Maxbialystock

Big win. A lot of guys contributed, not just Vazquez. Even got thru a semi-disastrous 9th by Kimbrel. I am still impressed with the way Pom battled all six innings. He walked guys, he got hit, he loaded the bases twice, but he mostly got outs when he really needed them and got thru 6 innings, 3 runs, a quality start. Reed looked pretty darn good. So even though moonslav still disagree on some points, I have to say I finally answered the call to stop focusing so much on the 4 losses. All this is good, but it's still a tough road ahead and a tight race for AL East and for 2d best record in the AL. Our next three starters--Sale, Porcello, and ERod--are all three the ones who had disastrous starts last time out. I thought Pom showed some grit tonight and Fister certainly did yesterday. Now these three need to man up. It's time. Despite my back and forth with moonslav, I actually am fine with almost any lineup. I like mine for the reasons stated, but think a bunch of other options could work, including his. The point--his point--is that this is a team worth rooting for.

Nice. I'm smiling again.

You're kidding, right?

I was fine with whenever they called him up. After played a little at AAA and came up then, I said that was fine. My numbers on 6-9 slots were much bigger than you suggest. Yes, still a small sample size, but that's all we have and it's late August, not April or May, so you make decisions on less than optimal data. When making big decisions, one of the key factors is how much time is available to make it. Farrell made the right decision and at the right time. Simply put, I was dead right about dropping Devers down in the order and no one else even suggested it. Maybe I was lucky, but at least I had a rationale for suggesting the move.

Since I'm the only one who said this and said it in the game thread and before the game started, this is me being boastful. I was dead right on both main points. But, to be honest, it was probably blind stupid luck, which is what I have often relied upon.

Neat. Bottom of the order comes thru at just the right time. That's why I love a distributed lineup that can hurt you from the top, middle and bottom. Well, except for Holt of course.

Wow. 6 innings, 3 runs, quality start, but about as brutal a one as I can remember. Two incredible escapes, but neither was luck. Really smart play by Devers on the grounder in the 5th with 3 on. He first checked the hitter to see if a GIDP was possible after touching 3B. No. So he thru a strike to force out the guy going home.

Good. But you ignored the last part. Would you agree they were actually good plays for which the manager gets some credit?

Two great sliders to strike out Devers looking. Just found the outside of the plate, and they were sharp breaking too. I think we have hit a couple or so extra liners tonight right to Jays outfielders. Now just two, but two extra because we've hit a lot of balls hard.

OK. Here's me back on my hobby horse. Subject is managerial and baserunning blunders. I feel certain that, had Vazquez been out going to 2b, this would have been brought up by several is simply gambling and not even with a chance of success. All Farrell's fault of course. The second is the bottom of the 5th. Left Pom in with the bases loaded and 1 out. I guarantee, had the Jays scored, this would have led to a discussion about how Farrell doesn't have a brain in his head. Everyone knows Pom was through. Farrell needs a brain wave check. And here's the best part. No one, but no one--except me--will actually say that in both instances Farrell actually deserves some credit. But doing that is virtually forbidden on talksox. Off my soapbox, now.

Pom also kind find the corners. Most of those hits by theJays are in the middle of the zone.

Down 3-2 after 4 12. Both teams with 6 hits, but the Jays better are grouping theirs. Middle--Beni, Betts, Moreland, Devers--of the order is hitless. Toronto pitcher has at least 3 pretty good pitches, including a changeup and a slider. Plus fastball, of course. Pom is battling.

Holt killing us tonight. Killing us. Jays pitcher got a called strike in the same exact spot where Pom got a ball--low outside corner.

I always have the sound off. Sometimes I'll have closed captions. Most of my games, like tonight, are from mlb.com

Houdini lives! Pom, the great escape artist. Two crucial GIDP's so far, and the game is young.

Nunez dinger, nice. Pomeranz 3d and Betts grab, even nicer.

I was wrong about Pom and thought he was a wimp, but tonight likes like a battler. They took away they knuckle curve, so now he's careful and relying on his fastball for the outs, and it's working. Good 2d inning, especially with the ump on the Jays hitter's side.

Now the umpire's into it too, taking away two corner strikes, both great pitches by Pom. Right now both starters are trending toward 5 innings.

That's now three opposite field hits by the Jays. Do they have Pomeranz number?

What was that??? Terrible top of the 2d until HanRam slaps a single that becomes a double, then barely gets to 3b on a single to RF with 2 out, Holt now at bat. Long count, one slightly mishandled WP, so Vazquez throws caution to the winds and goes for second. You know, the typical boneheaded play this team is constantly accused of making. What was he thinking? But the catcher, rushed, throws it into CF and even HanRam can score on that. Then Holt grounds out to the P. I'll take it.

Not good, 2 runs off 2 doubles in the 1st, but I gotta give the Jays some credit for smart hitting. Both were off his best pitch, the knuckle curve, so they just waited a microsecond or two longer and slapped them to the opposite field. Worked like a charm. I think the pitches might have been slightly up in the zone, but still. I'm probably wrong, but I don't see our guys batting smart like that--especially back to back--very often if at all.

Two things. 1. I'm now on the moonslav bandwagon. After griping about every single game and pointing to the Yankees catching us and all that stuff, I'm now saying we should put those 4 games behind us and focus on the great earlier August when we were winning right and left and beating good teams like the Yankees, Guardians, and Cardinals. What happened in those four losses is we got three absolutely horrendous starts by Sale, Porcello, and ERod. Stuff happens. Sale is still an ace. I'm not sure Porcello has got it together yet, but he was good last year and still is an innings eater and has 17 quality starts of 27 total. ERod has pitched well after the first 2 two innings, which have killed him. There is nothing systemically wrong with this team--it's the same team that won 16 of 20 earlier. Blaming Farrell for those 4 starts is nuts. No one can show me one hard fact or one specific decision that cost any of those 4 losses. If the Sox don't get to the postseason or don't get thru the first round, i would not object to his leaving. But not now. 2. i really like the lineup tonight--it's a lot like the one I proposed to moonslav. HanRam dropped to 7th--great. 1, 3, and 5 hitters, all key, are Nunez, Betts, and--surprise!--Bogie. All good choices, even Bogie who seems to be getting his eye and swing back. 2, 4, and 6 are almost as good--Beni, Moreland, and Devers. I checked guys splits, and Moreland, especially against righties, is as good as anyone on the team in the 4 slot. And I really like Devers in 6th both because I think he hits better lower than 5th and because the #6 hitter can do a lot of damage. 7, 8, and 9--HanRam, Vazquez, and Holt also work for me. Vazquez has prospered near the bottom. HanRam needs to because he ain't doing much up above (and I could care less about his so-called injuries). Holt for Rajai Davis but batting 9th also works because so far Rajai hasn't shown me much, but Holt has (despite that terrible OPS), plus he's a lefty and good on the bases, which connects well to the top of the order. Pomeranz on the mound right now is, at least temporarily, is our ace based on his record.

Knock it off. All due respect--and your deserve a lot--but you are beating a dead horse. Plus you examples show you don't understand jack about "don't try to do too much." Those guys were all great power hitters and almost couldn't help hitting all those dingers. Simple fact about this team: we're 27th or so of 30 MLB teams in dingers. So just maybe it makes sense not to swing for the fences every time up and be happy with an opposite field single or whatever.

Well-coached? This ain't little league or college. The operative word is managed because most of the coaching has already taken place. That's why those guys go thru the long, long trail of successively harder minor league baseball, to say nothing of all the coaching before then. On top of which, most of them have significant major league experience. On this team the only two novices are Beni and Devers, and they seem to me to be doing fine with respect to mental mistakes. Besides, the core of all MLB games are those those 300 pitches per game and the confrontations between hitters and pitchers. You hit and/or pitch well, you have a good shot at winning. You don't, you don't. It's that simple. Today, finally, both teams had good pitching and weak hitting, but we left 25 on and were 1 for 13 with RISP, but I sure didn't see any blunders, let alone any that affected the outcome. In fact, the last 4 excruciating games, all losses and the big reason why we are once again debating Farrell, actually demonstrated that hitting and pitching are everything. In the first three games we had terrible pitching. In the last two games we scored 1 run in 18 innings. If there were blunders, they had no effect on any of those games. No disagreement on the pitching, which overall has been very good this year, especially for a Sox team. One ace and one great closer, however, do not a great pitching staff make, not with 10 or 11 other guys you must also rely on. Pomeranz, agreed, has been a pleasant surprise lately and has the 3d highest pitching WAR after Sale and Kimbrell, I don't think it's been luck. He gets the most out of that knuckle curve, fast ball, and I think a cut fastball, but he ain't exactly an innings-eater, averaging about 5 1/2 per start. He's pitched 7 innings once, so he needs a good bullpen backing him up. Porcello has turned no corners--my gosh, his pitching WAR is a flat zero. Do you just make this stuff up? ERod lately gets killed early then settles down. Fister, lately and amazingly, has been better than ERod, which you saw today. His prior start was a complete game gem. After Kimbrel and Reed, the entire bullpen is suspect, no exceptions. We all love Sale, what a great player, but he might be getting tired. He leads MLB in innings pitched. He averaged 5 innings in his last two starts and gave up 11 runs (7 of which were in his latest start). If we do win the AL East, it's odds on we play the Guardians, and they own Sale, shocking as that sounds.

I hear you, but disagree on most of it maybe because I have only been able to watch games regularly since I think 2004 or so when I got a MLB package from one of the satellite firms. "Looking like an absent-minded professor" is in the eye of the beholder because I frankly don't see it. I don't disagree that this year, as last year, how the season ends decides Farrell's job status. If we lose a key playoff game because of a key bonehead play, I will likely be on your bandwagon. About the boneheaded plays and blunders. Only a few of them really fit that description and I see just as many by teams we play except for the most conservative. More to the point, baseball is unique among all major sports in that it is dominated by the catcher-pitcher confrontations. 300 pitches (I'm guessing). That's where games are won and lost--the last 4 games being a perfect example. We got killed in three, but not because of any blunders, and we lost the last game, a close one, also without any blunders. Every team makes errors (but some field better than others). The aggressive base running, according to Kimmi's stats, has not hurt and is justified by the dearth of dingers. Lately, it's been particularly successful.