Maxbialystock

Watching the movie Patton sure as hell doesn't make you knowledgeable about military discipline and morale in wartime. You and I have different definitions of sloppy too. Our biggest problem isn't sloppiness but terrible pitching and periodic lulls in what is otherwise a great hitting lineup. I am by no means letting Farrell off the hook because he is ultimately responsible for the overall performance and especially the W-L record.

Great line, and I'm inclined to agree.

Gritty start by Porcello against a good hitting team. Now the box score says that 3 of the 4 first inning runs were earned.

1. That wasn't an error. 2. If Pedey goes for the out on Fielder the guy on 3B could score before we actually tag Fielder. I agree, he probably should have gone for Fielder, but the run was also possible.

I honestly don't think it makes that much differece who bats where with these guys. Betts leads off and leads the team in runs scored, but he is also second in rbi's. And the lineup only leads MLB in runs scored by 25 runs or so.

I certainly didn't think we missed Holt, but in these three games, all wins (big assumption about today), he has been a real tonic. Great dinger to right center and great throw home to nail a runner from 2b who was running with two outs. Two hits in each of his first two games back.

Umpire is definitely not good, nor has he prevented the better pitcher and his team from getting a lead. Indeed, Porcello's biggest problem in the first inning was the error by Leon that led to 2 unearned runs.

2 of the 4 Ranger runs in the 1st were unearned.

Pedey leads the Sox in GIDP with 15. Second is lumbering Ortiz with 12. Then the next guy down, someone with wheels, is Bogaerts with 7. Pedey also has a decent OBP, .366, and OPS, .801. Before monkeying with the batting order, it might be worth noting that the Sox lead MLB in runs scored by about 25 runs. On the previous game thread someone said Brock Holt was holding this team together, which at the time I thought was silly. Today with the bases loaded he took 2 pitches in the heart of the strike zone, then had to swing a low pitch for an easy groundout.

Bosoxmal, I thought I was an over-reactor, but you take the cake. I'm old, but you are older and should know better than to compare one stupid baseball game to Dec 7, 1941. And what is all that stuff about a lousy mindset? I say again, it was just one game. If you are saying Shaw is a little too error prone, I agree, but he has been that way all season long and starts because of his good bat against righties. As for the Leo Durocher quotation, you got that one wrong too. He was talking about opposing players, not opposing managers. And guess what, MLB has worked steadily at eliminating the style of play espoused by Ty Cobb, who loved to slide into second base with spikes high. But back then players were only making a little more than the average fan and were expendable. You're right that Farrell tends to be a good guy (or a nice guy), but, heck, so is Joe Maddon. You keep wanting to move Betts down in the batting order and his OBP says you could be right. But he is second on the team in rbi's and leads in runs scored. Moreover, despite recent scoring woes, the Sox lead MLB in runs scored. The problems are all with the pitching, not the hitting.

I started this thread because, while I believe managers can deserve to be fired based on the overall performance of a team, I think too many hotheaded fans tend to focus in on specific decisions and explain them in black and white terms to prove that a manager is utterly inept (your term). And you are a case in point. There are two things true about Wright's fastball and one thing true about his knuckler. The fast ball works when it is unexpected and doesn't work when the hitter is sitting on the fast ball. The latter was absolutely the case when he gave up the dinger. Better, by far, to throw another knuckler as he was told to do because, guess what? If he walks the hitter, 1 run comes in and the Sox are still up 5-1. It was in fact incredibly stupid to throw the fast ball when the hitter was looking for it. As for the knuckler, it comes and goes whether or not it is raining. That's why Wright gets a lot of walks and, for that matter, passed balls and wild pitches. It is effective precisely because it is unpredictable. As for having guys warming up in the bullpen, the Sox were up by five and WRight was pitching a shutout going into the 6th and the bullpen has been clearly overworked the last couple weeks (even though thursday was a travel day). Did I forget to mention you are bellyaching about a game the Sox won? Or that, as good as they were in the final four innings against the Angels, they have been hugely inconsistent--Kimbrell would have given up the tying run in the 9th were it not for the Sox fan not grabbed a ball that was headed back to the playing field)--this year? Wright was/is our best pitcher, and you want him out of there at the first indication of trouble.

Strangely enough, I agree. I don't mind defending specific decisions by Farrell, but always think a manager is partly responsible for the overall team performance. Right now the pitching is getting worse and the hitting is falling back from the highs of April and May. This is beyond question a June swoon.

REally? I started on "referendum on Farrell" thread and there were plenty of people back then who wanted Farrell fired because he kept using Young, including against righties. But I agree with you it does stink--it's bad for him and for the team. What doesn't stink is the policy now that says concussions have to be treated carefully and not glossed over.

Meh. Stadiums are nice, but it's the fans (and the players) who make the difference. The Yankees have almost brand new ballpark with way more seats than 100 year old Fenway and a franchise that has won more world championships than any other professional sport team. But as of today the Sox combined average attendance, home and on the road, is higher than the Yankees. Whatever Yankee Stadium and the Yankees as a team have to offer, fans aren't much interested.

Just 1 single from the first 4 in the Sox lineup.

I think Tampa is also good at developing pitchers. The Sox clearly are not.

Wow. It sure looked as though the Ray pitched around Bogaerts to get to Ortiz. Four straight balls to load the bases.But he walks Ortiz to bring in a run and face HanRam. And HanRam K's looking. Smart move by the pitcher. HanRam was the guy to go after with a 6 run lead and the bases loaded. Strikes out looking at a hanging curve near the center of the strike zone.

Finally, a solid single by Pedroia.

So far the Sox have 5 hits, and none by the first four hitters.

Great double by Brentz and absolutely mindless baserunning. A runner going for a triple does so completely on his own, and Brentz was out by a mile. Still, he drove in two runs that might eventually mean something.

You want a bad start? Check out ERod tonight. 9 runs, 2 dingers. 11 hits in 2.2 innings. You are so obsessed with condemning Buch you can't see the forest for the trees. Right now he is the Sox 4th best starter.

Here's my two reasons for retaining hope: 1) last year's team was 2 games below .500, 78-80, on 30 September and could have finished strongly but the FO put in lesser players to give them a final look and the Sox lost the final 4 games to finish 6 games under. I think of last year's team as a .500 team. 2) And I think this year's team is a lot better with Price and Wright at the top of the rotation and with a heckuva lineup, worlds better than last year's. Last year the Sox should have won 81 games, and this year they should win 91. However, this year's AL East is better than last year's. If the season had ended before yesterday's games, the AL East would have had 3 teams--Baltimore, Boston, and Toronto--in the playoffs.

Right. Elias. The FO has not hesitated to bench nonperformers this year, including Buchholz (who actually wasn't bench but went to the bullpen, which pissed him off) and Buch came back only because the other options, including Elias, were/are demonstrably worse.

Not sure I agree dumping Buchholz is a no-brainer. He was actually pretty good innings 2 thru 5. And the first inning was mostly a bunch of singles. The Sox also hit the ball hard in the first inning, but right at someone. I think Buch gets into trouble when he assumes he can get by on his fastball, especially in the first inning. When he mixed up his pitches, he was fine. The other problem is more serious and might merit letting him go: control. He gave up 5 walks. Bad as Buchholz has been this season, he is better than the alternatives we have seen so far.

It's really simple what happened to Wright tonight. He lost control of his knuckler and started giving up very hittable fastballs. The errors hurt too of course.