Maxbialystock

I might have been tempted to pinch hit for Holiday as well, but the smart move is not to spend your other catcher when you have a lead and don't have to. Plus Sandy is not only the full-time catcher but likely to catch 4 of 5 games--all the more reason to give him a full day off.

You don't pinch hit for your catcher unless you are behind. Plus Holiday was doing a good job in a close game. Plus the runners were on 2d and 3D, which means two good hitters, Benintendi and Pedroia, would have a chance to drive them in. These are obvious points.

Great win against a hot Guardians team (4 in a row coming in) that is especially good at home. On top of which the Sox played yesterday in Boston and go on the road again today. DEspite the nattering nabobs of negativism, Farrell made some good calls. True, Pomeranz gave up that run in 8th, but he also had two outs when that happened--so why not go for another? Bringing in Abad was clearly the right move which will only give Abad some confidence down the road, plus it enabled Kimbrel to go against the heart of the Guardians order. Not pinch-hitting for Holoday also made sense because he was calling a good game and in this one clearly pitching was key. As it was, Benintendi and Pedroia still had chances to increase the lead but could not. Plus Leon could use the day off given this tough schedule. While the 9th was a little tense, it now makes sense. The leadoff double was just a good hit, and walking Napoli was just being careful against the Guardians cleanup guy. Then Kimbrel got two quick K's before finally getting Almonte on a popup and after he had 3-1 count on him. If you were an Guardians fan you had to wonder why Francona brings in a reliever with 2 outs and no one on in the 8th. Ortiz quickly singled. New pitcher in who walked Betts, which gave Bradley a shot with 2 men on, but he K'd. Both starters went 7.2 innings and threw 104 pitches, but the Guardians pitcher gave up two dingers and 8 hits to Pomeranz's 5 hits.

Oh, ********. Benintendi and Pedroia both had shots at an rbi and couldn't get one and you think Holt was going to do the job when they couldn't?

I like Eck. He's fun. I wouldn't have called for Abad either, but he got his man on a weak popup.

Au contraire. The lesson learned from the infamous Wright episode is that AL pitchers are not really professional athletes and cannot risk life and limb running the bases. It makes no difference that Wright absolutely did it to himself by bellyflopping to get back to 2B, which is kind of like that year--was it 2013?--when Buchholz injured himself at home, I think holding his child.

So here we are thru 7 innings. Pomeranz has thrown 92 pitches and 20 in the 7th. Send him out for the 8th or bring in the bullpen? My vote is for whatever Farrell decides because he is hands down in the best position to make that call.

gidp, the pitcher's friend!

Agree we don't need to know as long as someone responsible does know, which is certainly the case.

Really? Ill covers a pretty wide spectrum, and this is August in a hot pennant race.

If Shaw can't hit righties, who can he hit?

Great play to end the inning! Always love it when the Sox score to get the lead and the pitcher shuts down the opposition. Pomeranz has now gone 6 on 72 pitches with no walks. Mostly the knuckle curve and fast ball.

One would think that bereavement means a death in the family.

Tomlin looks pretty tough to me despite a few hard shots (and some hits) by the Sox. He keeps the ball down and throws strikes.

Unreal how this game has gone. Pomeranz is pitching his best game, and the Sox are hitting the ball hard and still can't score. The Sox catcher does not impress me, but he still looks better than Shaw.

Irrelevant of course that Shaw could have been arrested for loitering.

It is of course irrelevant that the bullpen, rested except for Abad, did yeoman's service backing up Buch's 4.1 innings on Sunday. The important point is that Farrell is an idiot no matter what he does.

Gotta love the optimism of many posters. As moonslav says, we see our weaknesses, but tend to ignore the weaknesses of other teams. On top of that, this is definitely a team worth rooting for. The hitting seems to be coming back, and the rotation is probably the best it's been all year. The question is the bullpen, and even there I seem a glimmer of hope. Kimbrel does in fact have that deadly combo of blazing fastball and nasty curve. Ziegler with the unusual delivery has a good track record. Barnes can be very good in spots. Buchholz has been steady-eddy in the bullpen. Abad is now a known quantity--use only when nothing is on the line. Lefty Ross is also good in spots. Who's left?

Maybe. But then maybe Whitey Herzog was right: the difference between a winning manager and a losing manager is a good bullpen. I think managerial decisions in-game are generally overrated in their importance because they all have access to all kinds of data, to say nothing of real-time input from both bench coaches and pitching coaches. Plus they have time, that precious commodity in decision-making, to consult both the data and the coaches. Back to Whitey. I believe we all agree that it's the close games we need to win and would therefore argue that bullpens play an out-sized role in the outcomes of close games.

You are probably right. I'm just pissed off about a couple of his recent outings that hurt us.

Right you are. I said the same thing elsewhere, but suspect you said it first.

I went to my first MLB games, a Washington Senators-Cleveland Guardians double-header at Griffith Stadium in the summer of 1955 and had a blast. My wife, then unknown to me, did something similar--a double-header at Griffith Stadium--about 6 years earlier and has never watched an MLB game since. In life, timing is everything. These days she watches the Sox in very short bursts. I completely disagree with the revisionist history that argues that the Sox should have batted Betts 3d all year long because the lineup with him leading off, followed by Pedroia, Bogaerts, Ortiz, usually HanRam, and then a variable cast of characters led MLB in runs scored by a big margin for about half a season. It was during that 1/2 season that Bogaerts had the big OPS that made him the right guy to bat in front of Ortiz, who had an incredible first half. What's changed since then, which everyone chooses to ignore, is that Bogaerts is in a slump, which in turn makes Ortiz less productive. Meanwhile, Betts is getting hotter and hotter, including MLB player of the month. The other thing, very recently, is that Pedroia seems OK leading off, which has not been the case for over 10 years. In the first half Farrell also wisely started out with JBJ batting 9th and moved him up only as he showed he was up to it. He is doing exactly the same thing right now with Benintendi. The wisdom of this, which has not been remarked upon by anyone so far on Talksox, is that the 9th hitter has often not only been a good hitter, which can be a real pain for the opposing pitcher, but also the perfect lead-in to the top of the order. It is this phenomenon, coupled with some pretty good 7th and 8th hitters, that allowed Betts to maintain his position--while leading off, mind you--as the second best rbi man in this very productive lineup. One more point on Betts. He has more at bats and more runs scored than anyone else on this team, which is largely the result of his leading off for most of the season and his being our best basestealer. Bosoxmal and others would have us believe that Betts leading off was tantamount to a tragedy and at least a grave misjudgment by Farrell. And I ain't buying that thesis.

Good to know. Thanks, moonslav.

Agree he is out if the Sox don't make the playoffs, but notin and Whitey Herzog have a point. As for sending Wright out there to pinch run, I have to chuckle at all those offended by Farrell's temerity and their apparent support for Wright's lame post-game excuse that he was pretty sure he could never score from 2B on a single. This past week on consecutive nights Ortiz, who is 40 and carrying about 30 extra pounds, was taken out of one game because he fouled a pitch off his foot/ankle--he needed help to get off the field and down the dugout steps-- and came back the very next night and, voila, scored from 2B on a single. Wright is sure he could never do that? In the event, Wright apparently injured himself by taking a biggish lead (for him) off 2B and then desperately throwing himself on the ground to get back. Has anyone ever seen Ortiz throw himself on the ground to get back to any base? Of course they haven't. I wonder what would happen in a NL park when Wright might have to bat and maybe end up on 1B. Goodness, me, what shall I do? I'm an AL knuckleballer and the MLBPA assures me I should never be placed in this situation. I'm too precious. I'm hard on Wright but have to be honest and say the DH seems to have transformed most AL pitchers into such narrow specialists it's hard to recognize them as living, breathing ballplayers. Buchholz once was the fastest guy on the team and on those very few occasions when he was sent in as a pinchrunner was just terrible. Or think about this. Every AL team has 25 players and normally 12 of them are pitchers, but AL managers are supposed to believe that none of those 12 can ever be asked to do anything other than pitch. The other 13 players do all the fielding, hitting, running, throwing, and standing around waiting for the pitchers to make up his mind to pitch and perhaps even throw something hittable. And most of them play not only every day but every inning. Starting pitchers pitch every fifth day, and relievers at most play every other day and normally, usually just one inning.

I believe your actual word for him is idiot. He thus gets the same credit as a blind squirrel finding a nut.