Maxbialystock

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.

I watched over half of it and thought our guys acquitted themselves well, getting 4 of the 8 AL hits, including that key double by Bogaerts. Some criticism on espn about taking Ortiz out so early, but my guess is he was happy to do so. No errors by the Sox, but JBJ did make that off-balance throw that missed 2B by a mile. I had the sound off, so never heard the explanation of how the AL was the home team in a NL park. This also meant DH's were OK. Long ago I developed my own, no doubt ill-founded theory, that one box score item would reveal the winner: the ratio of K's to BB's. If one team's pitchers have a better ratio, that team, regardless of hits, etc, is more likely to win. Last night the NL had more hits and more opportunities, but struck out 9 times vs. 2 walks. But the AL team only struck out 5 times and had 3 walks. Of course, the AL also had two very nice dingers by the KC guys. I fell asleep around the 5th or 6th inning and later learned, as predicted by many on talksox, that Wright did not in fact get into the game.

ERA eliminates some of the luck by not counting runs caused by errors or, for that matter, passed balls. But luck is also an intrinsic part of baseball that lessens as the statistical sample gets larger, and this especially applies to the ERA. Wins and losses are another matter.

I think Illinoisredsox has it right: the problem is pitching, not LF or 2B or 3B. That said, however, the discussions about getting pitching from a trade--like when the Sox sent HanRam from the minors to Miami to get Josh Beckett, who was huge in 2007--might argue in favor of bringing up young talent either to showcase them or to discover how real the talent is.

Could someone please explain to me why ERA is luck and team dependent? To me the ERA was designed if not arbitrated by pitchers to blame their failings on the defense. For example, if an error is made with two outs, all future runs are unearned no matter how many, dingers, walks, WP's,or other hits the pitcher then gives up in that inning. For another, runs are unearned when the pitcher is making the errors causing the unearned runs. This gets really funny when the pitcher gets a perfect GIDP one hopper with men on 1B and 2B and promptly throws the ball into centerfield. I just don't see how the ERA disadvantages pitchers. To me its the absence of the unearned run that would make a pitcher's runs average (vice ERA) luck and team dependent.

FWIW, the guy running the Sox candy store is John Henry, and to date he has made money at it while bringing 3 WS titles to Boston after the 86 year drought. Theo Epstein ain't running the candy store in Chicago either, but the guy who is pays Theo an awful lot of money and right now is pretty happy with him.

Archer will shut our guys down and theirs will hammer O'Sullivan. Aaron Hill is already getting his first start at 3b against a righty while Shaw rests,probably because of that injury. First six once again are Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Ortiz, HanRam, Bradley Then Holt, Hill, and Leon. Four lefty bats in that lineup. Sox attendance is up this year at 35,727 per game--8th best in MLB. Road attendance is 5th best in MLB, so other cities like our Sox. Did fans vote based on WAR ratings? OUr 4 starters have Offensive WAR's of 3.6 (Bogaerts0, 3.5 (Ortiz), 3.2 (JBJ), and 3.0 (Betts). Pedroia at 2.1 unlikely to make the cut. Shaw and Ramirez have the same OPS, .801: HanRam's has been going up and Shaw's going down. It would be so great if the Sox could sweep the Rays. Betts has 58 rbi's and could get 110, insane for a leadoff hitter.

I also have my doubts about Shaw as a defensive 3B--too many errors, not much range.

I applaud all of you analysts who overall seem to think this was a good move. While even I can see the advantages, I also think improving the bench is a sideshow when the pitching is so bad. When Dombrowski makes a move like this, it's like Richard Gere in the movie Chicago doing that "Razzle Dazzle them" number to confuse the jury.

Meh. When the pitching is this bad and the team is still winning enough to be--right now--in the playoffs, it's pretty hard to justify firing the manager or even say he is part of the problem.

You post on lots of things and I agree with a lot of what you say. But every time you post, you also say, "Trade Pedroia. Fire Farrell. Put Buchholz on waivers." That, sir, is a mantra and a contentious one at that.

Look at your mantra down below: Trade Pedroia. Fire Farrell. Put Buchholz on Waivers. So call it three notes, but it's the same three notes every single time you post. You would do far better with Spudboy's mantra, "pitching, pitching, pitching." I frankly think trading Pedroia would not be smart and certainly wouldn't help this year--unless, of course, his departure brought back a front-line pitcher, which ain't going to happen. I am not against firing Farrell ever, just against doing it now because he ain't the problem.

Johnny one note. I watch the games too, and I just don't think we are at that point. You like to blame him for specific in-game decisions, and I think his rationale for all of them is pretty good, so I focus on the players.