Maxbialystock

I really want to disagree with that but cannot. Great start, then steady deterioration.

nice 19 pitch 3 out save by kimbrel. how many if he has to get 5 outs as recommended by all the cognescenti? farrell can always get fired if the sox go south, but no doubt in my mind he knows more than any of us and makes better decisions in real time as opposed to hindsight. dismaying that the sox lineup was held scoreless for 7 innings after that outburst in the 1st. I'm not so sure the slump is over. plus those two errors weren't so hot either.

i just saw lackey and lester, the same two who were big in the 2013 playoffs

that knuckle curve by kimbrel goes awfully fast--88 mph is more like a slider.

i can't agree because of the two k's which to me show abad deserved farrell's confidence. dodging a bullet would be if a cubbie hits it hard but into a double play. or they hit deep liners that are caught. there's nothing lucky about two k's.

in my mlb channel feed, they show cubs highlights at the end of every inning.

bad call on the third strike to bradley, but a merciful one--he was headed for a K one way or the other.

exactly

of course it was a great call when abad gets two k's. no other interpretation is reasonable.

i am no fan of abad, but it was obvious hembree had nothing tonight and needed to be gone. some credit also goes to vazquez for his pitch calling.

great two k's by abad and great decision by farrell

abad does seem to have a nice changeup

is that the great abad I see warming up?

hembree sucks tonight. three straight batters have hit the ball hard.

i'm getting the mlb channel, and I think they simply favor the cubbies.

suddenly a very interesting game. kelly first throw a slider over the geometric center of the strike zone, then throws the next one in the dirt or on the plate for a another run. now all those unscoring innings have some importance. can the sox score again if they need to?

Completely agree.

cubs saved by another GIDP. Sox now scoreless 5 straight innings.

So far Pomeranz is a hero. Not a lot of clean innings, but 6 big ones with just 2 runs. Those 5 runs in the 1st look bigger and bigger.

Sox scored 5 in the first and zip in 2 thru 5, including bases loaded and no one out in the 4th. I love the 1st inning, but right now these guys look like the same old Sox to me.

HanRam certainly does, but in this case it took an incredible throw to get him and it was still close.

Let's put this current situation on a personal basis. Right now Chris Sale is ranked #3 in all of MLB in ERA and #2 in WAR for a pitcher. He has having a fantastic season. And his W-L record is 1-2 because this team cannot--so far, anyway--hit a lick. This in my judgment is criminal, and Sale should hire a lawyer to take this entire franchise to court and sue them for failure to support. The subject of this thread is "A realistic View of 2017." To me it is realistic to say the hitting will likely improve, but not realistic to say, "things are going to be fine" because fine this year should mean running away with the AL East given that the Sox have the 4th best ERA in MLB right now. Speaking of which, the Orioles and Yankees both have lower ERA's than the Sox and are both comfortably ahead of the Sox in the AL East race. So whether and by how much the Sox hitting improves, the whole point of this exercise is not only to win games, but to win more games than the Orioles and Yankees. Remember too that in the off season just about everyone was worried about the pitching this year even with the acquisition of Chris Sale. Then Price--who sure as heck hasn't been worth $30M/year anyway--got hurt in ST and the concern grew. But it turns out the other guys, especially Sale, have stepped up, but largely to no avail because the hitting, so far, anyway, stinks. To me nothing defines the Sox current situation better than that Sale is the 2d best pitcher in MLB and has won one lousy game in 5 great starts. It's entirely appropriate, I might add, that Sale just happens to be tied for the team lead in wins--among starters, that is.

Me, I blame Bill James and his stranglehold on Sox game tactics: never bunt, don't steal, etc, The result of that is that the Sox don't recruit or encourage great baserunners and probably don't even practice bunting--much anyway--which is stupid when you consider not only avoidance of GIDP, but also the benefits of bunting a way from the big shifts other teams use against some of our guys (as we do against theirs). Right now the Sox are ranked 30th in dingers with 11--and the next worst team has 15, which is 36% (4/11) more than our guys. This is a serious power deficiency along with 25th in slugging percentage. Thanks to Bill James, however, the Sox have no remedies for a power outage like this one. Forget a backup generator, we don't even have flashlights or lamps--the ability to bunt and/or run the bases. What did Al Pacino say in that movie? "I'm in the dark here."

Hitting clearly is not random, but neither is pitching. The good ones bear down a little more in tight situations--men on base, etc. They might throw a little harder, and their control improves. The good/clutch/tough hitters don't need to "notch it up" as much as they need to stay focused, calm, loose. To me the acid test for clutch hitting is how often they K with RISP and/or how often they hit easy grounders for GIDP. Even a GIDP is acceptable if the ball was hit hard. I get especially mad at any hitter who doesn't bring the runner on 3B home with 1 or fewer outs--that's choking, pure and simple. Same goes for looking at 2 out of 3 strikes with 2 or more men on base and 2 men out. All that said, I also believe quite firmly that great pitching always wins out--that means the best pitchers going against the great hitters in any situation.

Good for you. I would have been a terrible choice to start, especially when I have periodically railed against Pomeranz--unfairly, I have to admit. Tonight he has a chance to be a hero. Where does Station 13 come from?