat: 4 double plays in these 2 games. Hamilton looks way better than Campbell at 2b. I have beat up on Breslow a lot, but I do think he is an improvement over CB. If the Sox play as well as we think they can, Breslow gets a lot of credit for Bregman, Crochet, and Narvaez.

Did you read my massive reverse mojo on the first page?

Probably. I think his rage at the ump was honest, but I think he also likes to give Vazquez opportunities to show what he can do.

Classic.

Probably not, but Skenes youth and two very good seasons make him pretty valuable. And the Sox aren't knee deep in quality starters.

Sox were flat lucky last night and have absolutely no chance to win tonight. Completely outclassed. A bunch of losers. Plus Cora is back. 50-1, Mets.

Mays' career total was 156 and Ruth's was 162, if that's what you mean. I would not object if anyone chose Ruth over Mays, but I still go with the five tool player.

He has batted 9th all season and is 6th in rbi's, 4th in runs scored, and tied for 4th in WAR with 1.7. He is tied for the MLB lead in DWAR (1.1) among centerfielders. He is 24 and should be pretty useful until age 31 or so, which is when the wheels came off for JBJ. Jimmy Piersall, the Sox centerfielder who famously said, "I should get double my salary because I have to cover left field as well as center field," was pretty solid from age 23 (WAR 3.2) through age 31 (WAR 4.8). I remember listening to the pregame, circa 1954, when Piersall and Willie Mays had a throwing contest from CF to home plate. Jimmy was 24 and Willie 23. 1954 was the first year Mays' WAR was 10 or higher. He did that six times and had 3 seasons at 9.2, 9.5, and 9.0. When he was 39 he had 28 stolen bases. He hit 660 dingers. He was awarded 12 gold gloves. He was the greatest MLB player ever.

A belated thank you.

A fair article and a good analysis of Houck's issues and the available remedies/roles for him.

It's beyond question that JBJ's playing time depended heavily on his hitting. He started the 2014 season (after Ellsbury went to the Yankees) in CF, and his hitting was so bad he was sent back to Pawtucket. That happened at least twice in 2014. However, in August he started to hit and stayed in Boston, ending up with 127 games and an OPS of .531, but an overall WAR of +0.7. Then came an OPS of .832 in 2015, .835 in 2016, .726 in 2017, .717 on the 2018 Sox, the best team in Sox history, .738 in 2019, and .814 in 2020. So to me he had 6 pretty good seasons, 2015 thru 2020 (even though I regard 2020 as a nonseason). His WAR's for those seasons were +2.2, +5.7, +3.4, +2.5, +2.1, and +2.0. After 2020, the wheels came off and JBJ had negative WAR's in 2021, 2022, and 2023. For reference, here are Ellsbury's OPS's when he was being paid $23M/year with the Yankees: 2014, 3.6; 2015, 1.7; 2016, 2.6, and 2017, 1.7.

Tonight was a fantastic win given who started for the Mets and that the Sox knew, going in, they could not let Dobbins face the Mets lineup a 3d team. So he needed to be good, as did the bullpen. Plus the Sox had to score 3 runs off a pitcher who gave up 3 runs total in his last 6 games and 39.2 IP. Tomorrow it's Buehler, just off the IL (but has 3 quality starts in 6 games) against Holmes, who has 3 quality starts in 9 games. Gonzalez is still feeling discomfort and could be out another week. So Sogard is likely to play 1b again.

Meh. It was Cora who set things up for tonight by using just one reliever last night. In his first two seasons with the Sox he managed the best Sox team ever (108 wins, 11-3 in the postseason) with pretty close to the same players Farrell had the year before when he won 93 games and lost again in the ALDS. The Sox had a winning record in 2019, but underperformed because the pitching collapsed. Then came the 2020 nonseason. In 2021, despite the losses of Betts, Price, Sale, Kimbrel and others from the 2018 crew, the Sox won 92 games. Then, without a closer, the Sox beat the Yankees in the wild card and the 100 win Rays in the ALDS, and lost to the Astros in the ALCS, 4 games to 2. In the most recent 4 seasons (2022 thru 2025), the Sox pitching has been ranked 25th, 21st, 17th, and now 20th in team ERA. In the three WS seasons Sox team ERA's were ranked 11th in 2004, 2d in 2007, and 14th in 2013. I think those more recent ERA rankings reflect JH's reluctance to pay big money for great starters, which he was willing to do for Price and Sale and others. Thus did Eovaldi, a player DD signed in midseason of 2018, leave the Sox when he asked for "too much money." On this Sox team, we have two players, Story and Yoshida, who are performing below their $140M and $105M pay packages--the result of CB. Plus on this team we are missing Sale, who was given away by Breslow--along with his first year's salary with the Braves (where he won the Cy Young)-- and replaced him with Giolito ($40M for 2 years), who has been a disaster. Despite the above recitation, I agree managers are hired to be fired. But I definitely think Cora is a keeper.

Maybe because there ain't no Bailey on the team.

Agree. He played 144 games in CF for the 2018 team (best Sox team ever) and had the 5th best WAR on that team.

I'm not listening (but had to on the radio feed, which I think is excellent) to any complaints about failure to hit with RISP, of which there was a lot. The Sox pitching was excellent, and the hitters scored 3 runs off of a tough Kodai Sengai, His ERA was 1.43 going into tonight's game, and he gave up 3 runs total in his last 6 games and 39.1 innings pitched. Also, good defense--especially the 3 double plays. Watching the Sox pitchers was like watching the perils of Pauline, so a good thing the Mets were 1/8 with RISP. The radio team hammered the point that no way, no how would the Sox allow Dobbins to go through the Mets lineup a 3d time--and that's exactly what happened. He left with 2 outs in the 5th and the Mets leadoff man, Lindor, coming to bat. Baseball is full of surprises.

In May, all things are still possible. Perhaps unlikely, but possible.

Good points. Plus Hamilton is good on the bases. Given that a whole bunch of us want Mayer to be moved up to Boston, Hamilton's solid play makes that harder to do.

Might be worth trying.

Probably true. Nevertheless, to me Cora's support of Devers is why he might have his best season yet as a hitter.

I'm astounded. Someone else who just might agree Cora was right about Devers and Breslow was not.

I'm sure you're right. But right now we don't know what Yoshida's status is. Plus, frankly, I'd rather have Devers as the DH--in the tradition of Ortiz and JDM. I'm convinced that DD made two great moves after the 2017 season to enable the 2018 season. First, he dumped both Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez. And second he brought in a terrific DH, JDM, who I am convinced made the whole lineup better. Maybe the two best hitters in the history of MLB--Babe Ruth and Ted Williams--were the practical equivalent of DH's because their defense was so-so at best. I think they put Ruth in RF because he still had a great arm. Williams got LF because he didn't have the great arm, plus he spent most of his time in the outfield thinking about hitting.