moonslav59

They keep doing the unexpected- good and bad. When they look sucky, it seems most of us locked into the idea that this was who we are, forgetting we are still the team that won 8 in a row, at one time. We have a lot of talent. It may seem disjointed and and unbalanced, but 3 of the 4 key aspects of the game have carried us for long stretches: The O did for a long time. The pen has for almost the whole season. The rotation has done an amazing job after the first few weeks, especially in light of 28 GS'd missed by injuries. Only the D has failed to "carry us," at all. If we can ever get all 3 going at once, and keep them going, we can overcome the poor D. If the return of Story or Chang can help improve the D, and the other 3 areas stay more consistently good, this team can go places. Too many "ifs" for most Sox fans. I get why.

We are back over .500 at 43-42. 85 games/5 SP'ers = 17 In theory, this is how many starts our pitchers have missed: 6 Sale 9 Paxton 5 Whitlock 4 Houck 4 Bello (8 Kluber by demotion) (9 Pivetta by demotion) ? Crawford missed some time in May Other teams have had serious injuries, too. Ours seems to be focused almost exclusively on SP'ers and SSs, but 28 missed starts in 85 games is one third! We all expected missed time from Sale and Paxton. I remember thinking counting on them for 33 starts combined was probably wishful thinking, yet they have combined for 20 starts, so far. Without those two, our first half would have been horrific. Going forward: Bello has to reach 28-30 starts and remain solid. Paxton needs to reach 25 GS and also remain solid. I'm not expecting anything from Sale, and his "missing" 16 GS'd the rest of the way will be hard to replace. We might be lucky to get the 32 starts slotted at #3 & 4 to be filled by Houck, Whitlock & Sale. That leaves 16 starts for the #5 guy: Crawford/Murphy/Walter/Pivetta/Opener games? Our bats coming alive could help a lot. The pen needs to stay solid. Maybe the D can improve, once Story and/or Chang return.

I may feel this way in 3-4 weeks, but not now.

It does seem like we are headed towards where we were, last year nearing the trade deadline, but for some reason, I have more optimism, now than I did after last year's 1-9 stretch vs TBR, TOR & NYY in July. Stay tuned.

I think Pivetta has earned another shot in the rotation, but we do need long RP'ers, as Wink has been faltering. Maybe we bring up Murphy or Walter to start. We have a few days off and the All Star break. Maybe Whitlock won't miss many starts.

WOO was rained out. POR won Bleier was the opener (1 IP, 1H, 0ER, 0BB, 2K) Mayer had a bust out game (3-5 w HR bringing his AA OPS to .681) Kavadas 3 run HR Binelas 2-5 w HR Yorke 1-5 w 3B GRE won Encarnacion 6IP, 5H, 2ER, 0BB, 6K SAL won as Perales dominated: 5IP, 2h, 0ER, 2BB, 12K Yes, 12 Ks out of 15 outs

Games left vs our fellow contenders: GB -7.5 BAL 7 (3 HOME/4 AWAY) -3.5 HOU: 7 (3 HOME/4 AWAY) -3.5 NYY 7 (4 HOME/3 AWAY) -2.0 TOR 6 (3 HOME/3 AWAY) -1.5 LAA (none) +1.0 CLE (none) +1.5 SEA 3 AWAY Plenty of chances to pass these guys by just beating them, head-to-head.

A nice long win streak would help cancel out some of these messed up losing stretches. The other crazy thing is our record v TOR/NYY vs our record vs the NL Central.

If he keeps this up, yes, even if just to trade.

Indeed. If we platoon him, alternating with Duran and Casas, it’s the short end platoon. If he doesn’t start hitting, he may be traded. The problem is, what is he worth, if he is still slumping by the end of July?

Yes. My bad.

I know nobody is giving up on Duvall, and for good reason. While the start of 2023 might have been fluky, the guy can hit. He’s coming back from an injury to a key area of the body for a hitter. Maybe he rushed back, too quickly.

Unreal game by Duran! Dugo with the big hit. Devers forevers. Mighty pen effort! Let’s hope this springboards us into a WC slot.

I’m pretty sure it’s only 3.

Big win, today. Puts us right back in it. Man, this team is streaky!

Sounds like all but 3 fans are already alienated.

They should have just got the best in each deal, even if they weren’t happy with returns.

Some feel in foresight, too.

It’s all about footwork.

It would be interesting to know how many runs we have let up on these “non error” plays, this year

Your spell check is in another language, I fear.

We could have paid down almost all of the salaries of those FAs to be, reset and gotten nice returns.

I think Ben had a better foundation to work with and the Pablo, HRam and Rusney signings were too much to stomach. I don’t think Yoshida and Story look as bad as those three.

At least you can blame yours on typos!

I thought Ben was doing what JH wanted, too.