Maxbialystock

Anthony is not the only Sox hitter that likes to look at called strikes.

First time up, Abreu has a man on 1b. Now he's on 2b. Abreu walks with Rafaela coming to the plate. With 1 out in the 2d King is now at 41 pitches. Bases loaded with terrible Wong coming to the plate. Second big conference by San Diego in the top of the 2d. Wong almost GIDP but safe at 1b. Bases loaded with Anthony up. Anthony K's on a pitch wildly out of the zone after looking at two strikes well inside the zone.

OK, that tears it. I've had just about enough of this wise guy Yoshida making me look bad. Love that the Padres speed merchant didn't try to go home on the liner to Abreu.

Rafaela again 2b to get lefty bats into LF, CF, and RF--plus DH Yoshida and 1b Toro. Righty bats are Bregman, Story, Rafaela, and Wong. Narvaez is still out but hopes to return tomorrow. No room for Gonzalez.

You mean the FredLynn's of the world? Not likely. If he had been on talksox for the 2018 season he would have been badmouthing everyone all season long. He does that, he claims, so that there is an alternative perspective.

Time will tell!!!!!?????? Have you not watched any games this season or even checked the standings? Oh, and when was the last time the Sox or anyone had a hot shot as their 5th freaking starter? You are nitpicking when it's clear to the rest of us Breslow has done a heckuva job--even with his mistakes.

I must take umbrage with your final "The Red Sox are starting to resemble the team the front office promised for years." There has rarely been a MLB, especially one that has finally, finally reached the amazing John Henry era (4 WS's vs the Yankees 1), who tells their fan base, "well, we're sort of rebuilding and also want to spend less on players, so, while we hope for a competitive team, don't count on it." John Henry was the key to the unsuccess of 2022-24, and he fixed it, we now see, by hiring his 5th CBO. And that has not been without risks because Breslow had no prior experience as CBO and because John Henry remains reluctant to underwrite a top tier payroll. Breslow has definitely made some mistakes--so did DD--but overall he has used the system and players both DD and Chaim Bloom provided for him, an increased budget that allowed him to go after Crochet, Chapman, and Breslow, and his own ability to identify talent.

Mookie's cumulative WAR in 6 seasons with the Sox was 42.5. With the Dodgers in 6 seasons so far it's 30.3. Plus let's not forget that the Dodgers have a bigger payroll than the Sox because they simply make more money from attendance, TV, etc. I believe that, whatever the Sox offered Mookie, the Dodgers were prepared to offer more. Agree on Devers, but with one giant caveat. That contract now belongs to the Giants. The Sox paid for 2 1/2 seasons out of 12 total. The Giants pay for the other 9 1/2.

Yoshida has never been worth his salary/contract, but we already know that. Right now he's on a team that is good at winning baseball games and has good pitching, good hitting, good defense, good baserunning, and a manager who know how to put those skills together in a lineup. That's a team Yoshida can only want to be a working part of.

I like your response better than mine. It's simpler.

Just an amazing page not about The Realistic View of the 2025 Sox. To read it, one would think the Sox are buried at the bottom of the AL East. Or they're in a losing streak. And for sure Cora and Breslow are clueless about how to manage and assemble a competitive team. I have difficulty assessing this Sox team because they have surprised the heck out of me. Given the injuries, the Sox rotation should be dead, dead, dead, but in fact they have 3 good starters and last night Buehler did an excellent job of pretending to be a 4th starter and he did it at San Diego against their ace Pivetta. 10-2, Sox. Amazing. I honestly don't think the Sox lineup has any stud hitters, but do think it's deeper than any of us expected. And of course I include the two great sinners, Story and Rafaela, who swing at bad pitches. Oh, the horror! And let's not forget the criminal offense of having 4 freaking outfielders. Despite the ineptitude of both Breslow and Cora, the Sox are ranked 4th in MLB in runs scored. Or how about this, sports fans? Our super duper catcher Narvaez has a bad knee, so Cora is using that low down, no good Wong more. He caught May's horrible debut on May 3, but also caught Buehler last night (6 IP, 0 ER), and winners Giolito and Bello on Mon and Tues. I personally have pronounced Yoshida to be one of "les incompetents" and am delighted that last night I was the incompetent one. Campbell bombed at 2b. Casas played three nanoseconds at 1b before going down yet again. Disaster? Nope. Gonzalez and Toro are both way better at 2b and 1b than Campbell, Casas, whoever. Heck, we don't even miss Mayer. Indeed, Breslow and Cora decided to bring back defensive specialist and excellent baserunner Hamilton to back up Gonzalez at 2b and Story at SS--even though he stinks at bat this year. Anyone who hasn't climbed on this year's bandwagon--and we still have a few--is too hung up on the past 3 seasons.

Absolutely true. In fact, I'm crushed because the addition of May has sent the Sox into a tailspin. Oh, wait. The Dodgers have 67 wins with the highest payroll in MLB. The Sox have 65 wins with the 12th highest.

Simple as that, heh? Baloney. One of the bedrocks of good pitching is to get hitters to go after less than ideal pitches. That goes side by side with avoiding anything right down the middle. And it helps pitchers that batters need to make split second decisions, on top of which the are trying to hit a round ball with a round bat squarely. I just took a peek at the top four OPS's in MLB--Judge, Ohtani, Schwarber, and Raleigh. Did I find they live up to your dictum of never swinging at bad pitches? Heck, no. All 4 strike out at least once a game. Then I looked at the 6 hitters with the most K's in MLB, and found that their OPS's were .816, .831, .718, .709, .991, and .967. Guess who those last 2 hitters are? Ohtani and Schwarber.

An excellent tale. As Betty Hutton once sang, you go to do what comes natcherly. We have one carping critic on talksox who comments endlessly on swinging at balls outside the strike zone as if it were the only criterion for judging hitting effectiveness. He's wrong.

Baseball in the military was mostly during WWII and the Korean War. By the 1960's it was mostly softball.

Another bon mot.

Good point.

Yeah. I think we all underestimated Buehler even though he did have 2 quality starts in July. Last night it torqued me that Pivetta got away with mostly fastballs in the 1st inning. Then that excellent curved showed up in the 2d and I was sure we were in for a long and painful night. But the Sox got to Pivetta, and Buehler's own curve ball wasn't too shabby, ditto his slider and fastball. Our two worst hitters, Yoshida and Wong, each had 2 hits and 3 rbi's. Duran ain't no Rafaela in CF, but made a couple of nice grabs. I hate Rafaela at 2b, but last night the three lefty bats in the outfield did just fine.

Meh. Everybody has injuries, even expensive ones. As it turns out--see spotrac--the Sox injured salaries total is ranked 19th in MLB.

What a great win @ San Diego!! Although Buehler was the underdog, I thought his fast ball and curve were almost as good as Pivetta's, which I did not expect. I also didn't expect the Sox to score 5 runs off Pivetta and especially that Yoshida would break out with a double and a dinger and 3 rbi's. Cora knows best. I watched the entire game although I did doze off a couple times (long day, old man).

Padres are great at home, 36-19, and the Sox are lousy on the road, 25-30, Buehler vs Pivetta makes it even worse for the Sox. Plus the West Coast thing. The one thing I disagree with Cora on is using Yoshida as the DH. I'd use any one of Anthony, Duran, or Abreu instead, leave Rafaela in CF, and keep Gonzalez at 2b and Toro at 1b. Yoshida's OPS vs righties is .533 (in 40 at bats).

Perhaps. But $130M has him and his family set for life. He will want for nothing.

Makes sense to me.

These Sox are ranked 4th in MLB in runs scored and 6th in OPS--and they are ranked 4th in MLB in K's. The Jays have the fewest K's in MLB and are ranked 5th in runs scored. Different strokes for different folks.