moonslav59

He’s not a flash in the pan. The guy led the league in rbis not long ago

Devers was Bogey’s binky.

8 rbis in 10 games. Has any other Sox player done better?

We may see Duran PH or PR and then replace Kike once a righty comes in.

I thought you had low expectations.

He’s had some very long stretches of pitching like a 2 or 3 slot starter. I’m talking 15-20 games long.

It’s seems to be all about yesterday and today, only.

I never said I expect him to be a GG 1Bman, but many 1Bmen make that play half or more times than not. It was a tough play. Pointing this out does not take away from what else he did in the game. He had a net plus game. For sure.

Drohan and Guerrero.

In gear

Duvall will get a very long look, as he should, but yes: get your ass I. Hear!

That was a smash to Casas, but a plus defensive 1Bman makes that play and it's on to the 10th. Bad time for Wink to pitch a stinker. I think he's only had 2-3 bad games, all year, so it's hard to think too badly of him. The bats have gone inconsistent for a very long time, now. I wonder, if that is what we should expect over the second half. Maybe Story can give it the boost it seems to need, I hope Paxton's knee is fine, and he doesn't miss a start. We are down to Walter and Murphy as options. My guess is Wong gets tomorrow off, and the day off Monday, he should be well rested by Tuesday's game. Too bad Hamilton can't get on base a lot. They kid looks like an auto SB.

Bobby Dee for Turner NOT Hamilton? Hmmm...

Expect an rbi double.

Expect an rbi single.

Expect a SB attempt

I'd have PH Ref for Hamilton and Dalbec for Wong.

Till now.

Do we pinch hit Dalbec or Refsnyder for Hamilton or Wong in the 9th?

You guys had an old and injury prone team going into the season. Many of your players had already shown strong indications of decline, although some had upticks in 2022, that could/should have been viewed as blips. I don't blame you for being very optimistic about your team's chances back in March, but you did seem very sure about how much better the Yanks were going to be vs the Sox. On the idea that "all fell off a cliff at the same time," I want to say several should have been expected declines, and not all have gone over a cliff: Judge has about the same OPS but has been hurt. Carpenter's 1.138 OPS in '22 was a fluke. Rizzo has declined slightly, as an age curve would have projected (.817>.794) LeMahieu has been declining beyond this year's .734 to .669. Stanton fell off a cliff and has been hurt. (.759>.635) Was Cabrera ever for real? (.741 in 171 2022 PAs to .532) is a cliff dive. To me, Donaldson's dive was expected. Bader is doing better, this year, but has been hurt. Higgy and I K-F about the same.

I doubt we give up on McGuire, so quickly. He has several years of team control, and Hickey is a couple years away. I think McGuire has been playing hurt, some. He missed some starts, I think would have been his, earlier this year. On the numbers with pitchers, one has to realize who each has caught way more than the other and adjust, accordingly. Also, the head to head match-ups are pretty close to even: (Note: McGuire has caught about 60% of all PAs Against- a 3:2 ratio) OPS Against with each catcher: ** Note the unbalanced PAs against Houck .692 Wong (263 PAs) ** .727 McGuire (22) Sale .633 Wong (185) ** 1.061 McGuire (64 mostly early in the season) Bello (I'm counting this even) .695 Wong (142) .696 McGuire (142) Paxton .631 Wong (130) ** .683 McGuire (26) Whitlock .810 Wong (110) .714 McGuire (62) Crawford .815 Wong (109) .472 McGuire (78) Winckowski .656 Wong (110) .595 McGuire (62) Pivetta .646 Wong (126) .904 McGuire (124) Kluber .918 Wong (51) .982 McGuire (206)** _________________ Jansen .722 Wong (79) .328 McGuire (31) Martin .581 Wong (66) .401 McGuire (26) When not counting massive unbalanced sample size, McGuire actually has done better or the same with more pitchers than Wong, especially the younger ones (Bello, Crawford and Wink). McGuire 5-1 If you count the unbalanced samples: Wong 5- McGuire 5 (If Sale and Kulber don't pitch the rest of the season, it's 5-3 McGuire.) This is not meant to disparage Wong. He's done a great job behind the plate. There was an expected learning curve, early in the season, as we added so many new pitchers, and Wong and McGuire had very little history with any pitchers on the staff.

JD only DH's and has hit better, so far, but Turner being able to play 3B and 1B has been a big plus for us, and is basically the difference in bWAR.. In 2022, we used these guys as subs at 3B and 1B: 3B GS 14 Dalbec 8 Arroyo 3 Downs 1B (Dalbec started 89 and was horrible on D and O.) 53 Cordero 22 Casas 14 Hosmer 6 Arroyo 5 Vazquez 3 Shaw 1 Chang 2023: 3B: Devers has started 71 games 5 Turner 1 Dalbec 1B: Casas has started 58 games 18 Turner 3 Dalbec

DSL Games, today. Red won 12-1 on just 7 hits, all singles, except 1 2B! They took advantage of 13 BBs! (They are 9-6) Leadoff hitter, Eusebio went 1-2 w 4 runs scored (3BB) Arias 2-3 w 2BB (.960 OPS) Henriquez: 5 IP, 3H, 0ER, 2BB, 5K Blue won 2-1 in 10(They are 11-4, this year) Rodriguez: 4IP, 2H, 0ER, 1BB, 4K The team walked 8 times! (5 hits- all singles) Nobody had 2 hits

Since Kike just barely got the guy out at 1B, going to 3rd would have been just one out, at best. No way, Devers gets the guy out at 1B. It was a great play by Wong and a pretty good one by Kike.

We are almost at the halfway point of the season. (We have played 77 games.) We are on pace for 84 wins and 78 losses- an exact flip for 2022's 78-84 line.) I'm going to project the final fWAR numbers for Sox players, assuming those healthy, now, remain so: fWAR now> projected final fWAR 2.5>4.9 Verdugo 1.2>3.0 Devers 1.2>2.7 Turner 0.7>2.4 Duvall 1.2>2.0 Duran 0.8>1.5 Refsnyder 0.5>1.5 Wong N/A>1.0 Story 0.2>0.3 McGuire 0.1>0.2 Arroyo -0.8>-0.4 Kike N/A>N/A Mondesi 1.1>3.1 Paxton 1.1>3.0 Bello 0.9>2.0 Houck 0.7>2.0 Whitlock 0.9>2.0 Jansen 0.7>1.9 Martin 0.8>1.9 Crawford 0.6>1.8 Winckowski 1.2>1.6 Sale (assuming he comes back in late August) 0.6>0.9 Scheiber (assuming he comes back in mid July) 0.0>0.4 Pivetta (as a RP'er) 0.2>0.3 Bernardino 0.0>0.1 Reyes (assuming he returns before Story 0.2>0.1 Murphy -0.1>-0.1 Walter -0.2>-0.1 Joely -0.2>-0.2 Blier -0.2>-0.3 Ort -0.9>-0.9 Kluber ??? Garza, Sheriff and others. Oh, and I project 88-90 wins and a possible 2nd or 3rd WC slot entry.