Maxbialystock

What a pleasure to watch a pitcher who isn't a control freak, one of those guys who insists on getting pitches in the strike zone. With Pomeranz on the mound, we can relish those long innings with 20 or more pitches.

You keep saying overused. Based on what data?

Koji has thrown 28 pitches since July 9. He pitched last night, but Sunday and Monday off. He pitched Friday and Saturday, but after resting 6 days. I fail to see the panic in using Uehara last night.

At this point--91 games played--in 2013, the Sox were 54-37. Right now they are 52-39, 2 games back of the 2013 team. But that team was more mature and had better pitching. But this team has better hitting and pitching that just might be coming around. I thought Porcello looked great last night, especially with men on base and also when the umpire wasn't giving him the corners all the time as he did for Peavy. Price might not be great, but he is still very good. Wright is fading a little, but still a solid starter. ERod just might be the ERod of last year. And no way, no how Pomeranz isn't better than our 2016 5th starter or the 2013 one for that matter. Right now the AL East has four teams above .500 and 3 teams, if the playoffs were today, who would be in the playoffs. A tough division. Plus the Sox have played much better at home than on the road and up ahead are a lot of road games.

Before arriving in Boston, Uehara had a total of 14 saves. In 2013, 2014, and 2015, he had 21, 26, and 25 saves. which tells me the Sox have gotten good value out of him. I always thought that what made Uehara so great in 2013 was that splitter, which combined beautifully with his so-so fastball and excellent control. This year the splitter hasn't looked so great, which I think has forced Uehara to throw more fastballs, which then allows opposing hitters to look for fastballs and not worry about splitters.

Really? He pitched last night, Tuesday, but was off Monday and the day before that, Sunday. He pitched Friday and Saturday, but that was after six days of rest, including the all-star break. Since July 9, he has thrown a total of 28 pitches not including warm-ups. From June 28 to the present, Uehara has pitched in 9 games, and the Sox won all 9.

With all due respect to moonslav, I think that, for the naysayers to be right on this trade, Pomeranz, who for the first half of this season has been better than any of the Sox starters, especially on the road (away from Petco), basically has to collapse, need tommy john surgery or something, or Espinoza has to be at least a TOTL starter in the Pedro Martinez category (although Pedro didn't come through the Sox system, but Buchholz did.). And frankly, I think the odds are against either of those happening. As for those other trades, I never understood why the Sox went after CC for so much money. Beckett for HanRam, on the other hand,paid off in 2007. Getting rid of CC, AGon, and Beckett in 2012 was both brilliant and lucky. I didn't like the acquisition of AGon, but liked him after I saw him play.

Giants have replaced the Cubs as having the best winning percentage in the the NL, but Peavy is clearly an opportunity for the Sox. His ERA is over 5 and he has 8 QS out of 18 starts. Last night the Orioles lost to the Yankees 2-1. Good pitching does indeed trump good hitting. The Sox are starting a longish home stand, which means the rest of the month and all of August and September will include lots of road games. Lots. The Sox need to make the most of this homestand.

Well, I have to admit that like everyone else I loved what he did at the plate and even defended his defense. I did tend to look the other way when he was "being Manny." I turned against him, quite simply, in 2008 when he did everything he could to get out of Boston, whose FO was never going to give him more than $20M/year.

What surprises me about Kimmi's post of the McAdams article is the apparent belief that Price is our ace. His money says he is, but in reality he is not.

Yes, but when we traded Iglesias for a starter, however mediocre, we had two good SS's in Drew and Bogaerts. More to the point, we made the deal to enhance our chances in the the postseason, and guess what? The Sox won the WS that season. And didn't Iglesias miss the next season 2014?

He sure wasn't my favorite player. I completely agree with all the great comments about his hitting, but you guys are ignoring he was immature and, on occasion, downright mean. Manny being Manny included punching out a club assistant he didn't get him tickets he wanted, simply not playing when he didn't feel like it, making Francona's job miserable on those occasions when Manny wanted to be Manny to the detriment of the team, playing poorly on occasion in 2008 to force the Sox to trade him, insisting he should be getting ARod's salary (which ARod himself didn't deserve), using PED's after MLB had finally decided to crack down on them, etc, etc.

Actually, a pretty interesting game. Price definitely didn't have his best stuff, but he and the bullpen still managed to hold the Yankees to 3 runs. This was one of those game when the Yankees pitching, Tanaka and their bullpen, was pretty darn good. HanRam and Ortiz each hit longish flies, but both were catchable. I was very impressed with how Miller worked the outside of the plate with that 95-96 mph fastball. I personally find it hard to blame anyone on the Sox side. Price struggled, but still only gave up 3. The hitters were kept guessing by superior pitching. It's how games are lost--good pitching trumps good hitting most of the time. Our 1-7 hitters had one hit, the solo dinger by Pedroia. The other two hits were by Leon and Holt. Remember my phony-baloney rule: the team whose pitchers have the best K/BB ratio is usually the team that wins. Worth noting: of the 3 Yankee games, ERod by far pitched the best game. Both Wright and Price had bad innings, but the Sox still won it for Wright but not Price. I thought the key dingers in games 1 and 2 were by Shaw and Leon.

Right now the rotation looks like: WRight, ERod, Price, Porcello, and Pomeranz.

Appropriately, a road game to start the 2d half, which will have a lot of road games.

Best talksox thread I've read, and I've read all 12 pages. Well done, everyone. I knew nothing about either pitcher, so this was very educational, but I really liked all the other considerations brought to the discussion. I am not a DD fan and have a lot of respect for moonslav, but this time I think the ayes make more sense than the nays even though I agree this is a gamble.

Why are pitching coaches supposed to magically fix all pitching issues? If you are right, than it was idiocy to pay big bucks for Price and Kimbrell because the pitching coach could have made Buch or Kelly or whoever into a top of the line starter and Tazawa into a great closer. There is a reason why the average AL team has 12 pitchers to cover just one position (which doesn't go to bat) and 13 to cover the other 8 plus the DH. Pitching is just plain hard to do well. You have to be able to throw reasonably hard, but also have a variety of pitches, and, most important, have incredible accuracy. Mike Mussina of Orioles and Yankees fame once said that, if he started 32 games in a season, he would have all his pitches maybe a quarter (or less) of the games, just one or two good pitches half of the games, and nothing much working in 1/4 of the games. This year we have seen Price struggle, but also be brilliant. Same goes for our top of the line closer, Kimbrel, and he only has to pitch one inning at a time. Wright has excelled in part because the knuckler only has to be in the strike zone, not in the corners, but even he has struggled now and then. As for Buchholz, I think his big issue is some combination of confidence and control. These days he simply doesn't go after hitters and prefers to nibble but doesn't have the great control to make that work. Same goes for Erod who has shown he can pitch well when his changeup is working and his fastball is hitting the right spots, and the occasional curve or slider is effective. As soon as Erod or Buchholz relies heavily on fastballs and cut fastballs, they are dead, but they are forced to do that when they can't hit their spots with the breaking stuff. This is very analogous to Wright's situation when he can't throw the knuckler for strikes and is forced to throw that 86 mph fast ball which the hitters are sitting on. I'm not saying pitching coaches aren't important, but am saying that good, consistent pitching is uncommon, which is why it is so expensive. If pitching coaches were as good as you imply, some of them would be paid a whole lot more than they currently are.

You can do well in the playoffs with three good starters. But you need at least 4 and maybe 5 to get to the playoffs even with great hitting. So far this year the Sox have played much better at home than on the road (2 games above .500), but in the second half the Sox will play a whole lot more on the road than at Fenway. 18 road games in August and 19 in September.

Interesting analysis. To me the umpires are very definitely a general baseball topic even though all our examples were/are from Sox games because that's what we watch. But when the favorite part of the topic is replacing homeplate umpires with technology, it's no longer a Sox topic. As I said and still believe, I love that the topic stayed here. As for the All-Star game, by it's very nature it's a game and deserves a game thread--in my opinion. That's why I looked for one there. I also looked at Red Sox topics because of course this year the Sox had 4 starters and 2 pitchers on the roster. Nope. I always find it interesting that whenever I stray outside the lines/rules, I get pounced on. The exception was, surprise, surprise, your post just now. Very civil--or at least no insults. Thanks.

Actually, I both understand the rules and try to abide by them. But yesterday I started a thread on the All-Star game after I looked at the game threads and the talksox threads and found none. I was immediately chastised for blindly or deliberately breaking the rules and only then discovered the All-Star thread on general baseball topics. As for this thread, I'm glad its one of the Sox threads because I rarely go to the general topics and no doubt would have missed it had it been there. To me it's a great topic. Speaking of rules, I still think more threads are generally better because there are all kinds of things to talk about, and the ones that don't deserve much attention usually die a natural death by going to a second page when people stop commenting on them. But, as you say, you've been a moderator for 10 years and have learned what is doable and what ain't.

I think the 4 day hiatus applies to all 4 major sports--MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL. Only time all year when none are playing. I think there is a point in October when all 4 are playing. So I definitely agree this is down period for sports fans.

Interesting. Thanks. Any reason given for four straight in NL parks?

It just occurred to me that this entire thread is a travesty. It's on the talksox forum, but should be on the general baseball forum. Does this mean we are all going to be banned for acting against the good order and discipline of talksox.com?

Not blind. I did in fact look at the game threads part of the site as well as the talksox part. After reading your post, I looked again, then finally looked at the baseball talk forum (not about the Sox), and there it was. As it turns out, that thread isn't so much about the all-star game as about the peripheral items like how our guys were doing in the voting, some expressions about the Yankees, a discussion of Ortiz's presence at the game, etc.--but very little about the game itself. By all means merge this thread, which won't bother me one bit even though my OP was actually about the game and won't quite fit into the one already started. Despite that, I would have been more than happy to tag my comments onto the established thread had I found it. But I did look.