Maxbialystock

What was that conference about?

Now that was a changeup--much needed.

Funny thing. ERod likes to talk about his changeup, but he rarely uses it.

Bradley is more of a pull hitter now than Ortiz.

4th inning with Bradley, Leon, and Shaw coming up. Meh.

ERod is the opposite--mostly fast balls.

Stripling throws a lot of off speed pitches, and it really has our guys off balance.

In three innings the Sox 3d thru 9th hitters have 0 hits.

Well, I got that mostly right--just had Leon and Hill reversed.

Managers are normally, usually the fall guys when teams underperform. I think that's fair even though sometimes those firings are unjust. I personally think game management is overrated because in this day of age all managers have 1) lots of experience; 2) lots of detailed stats, trends, etc; 3) lots of immediately available expertise (pitching and bench coaches) to discuss things with; 4) plenty of time to make decisions; 5) not many important decisions to make. Unlike basketball coaches and especially football coaches, managers don't have much in the way of plays or defenses that would permit some creativity. No managers spend night after night reviewing game films to find other teams weaknesses. I do think some managers create a better playing environment than others--see Maddon of the Cubs. I think Girardi of the Yankees is a good manager, but his team loses anyway when he doesn't have talent.

Do you mean underestimate or overestimate? As for Valentine, I like that example because Farrell was the guy who replaced him the very next year and took the team all the way to the WS and another championship. I don't begin to know how much effect Farrell had on the 2013, but, whatever it was,it could not have been that bad. In my view, the players, as always, get the lion's share of the credit.

Pretty good intro. Dodgers have pitching edge tonight. Sox have struggled against lefties this year and tonight will probably not have HanRam or Big Papi. Lately Farrell has sat Shaw against lefties, but can't tonight. He probably won't play Benintendi in LF--Brentz instead. And Hill at 3B. Maybe: Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Bradley, Leon, Shaw, Hill, Brentz, Wright. If HanRam plays, he will bat 4th, then Bradley, Leon, Hill, Brentz, and Wright. A win tonight would be, for me, unexpected.

Since we won, I sure hope you're right, but I keep remembering our latest homestand when we went 4-5. We took two from the Giants, great, but then split 4 with the Twins and lost all 3 to the Tigers. On the road trip we have so far split with cellar-dwellers LA and with .500 Seattle. Now 3 in a NL park which probably means no Ortiz and maybe no Ramirez.

I think he was being ironic or facetious but not sarcastic.

I not only agree, but also point to the latest homestand when the Sox went 4-5. Lately the Sox are simply playing bad baseball.

I like Sparky Anderson's quotes and Kimmi's basic approach.

By your logic, almost any loss can be blamed on the manager because he wrote the lineup card, set the rotation, etc. Going back to Tuesday night, my reasoning is: 1) Price was our $217M ace, was going great guns through 7 innings, had only thrown 89 pitches, and Farrell should have been fired on the spot if he didn't stay with him in the 8th, especially with our flaky bullpen. 2) The solo dinger only made the score 4-1 and could have happened anytime and FArrell would have, should have kept his ace in the game. Besides, he correctly had no one warming up. Are you seriously advocating bringing in a cold pitcher to replace your ace with a 4-1 lead? 3) Next guy gets on with a "soft fly" which I didn't see but interpret as a fluke hit. Again, keep Price in. 3) Now a hard ground ball for a single. OK, warm someone up (which had probably already started), and send the pitching coach out. You still have a 4-1 lead and your ace on the mound. 4) Soft line drive, slightly flukish, but now the score is 4-2 with men on 1st and 2d. Probably time to bring in Barnes even though the bullpen is inconsistent. 5) Barnes does his job, strikes his man out. Great. Men still on 1st and 2d, but now one man out. But coming up is one of the best lefty hitters in the AL, sort of like David Ortiz. Abad is available, is a lefty, and has a good record against Cano. Barnes is also a good choice because of the K he got, but by no means the only choice. 6) Abad gets two strikes on Cano, which to me demonstrates Farrell made a good decision, but then he throws a fat pitch that Cano clobbers for 3 runs, the lead, and the game. That's baseball, Give Cano some credit, the same way we always give Ortiz credit (and never blame the opposing manager for having the wrong pitcher in the game). 7) Abad gets the next two guys out, including another good hitter, Cruz, again indicating Farrell made a good choice despite the outcome. 8) Shaw walks in the 9th, but Bradley, Leon, and Benintendi all strike out, which of course is Farrell's fault because the players are never at fault. I apologize that some of the above is over the top, but I did it that way to emphasize that to me Farrell's choices were reasonable and that that's all we can expect. I might add that we/you are only assuming a better outcome if Farrell had not sent Price out for the 8th or removed him sooner or kept Barnes in or whatever. We don't in fact know what would have happened. We only know we don't like what did happen.

I hope you realize that the lion's share of the Farrell criticism for Tuesday night is about leaving Price in too long. The argument goes that FArrell should have had guys warming up when Price went to the mound, that he should have dashed out to talk to him after the first batter's dinger, etc. But, borrowing your approach, going into that inning Price was going great guns and the smart move was not to panic just because it was the 8th and the Sox only had a 4-0 lead (joke) and Price had already thrown 89 pitches (a low number for him). I too thought Barnes was lights out--but that was just one batter. Coming up was one of the best lefty hitters in the game. Yes, Barnes has that good fastball, but we have many times seen that a good fastball is still hittable when the batter knows it's coming. But my real point is this. If Barnes had stayed in and given up the dinger, you would be insisting that Farrell failed to use that great lefty arm, Abad, who had a good record against Cano. Heck, I might even agree that Barnes was a slightly better choice against Cano, but I only expect a manager to make a reasonable choice.

Again, thanks for your civility. I think we come from different perspectives. I don't think managers win or lose games to the degree that players do. I also assume the every manager in MLB has access to better information/stats and better advice (pitching coach, bench coach) and has more experience than any of us. I therefore assume every decision is reasonable regardless of the outcome. But there is another school of thought that believes outcomes are the only basis for evaluating a manager. I believe that's true in terms of the overall performance of a team. If they are underperforming, the front office has every right to consider getting a new manager, which is exactly what Sox management did after the September 2011 debacle. However, I must add that, when Francona was the manager and I was on that other site, Francona was basically blamed for every single loss to Sox had--by some fans, anyway. Those fans assumed that good managers don't lose, period, as preposterous as that sounds. After every loss, without exception, there would be a few who said, "Francona should have done this or that." It is because of that experience that these days I tend to defend the manager on specific decisions even when I agree that overall wins and losses should determine his fate.

I woke up at 1 am and watched the bottom of the 8th and the next 3 innings. It was actually a classic baseball game from an earlier era (100 years ago?) when scoring was at a premium. If you get mlb.com At Bat as I do for my ipad, you can get the highlights for replay. For last night's game there were 12 highlights for 11 innings which is far and away the fewest highlights I can remember for one game. I missed Pomeranz but noticed he gave up 6 walks in 6 innings. That must have been fun. Farrell ended up using 5 relievers, I thought to good effect. Someone complained that Kimbrel should have pitched the 11th and ignored the brilliance of pulling Abad for Kimbrel in the 9th with two on, two out, and Cano coming to the plate. Kimbrel seems to have rediscovered his knuckle curve during his time on the DL because he is using it more now than before and used it with great effect on Cano, who in this case had the advantage, lefty batter vs. righty pitcher. He grounded out--not a hard grounder--to Pedroia on that lovely knuckle curve. Kimbrel pitching the 10th also made sense. Had Ziegler not been available, I think Kimbrel would have pitched the 11th, but I can't see how anyone can question the use of of Ziegler. The fact that Kimbrel only needed 14 pitches means he is available tonight against the Dodgers. Ditto, for that matter, Ziegler. Has no one else notice that the Sox great scoring machine ain't exactly hitting on all cylinders? They have averaged over 5 runs per game for the season, but have scored more than 5 runs in exactly one game out of the last 9--the 6-2 win over the Angels in game 2. Earlier, they scored 3 against the Tigers in game 3; 1, 2, and 3 runs in the other 3 games against the Angels, and 1, 4, 1, and 3 runs against Seattle. During that same period Ortiz had 3 rbi's and 4 hits. The point is, right now we need good pitching from both the rotation and the bullpen. Fortunately, the rotation is probably better right now than it has been all year. And the bullpen is capable if not lights out.

Good comments by both of you. I myself tend to be critical.

I broke my rule Monday night and watched the whole darn game, didn't get in until 7:30, and was semi-worthless most of the day. We are talking about addiction here. Not good. With the weekend so close, I'm thinking of watching some of tonight's game even though it's Pomeranz.

Really? You guys should do a little fact-checking now and then. At 97 pitches Iwakura was already over his average of 91 pitches/per game. He has thrown more than 97 pitchers in 4 of his 22 starts, and when he did he threw 98, 98, 100, and 102 pitches. This explains why the bullpen was already warmed up. The Seattle manager was fully ready to pull the trigger. Price, on the other hand, thrives on throwing over 100 pitches. His 8th innings are his 4th best innings, especially when he is going great guns as he was Tuesday night. And, as I pointed out before, when Barnes came in with the score 4-2, Boston, with men on 1st and 2d, the situation was way better than the night before when Ross came in with the Sox down 1-0 and men on 2d and 3d with 1 out. The difference which you two keep ignoring is that Ross did his job and struck out 2 to end the inning. Then Hill homered and then so did Betts to win the game in the 9th. Tuesday night Barnes did his job, but Abad did not. I sometimes think you guys have a simple rule--if the Sox lose, Farrell must have done something wrong because it's rarely the fault of the players. Speaking of which, how come the Sox got nothing off Iwakuma whose ERA before the game was over 4? We had 7 hits and 2 of them were by a guy who was facing MLB pitching for the first time in his life. Our team RISP was 0 for 5, and we had 8 K's and 0 walks. To remind: I do believe managers are accountable for wins and losses and that the front office is always entitled to fire a manager if they believe the team is winning fewer games than they should with the talent they have. I was in favor of firing Farrell last year for exactly that reason. But this year I like the winning record. On the other hand, I think this team has enough talent right now to get into the playoffs. If they don't, it's on Farrell. My goodness, management made the gutsy decision to move up Benintendi even though Holt wasn't gawdawful, and it looks like he just might be ready to contribute. But the Sox still lost another one. Remember, it's not just a bad road trip. The homestand beforehand was also bad--4-5 at Fenway, including splitting with the Twins and losing all 3 to the Tigers. Whether or not Farrell is making good decisions on pitching, this team right now is adrift.

I don't need a reason. I hit the sack at 10 so I can be at the office by 7.

Thanks for the civil response. Am I right in saying that the Sox are paying Price $217M ($30M/year), that Price shut down the Mariners for the first 7 innings on 3 hits, no walks, and 5 K's, that going into the 8th Price had only thrown 89 pitches, that Price left the game having thrown 98 pitches, fewer than he had thrown in the previous six games, and that our bullpen has not been all that reliable?