Maxbialystock

You are probably right, but I think he should--depend more on the breaking stuff than on that worthless fast ball of his.

Hmm. Public enemy #1 on talksox, the worst player in Sox history--according to all of you--just hit the go ahead dinger.

Thanks.

Heckuva, heckuva ball game. Too bad no one else on talksox is watching it. Instead, the usual bellyaching about anything and everything. I think the big change in Pivetta is he's throwing a lot of breaking balls and throwing them well. Clean 7th inning.

Any report on Sale?

Everyone remember the bad throw by Devers last night followed by the three so-called unearned runs? I like Turner a lot, but I think Casas catches that throw and gets the 3d out.

Not good. Hopefully Sale is just sick and not hurt. But I'm proud of him. Absolutely no quitter. In fact--and even though I'm really p.o.'d at the weak hitting--I'm kind of proud of our Sox tonight because of Sale's pitching and the defensive effort. Duran actually banged his head against the centerfield wall and I can't remember the last time I saw a Sox outfielder do that. Great throw by Dugo and just as great a play at the plate by Wong. As for the hitting, the Reds have a monster on the mound with that fastball and slider.

Excellent at bat by Casas.

Dream on

turn the sound off.

Verdugo RF Devers 3B Turner DH Yoshida LF Duran CF Hernandez SS Casas 1b Wong C Valdez 2B

That is guaranteed to no one.

Exactly.

You guys still don't get it. Yes, certainly, Bello only went 4 innings because he control/command sucked. On the other hand, he showed a ton of heart and gave up just 1 run in 4 innings. You guys need to go back and look at all those starts by Sale, Kluber, Houck, Pivetta, Paxton, and even Bello in which they gave up a bunch of runs early and made it really hard for the Sox to come back. Put it this way. Which would you rather have, a starter who went 5 innings and gave up 4-5 runs or 4 innings and 1 run?

No promises needed. Use what ever voice/perspective you prefer.

June is bustin' out all over Sale vs. Greene, lefty vs. righty Sale has his work cut out for him. Same old stinky defense. The same frightening bullpen that blew that magnificent 8 inning, 1 run start he had May 13. Last night Crawford and Winck both got hit hard. And Sox hitting that sure looks inconsistent to me.

Thanks everyone for the discussion on salaries. Fascinating and insightful. My two cents is that John Henry had a change of heart when the 2018 WS Sox (108 regular season wins) completely collapsed in 2019. So he fired DD and brought in Chaim Bloom, probably with guidance not to spend major bucks long term on starters. He also decided not to keep Mookie Betts and more recently Xander Bogaerts. However you want to define it, JH wanted a new approach and that's what he is getting. Let's not forget that through last year the Sox were paying all of Chris Sale's contract and half of David Price's--without getting a nickel's worth of performance. Plus not getting much from Story. This year, as someone else said, the Sox team salary is right in the middle, 15th. That seems pretty low until you discover that the Rays and Orioles are paying a ton less than the Sox for players and getting way better results. And, as noted by someone, the Sox are 0-8 against the NL Central, all of whose team salaries (except the Cubs, whom the Sox haven't played) are lower than the Sox. So I buy both arguments/cases presented: 1) Bloom and company need to make smarter deals and, as moonslav insists, build up that 40 man roster, and 2) they are also likely to start spending again because, guess what, they can afford to.

I agree the Sox attendance is down this year because of poor play last year. Same goes for 2018, the Sox best season ever, but the attendance for 2019--36,106--was actually higher than for 2018--35,747. I went to back to 2004 when the 86 year curse ended and found that the peak years started in 2008--37,632--after the second WS win. It stayed above 37,500 for five straight years--helped, the story goes, by a little padding (free tickets) by Sox management. It dropped in 2013 and stayed below 37,000 in 2014, the year after that unreal 3d WS win. And it hasn't returned to 37,000, let alone 37,700 in any season since 2013. Covid hit in 2020, but at the same time John Henry made the decision to stop paying top dollar, especially for starters. The MLB standard for attendance belongs to the Dodgers, and in 2022 they averaged their normal, pre-covid attendance of 47,671. The Sox, who in 2021 made it to the ALCS (where they lost to Houston), averaged 32,408. I think 32,000 is the new normal attendance for the Sox and it could drop further than that from a combination of not very good teams on the field and an absence of marquee players. I am absolutely not an expert on this topic, however.

Which speaks volumes and explains low attendance this season, which is lower than last season.

I know. Poor baby. No wonder he gave up that dinger--his own defense disrespected him.

Agree. But we got there completely on merit. No bad luck involved.

I have to say this again about last night. The Sox big rally depended heavily on the Reds dragging out their worst relievers once they had the 8-0 lead and then again in the 9th when they had a 9-3 lead. Tonight we saw the lineup that has been struggling since May 21. We again saw the lousy defense. We again saw a pretty good start--5 IP, 1 run but Paxton. And we again saw a putrid bullpen. How bad is the bullpen capable of being? How about screwing up Sale's 8 IP, 1 run masterpiece. How about Jansen back to back absolutely horrendous blown saves? I would be wrong if I didn't also say there have been games when the hitters hit, the bullpen preserved wins, the starters had quality starts, and/or even the defense made good plays. The problem is that these Sox do nothing consistently well. Plug one leak, another one shows up. Tonight everything stunk except Paxton's 5 inning start, which still gave the bullpen 4 innings to give away runs, the defense 4 innings to make the Big Error, and the lineup 12 outs to roll over and play dead.

Box score says all three runs charged to Winckowski are unearned--thanks to Devers' error.

Meh. Winck is the best in the bullpen, but he stunk tonight too. And of course it's crucial to hold back Jansen.

All good. But not Tapia's first two freaking swings.