Maxbialystock

Interesting thought.

Nope. He threw a gopher ball to the same guy who homered in the 3d and he hit it deep. Yes, it was catchable, but ERod threw a very hittable pitch.

I not only am getting a whiff, I said it on another thread. This team is better of course, but they sure aren't playing that way. It's kind of like they're still playing at Fort Meyer and getting ready for the season to start.

I think Cora has got to learn not to trust ERod when he puts the first two men on--especially the first one he had him 0-2 and walked him--with no one out, it's a close game, he's already given up runs, and he's thrown 60 or more pitches.

Les incompetents. A matched set--hitting, pitching and fielding. Time for Casey Stengal to come onto the field and ask, "doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?"

That 3 run dinger was off a fastball right down the middle and 92 mph.

Boy, sure glad we got Pearce back in time for this game.

Didn't I read that Vazquez and JBJ both hired hitting coaches in the offseason?

Only 1 out so Betts had to first be sure the ball dropped in, plus it was hard hit and right to the outfielder.

Who the heck grabbed ERod by the stacking swivel and told him to throw strikes? We just saw twilight zone stuff--dogs living with cats.

When the ump and the backups in NYC call him safe, I'm willing to live with that with very few pangs of guilt.

Oakland sure doesn't like to skimp on foul territory.

Could be the first home game--Tuesday?

Well, that's over, and the bases are still loaded.

Was it over when Manny Machado struck out swinging in the 9th on October 28, 2018? Well, actually, yes it was.

Betts Beni Pearce JDM Bogie Nunez Holt Vazquez JBJ Six righty bats. A's will have 9 righty bats, 2 of whom are switch hitters. I think ERod has the best changeup on the Sox--when it is working. Last time he got shelled with Swihart catching, so everybody blamed him for ERod's bad outing (5 ER, 1 dingers, 3 walks in 4.1 innings). That is one of the very few games, including last year, when I thought Cora should have pulled his starter sooner. That 1 out he got in the 5th was after the three run dinger by Bruce).

Anderson, a lefty, is currently riding a 34 consecutive shutout innings streak. Could be a tough afternoon, but maybe the sunlight will help.

Last year the Swihart fan club was pretty active on talksox, which is the real reason why he made the cut this year. Cora and DD are always lurking around here.

Last year the Sox went 17-2 out of the gate. This year it's 1-5 so far plus the worst run differential in MLB at -18. After the starters butchered their first round of starts, the lineup was shut out in back to back games. The Sox won it all in 2013 and finished dead last the next year. I think this Sox team is too good to miss the playoffs this year, but have my doubts about more than 95 wins. Of course, I also hope to come back to this thread in a week or a month from now and recant everything I just said. Oh, and I come by my doubts honestly: I was a Sox fan for 55 of the 86 years of the curse. There can be no question John Henry has been the best Sox owner ever, but old habits/doubts die hard.

No, the problem is not the rotation. The problem is that the Sox have the highest payroll and by far the worst run differential, -18, in MLB. Yes, absolutely, we're only 6 games into a 162 game season and have barely started. And this is pretty close to the same bunch of guys who won 108 last year before winning 8 of 11 in the ALDS, ALCS, and WS. But one of the reasons 2018 was so successful was that the Sox were 17-2 after 19 games and were able to withstand a win streak by the Yankees early in the season. Now they're 1-5 and every starter is at least mildly suspect. Oh, and the lineup just got shut out twice by the A's. The Rays are in our division and have the best ERA in MLB.

And I don't agree because I think DD made the right decisions on Kelly and Kimbrel. My view is that you can't have everything, and Kelly and Kimbrel were/are allowed to go elsewhere because of their cost. This also, however, allows DD to keep the heart of what won for us last year, and I buy his argument--and Cora's--the bullpen will be fine without those two. By putting Leon on waivers, they also kept him available even though he isn't on the 25 man roster. But absolutely nothing makes sense unless and until the rotation starts pitching like they can--and I refuse to buy the argument that the catchers are causing all those bad pitches. More likely, it was the short work in ST that kept them from getting in the groove. I disagree with doing that, but also have the utmost respect for the wisdom of Cora.

Least of our worries right now is a closer, which Barnes has handled perfectly for his one save opportunity. Bullpen help, maybe, but the bullpen so far is way, way, way, way better than the rotation. If Swihart had started in more than 1 game, then maybe blame him for the utter ineptitude of the rotation, but most of us think it was the short ST that created this rotation problem. The neat thing about Leon is he is available if needed.

All good points.

Me, I think the salaries for the top players and some others are absolutely insane, but I also think it's a business decision which can sometimes be dumb because you are paying for baseball players who are notoriously unreliable performers if only because of the risk of injury. You've got Ellsbury (and others before him), but we've had our share--like Sandoval and HanRam (and others). I never resented the Yankees spending because I was sure they had more money--they are sitting on a gold mine, the largest city in the country at 8.6 million people--to say nothing of those 27 championships. But my question for Yankees fans is how they can be happy with owners who can't seem to convert that huge population gold mine into being competitive--since John Henry took over in 2002--with the Boston Red Sox, whose city has a population of 685K. Every year the Yankees outdraw the Sox, but guess which team has the four World Series wins since 2002 and which team has one? Also, Moonslav in particular never lets us forget, especially on this thread, what the cost of players is now and will be in the near future. Indeed, the back and forth on that topic alone sometimes takes over this thread. As I said, I hate the high cost of players, but I can also see that those salaries do sometimes get results--like 108 regular wins and taking 11 of 14 postseason games (including the 104 win Astros and 100 win Yankees).

A fair point--agreed. But I enjoyed the rallies. Plus we had plenty of hard hit balls that were right at someone.