Maxbialystock

This is pretty close to what I've been saying (too often). JH has reacted strongly to all the stupid acquisitions, including some (Price and Sale) made by DD. The 2019 Sox roster had most of the terrific players from the 2018 best Sox team ever and the highest payroll in MLB. But, because of the collapse of the pitching--the 2019 Sox were ranked 19th in MLB in team ERA--they didn't make the playoffs. Even worse, if the Sox wanted to stay competitive, they would have to spend a lot more than the highest payroll in MLB. Mookie was a free agent and eager to get major dollars, which the Dodgers were happy to give him. Sale and Price, getting big bucks for being worthless on the mound, needed to be replaced with two more high-price arms. And so on. Enter Chaim Bloom, apparently with restrictions on what he could spend on pitchers. Specifically, no long term big buck contracts which have become almost the norm for the best starters. Inevitably, I think, CB was fired. Enter Breslow with, I believe, similar guidance to that given to CB: no big contracts for starters. Plus I am almost certain the Sox brain trust, probably with input from JH himself, was more than happy to make the Sale deal with the Braves, including paying them $17M this season when Sale has re-emerged as the old Sale. Thus too the $38M for 2 years of Giolito, 1 year of which is already shot. Thus the humungous irony of this 2024 season in which the Sox rotation is the best in a long time. The Sox team ERA if 5th best in MLB over halfway into the season. And their aggregate salaries (for Houck, Crawford, Pivetta, Bello, Criswell, and Winck) are less than the $16M closer Jansen is being paid!!! One more time. Without Sale and without Giolito, the Sox pitching is vastly improved from last year and even better than the 2018 team ERA, 3.75, ranked 8th. That year Price was paid $30M, Porcello $21M, Sale $12M, and Pomeranz $9M. And let's not forget that before the semi-disaster of the 2019 season, JH was more than willing to pay big bucks for all kinds of players, not just pitchers. Remember the disaster of the 2012 season? Sox payroll was 3d highest in MLB. JH is easily the best owner the Sox have ever had, but there can be no question he has relied on his brain trusts over the years. They not only brought 4 WS (after 86 barren seasons), but the best Sox team ever, 2018. I think in 2019 he just got tired of shelling out big bucks for players who failed badly. Don't forget that early on he hired Bill James, the author of sabermetrics and a believer that you don't need a massive payroll to produce a winning team.

I have my doubts about Casas's return, but no hard evidence he won't.

Fine. The soxprospects write-up says he's great at SS defensively. Someone else can play 3b if Cora decides to move Devers to, day, 1b.

Good of you to defend Sale, but in game 5 of the 2018 WS Price was the starter. Sale started game 1 of the ALDS and beat the Yankees, pitching 5.1 innings and giving up 2 runs.

Also, please, please start the next game thread.

Seriously? Why? That's an honest question because I just assumed that the green monster favors righty bats.

Perfect timing. In this series the Sox are facing the Royals 3 best starters.

Some nights, the bear gets you. The Royals simply outplayed our guys--better pitching, better hitting, better fielding.

Agree. Early in the game he did throw some fat pitches, which the Sox did nothing with. Then he got sharper--and he has a good repertoire.

He's arguably the best manager in MLB and he would like to see a full house rooting for the Sox. I don't think the crowd has much effect, and this year it seems pretty obvious that the Sox have weak righty bats in a home ballpark that favors righty bats.

This is Wong's 4th game catching in 4 days.

Followed immediately by Abreu, Duran, and O'Neill all striking out. Some lineup we have. This could be a Royals sweep.

2 on, no outs, bottom of the 8th.

I agree he did not "pitch well," but he showed a ton of heart. Like a bunch of other guys on this team, Criswell is minimum wage. And you know as well as everybody else, even me, that Criswell is not middle of the order. The first four right now are Houck, Caldwell, Pivetta, and Bello. This was Criswell's 12th start. 5 games ago it was Winck, who gave up 3 in 3.2 IP to the Yankees--after which, the deluge. The Yankees scored 14.

Right, got it. The Sox are losing tonight because we have a dumb manager.

"This bum" threw a quality start tonight: 6 IP, 2 ER. The other 3 Royals runs were from Gonzalez's error and all unearned.

After 6 innings we have reconfirmed that the Sox can't hit lefty starters. Duran and Devers, both all-stars this year, looked worse against Ragans in their third at bats than in their first two. And we have been reminded that a fatal error is almost normal with this team.

Now Devers does what Duran did, only this pitch was in the middle of the righty batter's box.

In his third at bat vs. Ragans in this game, Duran struck out on a pitch way, way outside and in the dirt. In hit/bounced on the line of the righty batter's box. This is an all-star player?

What makes this game too typical is that the lineup--and not the freaking pitching!!!!--has been flat on their butts. Thanks to Gonzalez, the Sox lineup has given up 2 more runs than they have scored.

Criswell, having thrown 102 pitches already, is out there trying to eat one more inning for his team. Whoa, nellie. Criswell has now officially thrown/pitched/survived a quality freaking start--2 ER in 6 IP!!!! The fault, dear talksox fans, is not in the pitching staff, but in the lineup, that they are underlings.

Wow. Are you serious? Grissom isn't pitching this season? What happened? This is just terrible news. Meanwhile, without Grissom and without Sale, this is the best Sox pitching staff in a long time--better even--so far--than the 2018 WS champion Sox.

Ahem. The box score says that Criswell pitched 5 innings and gave up 2 ER. That's not too shabby. Too bad the lineup (Gonzalez) made the error that led to the 3 unearned runs in the 2d inning. Meanwhile, the woebegone "righty" Sox lineup has, in addition to making the big error, scored 1 run also in 5 innings. Sad to say, despite Criswell being a weak starter, the problems have been with the lineup, who so far tonight can't field and can't hit.

Royals are going with their 3 best starters--Ragans, Lugo, and Singer--in this series, so I have to give them the edge even though the Sox are 8-2 in their last 10 and the Royals 5-5. However, if the Sox win tonight with Criswell going against lefty Ragans, I would favor the Sox to win the series. So, make no mistake, I will be rooting like crazy for the Sox tonight.

Against lefty Ragans, 5-6, ERA 3.38, 138K, the Sox are again going with 6 righties. In parentheses are OPS's vs lefties: Ref RF (.934) Duran LF (.628) O'Neill DH (1.108) Devers 3b (.702) Wong C (.920) Gonzalez 1b (.796) Westbrook 2b (.782) Rafaela CF (.775) Hamilton SS (.431)