Maxbialystock

After 4, Sox still have 0 hits and 2 errors and a darn good pitcher on the mound with 1 unearned run.

I also watch NCAA basketball and pay a small amount to use the Ken Pomeroy website. He's a statistician who started as a weather forecaster and is so good that Las Vegas opening betting line is usually the same one he has for every single Division game. He's not only good at predicting game outcomes, he is also amazingly accurate at final scores. I am confident he could never do that with MLB games. Way too hard.

Odorizzi pitching with a lot confidence. That splitter sure helps. So does our guys having maybe a letdown.

Pedey now 0 for 11 in this series.

After 3, ERod is the only guy keeping the Sox in the game. Understandable in that he is also the most rested.

After 2.5 innings, the Sox have 0 hits, 4 K's, 0 runs, and 2 errors. This looks like a letdown by six guys--Bogaerts, Beni, Betts, JBJ, Devers, and Moreland--who have now played 27 grinding innings in under 48 hours near the end of the longest season in professional sports.

Still too many fastballs I think. Three straight led to that clean single.

ERod throwing a lot of fastballs, but gets the K with the cutter.

Now three K's by our 5-7 hitters. So far ERod could sue for desertion.

ERod just might have pitched the best inning of his life. Big game, first inning, historically his weakest. Defense completely deserts him and tries to give the Rays a big inning. Instead, one unearned run despite men on first and third, one run in, and no outs thanks to terrible defense.

Two errors in the first inning. Hmmm. Two errors and no hits by the Sox in the first.

Meh. Numbers permeate MLB and we ignore them at our peril. I mean just look at the central reality of every single at bat--the balls and strikes which are announced by the umpire as they occur. Even the bases have numbers, and the number of each means a whole bunch to the cognoscenti. The number of outs in each half inning has similar impact. We count everything in baseball and do it as a matter of course. And behind those numbers are other layers of stats, even some esoteric ones. Thus do MLB teams, front offices, owners, managers, and even players study those stats and even recite them--and that includes several levels of professional minor league baseball. The great thing about baseball is that all those numbers and stats ain't nearly as predictive as one might think--moneyball notwithstanding. You just can't be sure what this pitcher--far less this hitter--will do in this inning, let alone this game and season. Unlike the other major professional sports, the difference between winning and losing teams tends to be small. A .400 team is lousy, maybe enough to get the manager fired, and a .600 team is certain to be in the postseason and probably a Division winner.

Come on, gang. Cleveland is tough, simple as that, and it is no fluke. They went to the WS last year and lost in 7 to the Cubs. This year they are better and have outscored their opponents by a bigger margin than anyone, even the Dodgers. The neat thing to me is they have not exactly dominated us this season. I think they go all the way this year, but that we got a shot.

Eduardo Rodriguez vs. righty Jake Odorizzi, advantage good guys. 1 Bogaerts SS 2 Pedroia DH 3 Benintendi LF 4 Betts RF 5 Moreland 1B 6 Vazquez C 7 Devers 3B 8 Holt 2B 9 Bradley CF Last time out ERod went 6, giving up 1 run, and striking out 9 with 4 walks against the A's--his best start since returning from the DL. Note that 3 of the first four in the lineup are those same killer B's who have been repeatedly chastised this season for not living up to their potential, being just plain awful, etc. If you look at the Sox individual hitting stats (as I did), season to date, you find those three, but mostly Betts, leading in every single offenseive category--hits, runs, rbi's, HR's, doubles, triples, OBP, SLG, OPS, stolen bases, and total bases. It is no coincidence that all three lead the Sox in total at bats. If you throw in Bradley, who missed a bunch of games but is 4th on the team in OPS, the four killer B's have been pretty darn useful at the plate and in the field (Bogie not so much). Now here we are in crunch time. The Yankees are playing great, 8-2 in their last 10, and intent on closing that 3 game gap to win (or tie for) the AL East. Heck, you can even say Farrell's job is on the line. So who does he have batting 1st, 2d, and 4th? His most reliables, of course.

I said on the first page I liked the Sox because Porcello wasn't half bad last time--6 days ago--against the Rays. He was excellent tonight, and Reed came in to finish the 8th and Kimbrel to close. And three runs was not only enough but 2 runs more than 6 days ago against Cobb and the Rays bullpen. I say again, this team has grit. Yankees are now 8-2 in their last 10 games. But so are the Sox.

Lot of gloom and doom for a game in which the Sox have looked awfully good to me. Great start by Porcello. Timely hits. Nice steal of 3D base by Beni even though it no doubt broke the rules of good fundamental baseball. Poor Beni can do nothing right.

1. Bogaerts. SS 2. Vazquez. C 3. Benintendi. LF 4. Betts. RF 5. Moreland. 1b 6. Young. DH 7. Devers. 3b 8. Holt. 2b 9. Bradley. CF

Top three in total salaries doesn't mean that much when right now about $90M is going to Pablo, Ramirez, porcello, and Price. On top of which, as you say, the hitting has nearly collapsed without Ortiz. Throughout the John Henry era, the Sox have had good hitting and in 2004, 2007, and 2013 it was the best in the AL. Francona got those two WS in part because he had Manny, Papi, and other assorted good hitters.

Cobb, righty, vs. Porcello, edge to the Rays. Game starts at 6:10, I think, so don't forget to check. Six days ago, same two pitching, Cobb gave up 1 in 5 innings and Porcello 2 in 5 innings and the Sox lost 4-1, getting 4 singles against Cobb and 1 against the Rays bullpen. Not good. I still like the Sox even though Cobb will surely be tough again and Porcello does not inspire me. However, that last time was a decent start if not a quality start. Plus the Sox have been pretty gritty after long games this year and usually won the next night. Seven lineup guys--Bogie, Pedey, Benie, Betts, Moreland, Devers, and JBJ--played all 15 innings last night. Leon went about 9 and so did Holt I think. If Pedey is still the DH, I think all 7 play again tonight, plus maybe Marrero for Holt at 2b and maybe Vazquez for Leon because Vazquez caught Porcello last time. Handy to have Swihart as the 3d catcher as several noted last night. Travis could play instead of Moreland. These Sox may not have "fire," I don't know. But you can't convince me they aren't trying. That was heckuva game last night--a very tough win after the Yankees won easily.

Our gamethreads gloss over nothing. We love to dwell on every single miscue, every mental error. We dwell less on the aggressive plays that work--or some of us say, "well it worked, but it was lucky. It was not the smart play." On another thread I wrote (probably a week ago) that out of 140 games played to date, I counted 21 games we lost by 1 or 2 runs. I suggested anyone was free to look at the play by play and or video replays (mlb.com package replays entire games in about 15-30 minutes) of any of those 21 games and point to any of those games to show how mental blunders or horrible throws or whatever on deems to be boneheaded actually cost us a game. I also said that claiming miscues cost us games we lost by 3 or more runs was likely to be unfounded (but would not object to anyone trying to do it--with play by play analysis). I do not think it is fair for you to conjecture what might have happened from one single play without showing us some analysis. That means I can't buy what seems to me--my opinion--the theory that single plays (or several boneheaded plays) have cost us more than 1 or 2 games this season. I would further suggest one could look at all 1 or 2 run losses by any other team and find the same cost of losing 1 or 2 games. The exception might be the Guardians, but guess what? They are running away from the field and are just 4 games behind the Dodgers for home field advantage throughout the postseason.

moonslav the adroit one. a silk purse, just like that, right before our eyes. Watching and studying and writing about the Sox has you slightly unbalanced because you have said publicly Farrell can stay (for one more year) if the Sox win the AL East and at least one round in the postseason. That's right, isn't it? Last night was certainly gritty. Sale disappointed (I refuse to write him off, however), but still went 6 giving up 4. The bullpen, whom I periodically rage against (and did last night) went 9 giving up 2--terrific. And the hitting, which disappointed us all in innings 1 thru 8 and 10 thru 13 (and maybe 14), was like we wanted them in innings 9 and 15. As I wrote earlier, the low-down, misbegotten, trying to throw it all away Sox are actually 7-3 in the last 10 games. The Yankees, who are definitely surging--peaking, if you will, at just the right time--are also 7-3 in their last 10 games. Instead of playing the Rays in Tampa as scheduled, they got to play them in NYC (or close to it). So, even though the Sox aren't getting a lot of style points, it's hard for me to see why all the gloom and doom (I'm guilty too).

True on the 11th and 12th--very frustrating even though on one of those innings we actually hit a couple of balls hard that were caught. Overall, Barnes and Workman notwithstanding, the bullpen was excellent. Sale did not have a quality start and did give up 2 dingers, but he went 6, giving up 4. The problem for us onlookers was that looked pretty fatal, especially when Barnes gave up the dinger and the Sox were down 3 and looking helpless at the plate. The 9th was under those circumstances stunning. Plus Bogie smacking a hard single to drive home the tying run. What?

Then you would love Daniel Nava as your man on 2b with no one on 1b and no one out. He was listening to you and that sacred rule several years ago when the next batter actually hit a fly over the rightfielder's glove in Fenway and it got all the to the wall. Nava, meanwhile, no doubt terrified of that never ever make the 1st out at 3b rule, finally decided to slide into 2b because he was sure the ball would be caught. He never advanced to 3b. The hitter, appalled, did get back to 1b safely. As for being in scoring position on 2b--again, we are assuming no one on 1b so the guy on 2d has a decision to make--why are most teams very happy when the hitter moves that guy to 3b on a groundout or fly ball, especially with no one out? Reason: there are huge advantages to having a man on 3b with one out vs. a man on 2b with one out. So, me, I don't like those never ever rules nor the requirement that anything aggressive needs to have a 100% guarantee.

MVP 78 and others had this right from the get go. Pete Abraham too.

Not so. I've read it is a regular occurrence on those few teams with really weak fundamentals. It's what happens to teams that run into outs willy-nilly because they can't do what any Little League team can do. Boneheadedness is like Dutch Elm disease, nearly always fatal over time.