Maxbialystock

So far the ump is on the hitters side.

Sox 0/3 with RISP.

That inside fastball worked on Anthony yesterday for strike three. It was the sixth pitch and the only he swung at.

Excellent play on Abreu's grounder.

My goodness, the NESN coverage can't stop putting the cameras on Bregman. Meanwhile Duran walks and steals 2b with Story at bat--who's out on a pop foul.

No Yoshida tonight. Instead, Rafaela goes back to CF--hooray!!--Gonzalez to 2b, Toro to 1b (boo!!) and Anthony is the DH with Duran in LF and Abreu in RF. This is pretty much the Sox best defensive team because Hamilton can't hit well enough to start at 2b. Per moonlav's instructions, Cora has moved Abreu up to 5th.

You can bet JH knows that, but he also knows it's a little too risky.

Agree on both. I liked Toro for awhile, but no longer. Gonzalez stays at 1b. and Rafaela, Hamilton or the great Grissom plays 2b.

Meh. Arguing that a single pitcher would throw 5 different pitches in the 90's reminds me of what Samuel Johnson once said about a dog walking on its hind legs--"it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it is done at all."

So name the pitcher who throws 5 of those 7 in the 90's.

I think average hitting/scoring this season--the Astros are ranked 16th in runs scored--puts a team at risk in the regular season. The winningest teams--Dodgers, Brewers, Cubs, Phillies, Tigers, and Jays--are all in the top ten in runs scored. Seattle, 10th in runs scored, is hot and just .5 behind Houston.

Love "baseball is weird sometimes." Gioliito and Bello both stunk against week-hitting San Diego, but Buehler went 6, giving up 0 runs. 10 days ago at the Fens the Sox swept the Astros while starting Criswell, Buehler, and Giolito. Houston is starting three righties. The Sox best OPS's vs righties are Bregman .894, Duran .892, Anthony .882, Abreu .831, Rafaela .732, Gonzalez .719, Story .714, Narvaez .700, and Yoshida .686 (but Yoshida's OPS in August is .822). I think that should be the lineup in whatever order Cora chooses with Rafaela at 2b and Gonzalez at 1b. Surprisingly--to me, anyway--that's only 4 lefty bats.

Love the discussion--way better than I expected. I honestly think Devers was jacked around, no doubt because of Breslow's inept communication skills. To be honest, I wanted to keep Devers and his .905 at the DH position. However, as moonslav pointed out, that's the only position Yoshida can play and he too is a lefty hitter. Thus, from March 27 thru June 15, the Sox were paying $30M + $18M for their DH. You think JH was not aware of that? He used to pay top dollar for talent, but right now I think he likes that the Sox are competitive with the 12th ranked payroll. Thus did both he and Breslow fly to KC to talk to Devers. Casas was emphatically not a huge loss--his freaking WAR was -0.9 in 29 games--but his injury gave Breslow a chance to use both Devers and Yoshida. That made sense. However, the simple fact is that the Sox have played way better baseball without Devers than they did with him. They are 11 games above .500 and the Giants, who were 12 games above .500 on June 11, are now at .500. I claim that part of the Sox success is that they finally have a pretty good defense. Forget the errors and look at the individual players' DWAR"s. Rafaela and Narvaez are both at or near the top of the heap at CF and C. Abreu almost is in RF. Duran is once again a positive outfielder, even in CF. Anthony has plus DWAR. Bregman and Story are both solid on the left side of the infield. 2b and 1b are the weak spots, but they are way better than Campbell and Casas who started there when the season started. I cite the above because moonslav likes to remind us that a bad defense has a nasty effect on the pitching. And guess what? This pitching staff has a lower team ERA than the 2018 Sox. They don't miss Devers one bit.

Great stat.

I can't remember who, but at least one or two Sox have made good bunts this season. Maybe they were fined afterward.

No one was/is going to take Yoshida at half his salary--which I'm sure the Sox have tried to do. He is a DH/PH, not an outfielder. His OPS in July was .625 but so far in August is .822. Ref DH's against lefties. Why would the Sox ever want to bring up another outfielder? Tryouts are over. The argument about bringing Grissom up vs returning Hamilton is a better case, but Grissom is a righty hitter, as is Gonzalez. End of argument. Great observations on swinging vs taking pitches, but we should not forget that the Padres have one terrific bullpen. Last night Cease went 6, giving up 0 runs. In the 7th, Duran led off with a walk and Story singled, so in came Adam in relief of Cease. Adam hit Yoshida to load the bases, but then Bogaerts booted a sure double play grounder, to bring in the only 2 Sox runs. Abreu singled to load the bases again, still with no one out. Then both Rafaela and Toro struck out badly. With Anthony coming up, lefty Morejon was brought in and struck him out on a 3-2 count with his 5th sinker which was well inside (not in the strike zone). That sixth pitch was the only one Anthony swung at. Saturday night King started for the Padres and gave up 2 runs in 2IP. Then Peralta, Estrada, Morejon, Miller, Suarez, and Adam went 8 IP giving up 2 runs.

i like this better. I'm completely in favor of bunting--sabermetrics be darned--but don't think the Sox know how to.

The oven mitt is a mixed blessing.

A balanced game. The hitting absolutely stinks, and the pitching is just short of that.

That hurt. Two very bad pitches. First the HBP, then the fast ball in the geometric center of the strike zone on an 0-2 count. Does Bello simply lose focus?

I swear Bello is the only pitcher onthe Sox with a decent changeup, which works really well. Why do the other Sox pitchers avoid changeups like they're the plague?

Good golly, miss molly, did that double play put Bello in a groove or what?

Nice grab by Duran. Oh, wait, that doesn't count because Duran drops the ball all the time.

Well it sure gets brought up on talksox a lot. Plus during games by the so called analysts who don't know spit from shinola.

That double play was a thing of beauty. More than that, it had to be hugely beneficial to Bello's state of mind after walking the first batter. The freaking total errors by the Sox are hugely misleading. This Sox team can play defense, even with Rafaela at 2b and not in CF.