Maxbialystock

Concur. Thanks for the lineup. Travis in against the lefty starter, but also Young for JBJ and Benintendi moved from 4th to 6th.

Agreed, but consider the consequences. Your success is saving John Farrell's job.

Lead article on espn's mlb site reads "Don't count on Red Sox Firing John Farrell--at least not yet." I think that probably captures the consensus of talksox--plenty of people are not happy with him, but see no alternative and do see some of the issues as outside his control. I continue to believe the won-loss record is the key stat for a manager, and that won-lost record seems to depend more on the hitting than the pitching. Thus can Sale go 7 while giving up 2 in Oakland and the Sox still lose the game in the 10th, 3-2. Thus can the Sox now win 2 in a row by scoring 12 and 11 runs respectively.

Terrific win even though I was not impressed with Porcello--again. As others have said, with Sale starting tomorrow you have to like our chances to win 3 straight. Even better is Thursday with the great Pomeranz--you know, the guy who argued with Farrell over being taken out after 97 pitches. I like Sale. He's good. But Pomeranz is the secret ace of this staff.

I'm not a Farrell fan. I just like to argue plus I honestly don't think managers have that big an effect--particularly in comparison to football and basketball coaches. Right now, though, I think Farrell maybe ain't helping and that what keeps him in Boston is the lack of a good alternative.

Are you under the impression that managers win and lose games and not players? I disagree. As someone else quoted from a former MLB manager, "the difference between a good manager and a bad one is a great bullpen." You just complimented Francona's masterful handling of the Guardians bullpen, but I looked them up. They have basically used 7 relievers who have pitched in 21, 19, 18, 18, 16, 14, and 13 innings, respectively--Miller, FYI, has pitched in 18--and whose worst ERA is 3.57, 2d worst is 2.41, and other five ERA's are all under 2. Seems to me they come pretty close to being a great, healthy bullpen. You think Farrell couldn't use a bullpen like that? Is it Farrell's fault the guys aren't hitting at anywhere near the level as last year when he was also the manager? Or 2013 for that matter? Before this season we all thought the rotation would be great with Sale, Price, Porcello (Cy Young winner), ERod, Wright, and Pomeranz only if needed. Porcello is struggling except on gopher balls. ERod is good and Sale even better. But Price and Wright are on the DL. And Pomeranz right now is our #4 starter with a player to be named later as #5. Ironically, I do hold Farrell accountable for wins and losses, but agree with the notion that maybe he stays because no one else worth using is available.

Interesting article. I've thought all along that Barnes did not need to throw at Machado because Pedroia, the injured party, said emphatically he didn't think it was an illegal or dirty slide. Many on talksox disagree with that, but Pedroia was the party involved. Anyway, Barnes screwed it up royally. Pomeranz wanting to go back out to pitch the 5th is good news, but why make a scene in the dugout when you haven't thrown more than 103 pitches in 8 starts this year and have consistently struggled when you get near that mark? Overall I think the article is balanced with good arguments on both sides--by the same writer.

I don't believe that but have to admit there are times when it looks as though that is exactly what is going on. Other times, however, it looks as though our pitching is just lousy or our guys just aren't hitting or both. A year ago we led the AL in runs by 100, but right now we are 36 behind the Yankees who lead. We started the season with what looked to be a decent rotation, but now clearly we miss Price on the DL and Wright too. Pomeranz is still starting, but every time he goes out to the mound I'm thinking "here comes Freddy Kruger, and I don't mind admitting I'm scared to death." Velazquez with his under 2 ERA in 5 starts at AAA was a bust and caused some to want to hang Farrell in effigy for even letting him go to the mound at all. This team just played at gritty two game series, which they swept, in St Louis against the NL Central division leaders. Then wham--the Oakland A's take 3 straight almost (except for the 10 inning game when Sale started for us) without breaking a sweat. Go figure.

Paris is better, but not London, Berlin, Tokyo, or Seoul.

Actually, I've been to Rome several times--stationed in Naples--and that never happened to me. But the suckers love my car in the drive way and even my wife's car under the carport.

Meh. The OPS percentages are bunched up. The 10th best is .755 and the 22d best .728--a difference of .027 or 3.7% (of .728). So anomalies should be expected whenever you try to correlate OPS with runs scored. And don't forget that RISP and GIDP can have a real impact on degrading the ability of a high OPS to actually score runs.

Delighted to be wrong--again. Reverse mojo?

To be honest, I've been impressed with the A's pitching. That combined with our return to anemic hitting could easily lead to a sweep what with Triggs going 5-2 with an ERA of 2.12. So try this on for size. Our first four hitters--Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, and Benintendi--have 3 hits among them in this series to date. g

To me the case for and against Farrell begins and ends with the won-lost record, which is now .500. The Rays just passed us for 3d place in the AL East even though we are just 4.5 games out of 1st. However, as someone else pointed out, what is the alternative to Farrell as this point?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for starting this thread, Kimmi, because I absolutely, positively was not going to--but I was getting antsy.

Hah! Pretty good call--Bogie is hitting 3d and hitting up a storm. Well done.

Well said. Absolutely true.

Not serviceable, just not a disaster. He made it thru 5 innings. Farrell only needed 2 guys to cover the other 3. Bullpen should be fine tonight for Sale. Wright, FYI, had 5 starts and an ERA of 8.25. But that knee injury, he might still be in the rotation. I believe the primary reasons for starting Velazquez are because Farrell wanted an extra day of rest for Sale and wanted to give our best AAA starter a shot because right now our rotation is short-handed. I did not watch the whole game, but did watch much of Velazquez's 5 innings. I liked that he had four usable pitches--fast ball, slider, curve, and changeup--but what scared me was that Oakland seemed to like all four too because at least two of the three dingers were on breaking balls. 67% of his pitches were strikes, which to me is par for the course, but whatever he threw was hittable. Was he telegraphing his pitches? Maybe.

I'm fine with that and with what mvp78 said. Farrell has been OK. Maybe Lovullo would have been better.

So far this season the Sox pitchers have had 40 starts. Of those, 19 have been quality starts by Sale, Porcello, or ERod. Another 2 QS's by Pomeranz and 1 by Wright, now gone. Pomeranz has started 7 games and averaged 5 innings per start with an ERA of 5.86. To me it's apparent last night was as good a time as any to see what our best minor league starter could do. Last night he was better than Porcello on April 14 when he gave up 4 dingers and 8 runs and only slightly worse than ERod is his first start this year when he gave up 4 in 5 innings with 2 dingers.

My thanks--again--to Station 13 for the sterling two game win streak and trying to nudge it to three.

Velazquez went 5, and Farrell needed Ross and Barnes to cover 3 innings. Big deal. He's still got 5 or 6 for tonight who didn't pitch last night. About Sales: am I the only one who noticed his ERA in April was 1.19 in 5 starts and so far in May it's 3.86 in 3 starts? Or that in his last two starts he went 6 and 7 innings? Maybe giving him an extra day of rest ain't such a bad idea. And, as I have already pointed out, the Sox right now are not exactly knee deep in starters. Sale, Porcello, and ERod are fine, but after that not so fine until Price is back.

You surprised me with the irony which I completely missed the first 3 or 4 times I read it even though you were/are not being subtle. Just a brain cramp on my part. Funny thing is, Velazquez wasn't all that bad. Oh, I'm not saying 6 runs in 5 innings is a quality start, but am saying our #2 pitcher just went 6 while giving up 4 in a game that ended up going 13 innings. The threshold for most MLB managers for pulling a starter is 7 runs, and Velazquez was 1 under that. Last time out, Pomeranz went 3 innings, and the time before that he went 4 and gave up 6. And let's not forget that until Price is activated the Sox basically have Sale, Porcello, ERod, the redoubtable Pomeranz, and a pitcher to be named later. Also, because Velazquez actually went 5 innings, Farrell only had to use 2 from the bullpen last night, leaving 5 or 6 reasonably well rested for tonight and the weekend. I am not, FWIW, saying Farrell is always right, only that some of these very obvious mistakes he is accused of don't seem all that obvious to me.

1949 when I was 8. I'd been born in Boston (Fort Banks), but left with my mom 6 months later. But that summer (1949) we visited Boston relatives on the way to Germany, and I can remember looking at Sox box scores--more than 24 hours after the fact of course--in the Stars and Strikes in Germany and especially Ted Williams's numbers. 4 years later we lived in West Springfield while my dad served 14 months in Korea, and I listened to Curt Gowdy call the games both summers, '53 and '54. And collected Topps baseball cards of course. But my Sox fandom waxed and waned subsequently because we never lived where we could get Sox games--ditto when I went into the service. 1967 is blank because of where I was and what we were doing. Everything changed after I retired and my wife and I finally settled in N. Virginia and circa 2004, maybe earlier, we got a TV package including out of area games. Since then I've watched an insane number of games. My first time in Fenway was about 10 years ago on a business trip. Terrible experience because of the execrable sight lines down the right field line. I went one more time, had the same experience, and am sure I will never go back. Fenway looks great on TV, but is easily the worst MLB ballpark I've been in. I've been to the Phillies ballpark (1961), the Royals (1986-89) (very nice, but really hot in the summer), the Orioles (2000-2015) (Camden is easily the best ballpark I've been in), and the Nationals (not as pretty as Camden, but excellent sight lines). Also Griffith Stadium (Washington Senators, 1955).