Maxbialystock

There might in fact be "no point in guessing how many games a team will win" but it's still kind of irresistable. So I voted for the losing record and am delighted I was/am probably wrong.

I wouldn't have brought Pivetta out for the 7th inning at all because he was so terrible in the 6th. But I also don't like Bernardino, especially not coming in with men on 2d and 3d. To your point, however, Muncy hits righties a whole lot better than lefties, so Bernardino would have a better chance getting him out. All that said, I think your take on the game is excessive. The Dodgers made the two errors and the Sox made none. And I believe very strongly that Cora was right to pull Crawford with 2 on and no one out in the 6th. While I'm willing to grant you Bernardino was a better choice to face Muncy in the 7th, the real issue is that Pivetta stunk tonight and so did Schreiber--and Bernardino was lucky to emerge from 8th unscathed. The two big factors in this game were: 1) the Dodgers pitching was effective when it needed to be because the Sox had 14 hits plus 2 Dodger errors helping them and only scored 4 stinking runs because they were 1 for 8 with RISP; 2) the Sox bullpen also stunk, giving up 4 runs in 4 innings.

Actually, the Sox bullpen has stunk tonight. Bernardino was lucky because he walked a guy and still got two very hard hit line drives that were caught for outs. Pivetta stunk, Bernardino was lucky, and Schreiber has stunk. The Dodgers bullpen has pitched two scoreless innings. The Sox have 13 hits and have scored 4 measly runs. No surprise they are 1 for 8 with RISP.

Maybe, maybe not. He threw 331 pitches this month before tonight. In April he threw 469 pitches, May 445, June 191, and July 429. He threw 74 pitches 5 days ago and 15 two days ago.

Oh, stop it. While he does make some effort to--in today's lingo--"control the strike zone," the fact is that he has often been an excellent bad pitch hitter and recently got a dinger off a pitch well below the strike zone. And on some days, call them bad hair days, I've seen him swing and miss at fastballs right down the freaking middle.

I think Cora was dead right to pull Crawford, but also wrong to live Pivetta in there forfreakingever. In 2 innings he gave up 3 doubles, 2 walks, and a single and did his level best to give the Dodgers this game. Also, yesterday was actually a day off for the bullpen because Bello went 7 and Llovera the other 2.

Oh, come on. He has held Crawford to a max of 90 pitches, and he had 86 and was clearly "done" with two straight hits--hard hit double and hard hit single-- to start off the 6th inning. The problem is Pivetta has been a freaking disaster and is still in there.

I do get apple+, but I also agree with you completely. Unfortunately, you've reminded me of something. The standard line from baseball writers and commentators is that those gargantuan salaries for players are completely affordable because the owners are all billionaires and can afford big salaries. My take is that, while some billionaires may choose that route (see the Mets ownership), others, like John Henry, actually want their teams to show a profit. So, when the salaries go up, and the average MLB salary does increase every freaking year, MLB owners and MLB headquarters feel compelled to increase the cost of watching a game via ticket prices, concessions, parking, and, oh, yes, those people who've already paid for their season tickets via mlb.com/tv. So they just resell a few of those games to Apple and those other guys who took a game--which I couldn't get--a week or two ago. So, don't kid yourself. When the big guys throw the big money around, us little guys get the bill.

I can think of 2 reasons for Yoshida over Abreu. First one is the green monster, which Abreu has never had to contend with before on defense and Yoshida has. The other one is that Yoshida has faced Lynn before, 2 months ago at Fenway when the White Sox came to town. He was hitless, but he has seen Lynn before.

Let's see now. Fangraphs claims to use FIP, "fielding independent pitching," in their fWAR ratings for pitchers. It somehow manages to exclude the unfairly poor fielding of the team a given pitcher belongs to (and suffers from) And everyone on Talksox agrees the Sox fielding this year is execrable and therefore unfairly drags Bello and other Sox pitchers down. So how is it possible that plain old WAR, which unfairly includes the effects of terrible Sox fielding, ranks Bello as the 9th best starter in MLB, and fWAR, which claims to exclude the effects of bad fielding, ranks Bello 59th?

That's actually a perfectly reasonable scenario, especially given that Duran's sore foot coincides with his slump. Abreu looked awful a couple of games ago in RF, and since then his hitting has been great and is defense OK. I do agree 6 outfielders in September would make sense. But here's one I just can't figure out--Garza. He's been on the roster a long time, but he has not in fact thrown a single pitch in a game in over a month!!!!!! His last pitch was in that debacle vs. the Mets on July 22 when he gave up 3 ER's in 0.2 innings. And remember, that is with a manager who will send anybody out to the mound if for no other reason than to confirm his inability to pitch at the MLB level. Thus Garza's outing on July 22. So why oh why is Garza still on the 26 man roster??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously? Are you unaware that Bello is currently the 9th best starter in MLB (according to his WAR rating of +3.5)?

I didn't like Vaz, and I like Wong a whole bunch. Plus I like McGuire as backup. As for Abreu, he's just plain good news so far--and a bonus to go along with getting rid of Vazquez.

Whattalotta. Seriously, I don't care whether you think MLB players should have been getting tons of crucial reps when they were freaking 9-12 years old. In fact, the funny thing is that the players coming from the Caribbean probably do get a ton of reps at an early age. On the other hand, it's just remotely possible that innate ability has something to do with how good a fielder is and how accurate his throws are. I hasten to add that, if a player has that innate ability, the overall baseball system (t ball to little league to high school to college or minor leagues to MLB) as it exists today will give him all the reps and coaching he needs to excel on the diamond. And there's something else we can't ignore. "Good field, no hit" is the usual phrase to describe a baseball player who ain't going to The Show. In other words, if you can hit, you can play. If you can't, you can't. And that's only a slight exaggeration. Right now a player named Marcelo Mayer is "languishing" (I'm exaggerating) at AA Portland, not because he isn't an excellent fielding SS, but because he can't (yet) hit AA pitching.

I agree I'm making a big deal out of it. It was just a foul popup and in fact, had it not been caught, Whitlock might well have gotten that batter out some other way. But it was the 7th inning of a tie ball game against the Astros who dominated the Sox in games 1 and 2. And the Astros were threatening with men on 1st and 2d with just one out. That foul pop was a key opportunity to get an out, but Wong, who is usually on top of things, didn't know where it went. So Whitlock made an extraordinary effort to catch that pop up, which is completely out of character for almost every pitcher in MLB. They all routinely stay away from popups as just not their cup of tea. Let the infield/catcher handle it. I would add that this was a game that had to be won even though the Sox could still founder in their quest to pass the Astros, Jays, and/or Mariners for the 3d wild card slot. This one play demonstrated--to me, anyway--that at least one player on the Sox really cares about winning and had the presence of mind to do exactly the right thing on the spur of the moment. That he is a pitcher is nothing less than extraordinary.

Says the man with 60K posts. Riiiigggghhhhtttt.

Meh. It was very much a once in a lifetime thrill because these days defense by pitchers is underemphasized. I can remember regular occasions when ERod was late covering first base on grounders to the right side. What I loved about Whitlock last night was that he cared enough to give that one play his very best effort. In fact, the first thing he did was point to where the ball was because Wong was mistakenly heading for the infield, away from where the ball was going. Then, when Whitlock realized he had the best chance to get the ball, he sprinted and finally dove to catch it. He really wanted that out in what was a very tight game. I think Casas tends to be casual about fielding grounders, but on this play he ran quite a distance to maybe catch it, but slowed down when he saw Whitlock was closer.

He's got imperfections but is very much worth defending--as you and dipre have done so ably.

I don't get you guys. When I was a kid I was absolutely thrilled to play just one short season of Babe Ruth baseball with real coaches, uniforms, a ballpark, etc. That was almost 70 years ago and I still have strong and good memories of that experience. Later our sons played little league and then high school ball, and 3 of our 4 daughters played softball and all enjoyed it--organized, with coaches, ball field, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with organized baseball/softball for kids--except when the competitive side of it can get a little out of whack, sometimes because of the parents and sometimes because of the coaches. I also love that our kids have all kinds of choices about sports they play in the various seasons.

Ahem. Devers took over the 3d base slot in 2018 even though he was 21 years old, his DWAR was -0.9, his OPS was just .731, and the 2018 Sox were in fact the best Sox team in their 123 years of existence. He's been the Sox third baseman ever since, and last year they gave him a $300M+ contract. Oh, and his DWAR this season is -0.3, which means that he costs the Red Sox 1/3 of one loss more than the average MLB thirdbaseman.

Meh. He's played in 13 games to Chang's 39 games but has a higher WAR, +0.3 to +0.1. I'm not saying he's earned his pay because he definitely has not. But I'm glad to have him back and don't miss Chang at all.

Reportedly, he is struggling with all the games and travel and different time zones--very different from Japanese baseball. His monthly OPS's: April .819; May .962; June .742; July .844; August .596. He is 3d on the team in total bases (199), 1st in fewest K's per at bats, tied for 4th in games played, 3d in rbi's, 5th in dingers, 3d in batting average, etc.

Sale didn't have his good stuff, which was evident from the outset. He tried to get by on 2 pitches, slider and 4 seamer. The changeup wasn't working and I guess neither was the cut fastball. It's cavalry. Calvary is in the Holy Land. Whitlock did his job last night, plus he made a spectacular catch which few of our defenders could have made. Very gutsy outing by Whitlock. Martin didn't have it, but luckily got through the inning unscathed. Same for Winckowski, who never should have been on the mound because Pivetta looked great in the 9th inning coming in for Jansen. Duvall had the giant hit in the 10th, but Story also had 2 hits, so right now the Sox just might have 3 pretty good righty bats in Turner, Duvall, and Story--and maybe even Reyes. However, the lefty bats right now are a tad suspect. Duran's out, but he was already in a slump. Casas is slipping back a little. Dugo stunk in July (OPS .478), but might be coming back. That said, his current OPS is .771, exactly the same as his lifetime .771. Earlier this season I claimed he was an OK replacement for Mookie, and could not have been more wrong. Wright is not the hitter others said he would be--but he's still an OK backup for Wong at catcher. Devers leads the Sox in OPS, total bases, rbi's, and dingers, but last night he didn't do squat, plus he has a lot of errors, so I guess he's still the worst thirdbaseman in Sox history. If it weren't for Devers errors and having bad nights at the plate (like last night), the Sox would be leading the AL East by 10 games.

I prefer the word hope (as dim as it is). Another word I like is grit, and I saw some tonight on defense, on the mound, and in the batter's box. Huge dinger by Duvall, of course. Given the circumstances of this game, close to the biggest hit of the season (but only if the Sox really are contenders in September). But grit really applies to Whitlock's catch, which is extraordinary for a Sox pitcher (or any pitcher, really). It was the exact opposite of the stupid play Duran made to injure himself. That dinger was unplayable.

They are replaying the grab by Whitlock, which I now believe could be the defensive play of the season, given the circumstances--must win over the Astros, a game the Sox finally won, and an absolutely fantastic effort by Whitlock.