Maxbialystock

Let me restate my thesis as simply as possible. I think the Rays have proven that big salaries aren't necessary to build a truly superb MLB team. On the other hand, big salaries do seem to affect attendance favorably. Try this on for size. Last year at this time the Sox were unbelievable losers, but the current Sox are 20-14. But which team had the better attendance? Last year's. They also had Bogey and, for 94 games, Trevor Story.

Right now Sale has 3 of the Sox 6 quality starts. He is the ace. After Sale are--in order of innings pitched to date-- Houck, Pivetta, Kluber, Crawford, Bello, Whitlock, and Paxton. As it turns out, three of them--Crawford, Whitlock, and Paxton--are still on the IL and therefore unavailable.

I did watch it and that's an excellent synopsis. Right now the Sox pitching staff has 6 "quality starts," and Sale has 3 of them. He is the ace. He has found his old fastball and used it heavily in the early innings.

Very good win.

Jansen hit his spots against that last Philly hitter, Trea Turner, the $300M man. He sure hits like a $300M player.

Agree completely. He throws a slider every 3 or 4 years, and that was the perfect time to do so.

Kyle Schwarber looked like a complete idiot in that at bat. Thank goodness he did.

That wasn't a strike, but he'll take it.

Jansen has one pitch, and he can't throw a strike.

Devers is making up for all those errors he didn't make earlier. Horrible time for an error, but Bryce Harper bailed him out.

Does anyone have the specifics on that too much time called third strike on Turner?

Good fifth for Sale. Good focus. The home plate ump is still an *******.

The Sox need to focus on execution and not that ******* behind the plate. This especially applies to Sale.

I swear this ump is favoring Wheeler big time. He gave him a strike on a pitch way outside. Should have been ball four.

Maybe Youk needs to keep in mind that one of the best color guys ever was the one Vin Scully used with the Dodgers.

So far the home plate ump has definitely favored Wheeler, who got two strikes on balls just outside the zone, over Sale, who got a ball--which should have been strike three--on a pitch that definitely hit the strike zone.

Heckuva game so far--1 1/2 innings. Both pitchers look tough.

Tapia RF Yoshida LF Turner DH Devers 3B Duran CF Hernandez SS Casas 1B Valdez 2B Wong C Verdugo is reportedly sick--despite the absolutely gorgeous weather the Sox have had at Fenway.

Interesting about the Sox LH line-up. Cora has used a lot of lefty bats all season long. I like this pitching matchup because I think Sale is pretty close to the good Sale we remember. On the other hand, the Sox have a losing road record and the Phillies have a winning home record. So this is a good test.

Maybe I get your point better than you do. What we have seen--by our own Sox as well as most recently by the Blue Jays--is lousy execution in the field, especially on defense. In the Sox series at the Trop, to me the Rays looked completely professional at bat, pitching, on the basepaths, and on defense. The Sox did not. In fact, far from it. On the other hand, I think you are dead wrong if you believe the hitting and pitching stink because they don't. As moonslav suggests, that's probably where the emphasis is right now in developing young players. It isn't just that velocity is up, but that almost every pitcher seems to be working on and even using new breaking stuff. Even Sale is using a cut fastball he didn't use before--to go with his 4-seamer, changeup, and slider. Too bad he can' throw a splitter or a big curve. And the hitters by and large have found ways of hitting this improved pitching. Getting rid of the shifts helped. My suspicion is that home plate umps favor the batters over the pitchers. The 20 second clock on pitchers has probably helped the hitters. But back to your point, which I think is a good one. Lousy defense is not good baseball, but players get away with it if they can hit or if they are the last guy available for that position.

I like Cora even with the stealing signs scandal with the Astros. Let's not forget that the Sox indulged in that little game, with Pedroia in the lead and actually proud of it. There can be no doubt that successful sign-stealing--or it's perfectly legal counterpart, being able to real a pitcher's face/hands/arms/body/etc to determine what he is about to throw--gives the hitter a huge advantage. It (sign-stealing) should be combatted/outlawed--as in fact it is. I also like Bloom, mostly because he is the polar opposite of DD. DD defenders rightfully point out that he brought the Sox not only their 4th WS in the JH era, but probably the Sox best team ever. He did that mostly by buying pitchers--Sale, Price, Eovaldi, Kimbrel, and one or two others. And he could do it because the Sox had a lot of good positions players like Betts, Bogaerts, Devers (first year)Benintendi, Holt, JBJ, etc. JDM was a terrific addition by DD to replace the retired Ortiz at DH. On the other hand, that exact same Sox team, so great in 2018, collapsed in 2019. Not the hitting, most of which came up through the Sox system, but the pitching DD convinced JH to pay top dollar for. So out went DD--also Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers because they were now vastly overpriced. Much was made of the Dodgers winning the 2020 World Series with Mookie, but I find that laughable, given the effect covid had on that season, including players and teams. One year later, 2021, the Sox, with Verdugo sort of replacing Mookie, the Sox made it to the ALCS despite having literally no closer and not much of a rotation. The Dodgers had a lot of high-priced talent that couldn't even win one game in the postseason. Last year, 2022, they lost 3 games to 1 to the Padres in the NLDS. On the other hand, there is what I call the show biz aspect of MLB. You need names to put butts in seats, and the Sox have been slow to recover their pre-covid attendance, which in 2018 was 35,747 and in 2019 was 36,105. This year so far (and the weather has been lousy) it's 30,763. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are filling seats and lead MLB in attendance @ 47,982. The Phillies, now with DD spending freely, are 4th in MLB in attendance with 38,544. Last year they were 16th with 28,459. The Sox are playing pretty good baseball right now, but lack star power, of which Verdugo, Wong, Duran, Yoshida, Turner, Story, Duvall, Chang, Kluber, Winckowski, Schreiber, Crawford, et al have little to none. Devers is our one star who actually delivers. Sale, once a star, is for now a project.

To me the argument about Kike vs. Arroyo is kind of silly because it's obvious right now that neither is a key to this team's successful season to date. They're mostly placeholders for Story, Chang, whoever. That doesn't mean I'm not rooting for them to play/hit well, but so far both have been disappointments.

They changed quickly because it's still early in the season. Nevertheless, your drum beating is completely justified. No one of us saw this coming. Maybe a little early for dancing in the streets, but I'm doing it in my study. Anyone who picked the Sox to have a winning season in the preseason poll--I think there are three of you--should boast and brag. Next up, three in Philly.

Boy, are you missing the point. First and foremost, never ever look a gift horse in the mouth. Given our expectations for this season, we should be dancing in the streets and the least of our worries should be why are we so lucky. Second, there have been very few Sox teams, especially in the JH era, that did not rely heavily on hitting to win games. That doesn't mean anyone expected the hitting to be this good--no one did--but hitting is what Sox teams do. Indeed, the lousy pitching is pretty close to what was expected. Third, the pitching is not hopeless, or at least not as hopeless as we expected. The bullpen actually looks pretty good. And the rotation just might be coming around. Chris Sale, for example, leads the Sox in earned runs given up, but right now he looks as though he has turned a corner because in 2 of his last 3 starts he pitched a total of 12.1 innings with just 2 ER's plus 16 K's and 2 walks. Kluber pitched a combined 11.1 innings in his two last starts with 4 ER's, 7 K's, and 2 BB's. Bello shows promise and went 5 innings tonight giving up 2 ER's. The start before against Cleveland, 5 innings, 1 ER, and another win. Pivetta and Houck ain't great, but they are gamers and lead the Sox in innings pitched. Both have positive WAR's of +0.2, which no other Sox starters have. Lurking in the background are Whitlock, Crawford, and Paxton, all of whom have started and can step up if Cora needs them.

Much better with the radio guys because they give you great insights and narrative of the 5th inning while the Sox are playing the 7th inning.