moonslav59

Just don't rush him. We need a healthy Whitlock.

Who knows if either will work out for us. It's looking like Binelas (the other part of the renfroe/JBJ-Hamilton trade) will never get out of the minors, but Valdez (the other part of the Vaz/Valdez trade) is looking sharp out of the gate. I'm just going to put it another way: Hamilton and Abreu look better than last year.

The doom and gloomers seem to really "live in the moment," when things are going poorly. They jump to judge over small or tiny sample sizes, but when things go well, they start talking about "regressing to the mean," or focusing on how weak the league must be for this to be happening.

Most of us knew our hitting would not be the problem. Few thought it would be this good, and it could easily "regress" some. On the pitching, I had wished we'd have focused more resources on the rotation, and not just this past winter, either. My expectations were not high, but I think they were higher or much higher than several posters, here. I knew we were light at the top, but I liked the idea of having 6 promising starters (Sale, Whitlock, Kluber, Bello, Pivetta, Paxton) and other promising depth (Houck, Crawford, Wink, Mata, Walter and Murphy.) I figured it might take a while to settle on the right 5 and hoped we wouldn't be 10 games behind before that happened, but I did expect us to be around the 10th to 15th best rotation in MLB- not so much out of glowing expectations, but out of knowing other teams are like us or worse but with less depth. I'm not pessimistic about the gloom and doomers: they are what they are. They will always find something to complain about. (I guess one could say I'm finding them to complain about and am no different.)

Maybe because he believes their "mean" is pretty low. I think it is obvious that several Sox fans had very low expectations, this year, based on their beliefs about the quality of players we have and acquired. When we talk about "regressing to the mean," in all fairness, it is pretty hard (and subjective) to determine just what was/is the "mean" for Sale, Kluber, Duvall, Turner, Duran, Yoshida. So much was hard to project, often due to injuries, age and inconsistent pasts. It is possible our rotation does not improve. God, I hope I'm wrong about seeing a light at the end of that tunnel, but it would be entirely possible they keep sucking or just barely improve.

One could be a big key in this team's success, going forward. Picking the right one to play could be an important choice. I know who Cora will choose "every day of the week," except on Kike's scheduled day off during a hot streak, of course.

You'd think bring the IP down for SP'ers from 280-310 to 180-210 would be a beneficial change, but they just throw harder, now. No more "pacing yourself."

Not at all. I never fell for the Elway hype- long before that Packer beat down.

Just as I cautioned fellow posters to not get so gloom and doomy over such a small sample size, this 5 game stretch is even smaller. We still have some major weaknesses that will be exposed, again and again, namely defense and still the rotation. While I do still think the rotation will improve to middle of the pack (or better), it's not there yet. Other teams have major weaknesses, too, as we just saw with TOR. I'm certainly more optimistic than I was 5 days ago, but this is not going to be easy.

19-14 is the 8th best record in MLB and tied for 7th with MIL at 18-13. We are 1/2 game from being tied with TEX and LAD for the 5th best record. We are 1.5 GB PIT for the 4th best record in MLB. We are 3GB BAL for second in the mighty ALE and the 3rd best record in MLB. What a difference 5 games makes. It just goes to show you how quickly things can change (for good and bad.)

That will be a test, for sure. It's not the typical west coast trip. This next road trip could tell even more... 3 @ PHI 2 @ ATL Then home for... 3 v STL 3 v SEA Followed by... 3 @ SDP 3 @LAA 3 @ AZ 14 of 20 on the road. I keep looking for an easy stretch to our schedule. Maybe these are them: 10 v KCR, DET, WSH mid August 9 v OAK, CHC, OAK mid July 9 v LAA, AZ, CIN end of May 6 v CWS/ MIA end of June 6 v STL/SEA mid May

OPS by Position (not counting tonight's game) 1.083 CF (.671 in '22) .878 RF (.661) .829 C (.694) .825 LF (.694) .813 DH (.763) .790 3B (.856) .677 SS (.815) .642 1B (.683) .617 2B (.724) No batting slot is under .692: .961 5th .885 8th .859 2nd .829 1st (.366 OBP) .785 6th .762 4th .713 7th .704 9th .692 3rd .845 1-2 .801 3-6 .766 7-9 2022: .753 1-2 .769 3-6 .656 7-9 2021: .771 1-2 .830 3-6 .713 7-9

"I'd never belong to a club that had me as one of its members." I guess that does not include the DFA Brasier Club.

Well, Kike has a better 2023 OPS. He has 127 PAs, and you call him "utility." Arroyo has 74 PAs, and his OPS was greatly boosted by the recent 3 game stretch, and I'm not getting what "cherry picking" means? Any day of the week? How about the days in October 2021? (Now, that's some cherry picking.)

Percent of teams that make the playoffs: 40% MLB 44% NFL 50% NHL 66% NBA

Sox by Most in PAs: 146 Turner 144 Dugo 141 Devers 127 Kike 120 Yoshida 106 Casas 74 Arroyo 74 Wong 68 Duran 59 Ref 56 McGuire 47 Chang 40 Tapia 37 Duvall 33 Valdez 11 Dalbec Total Batters Faced 138 Houck 134 Pivetta 134 Sale 131 Kluber 102 Crawford 88 Winckowski 82 Bello 74 Brasier 65 Schreiber 62 Ort 57 Bleier 38 Martin 35 Jansen 34 Kelly 27 Bernardino Plus... Story Mondesi Joely Paxton Mills Looks like this is Bloom's team

Don't let these updated Sox OPS numbers knock you over! 1.544 Duvall (I wonder where he'd be at if not injured.) 1.139 Duran (Many of us felt he should never get another chance, unless we were eliminated.) .948 Yoshida (So much for the mega overpay talk.) .897 Dugo (Finally living up to the hopes many of us had.) .849 Devers (Hard to imagine him T5th in team OPS.) .849 Wong (What a pleasant surprise!) .833 Valdez (They kid could always hit- at least vs RHPs.) .779 McGuire (Keeping up his Red Sox success story. His Red sample size is nearly = his White.) .766 Turner (If he continues his traditional second half success, this could be a career year.) .715 Tapia (Looked more promising in ST'ing, but doing okay.) .664 Kike (Started heating up, but has leveled off a bit.) .662 Ref (Was last year a fluke?) .636 Arroyo (Had a great 3 game stretch.) .587 Casas (If he heats up, double wowzah!) .586 Dalbec (May not get another look in 2023.) .515 Chang (The race is on for who comes back, first: Story, Mondesi or Chang.)

Trend shift? Sale: 2 of last 3 starts were 1 ER in 6 IP. 12.1 IP, 6H, 2 ER, 2BB, 16K Bello: last 2 starts: 10 IP 11H, 3ER, 3BB, 12K (2.70 ERA) Houck: 3.88 FIP last 5 starts (team is 4-1) Take away a couple big and bad innings, and... Kluber: 5.54 last 5 GS is about the best I can come up with. 3 of 5 starts with 3 or less ERs. Pivetta: 5.61 last 5 GS (4.99 FIP) 3 of 5 last starts with 3 or less ERs.

You crack me up. How is what you are doing not cherry picking? You spoke of ceilings, so I showed examples of what Kike's is. Arroyo can't prove he is good enough or even stay healthy enough to get over 300 PAs in a season. Kike, "the utility man" has over 342 PAs 5 times (5 in the last 6.) He has over 400 in 4 of the last 5 seasons. No cherries to pick, there.

Not sure Mata is starting to come around, despite just 1 ER: 4IP, 2H, 1ER, 6BB, 1K Joely pitched a scoreless 5th to get the win. Hamilton hit his 6th HR Dalbec 2-3 w 2B 2nd Game: Dermody 6 IP, 5H, 2ER, 0BB, 5K for the tough loss. Woo had 3 hits in the 2-1 loss. As Red pointed out, Drohan had another great night. His ERA is now 0.62. Guerrero got his 5th save (1.80 ERA.) Rosier homered. Yorke 1-4 Kavadas 1-2 w 2BB GRE lost, again. 1-5 Mayer 1-3 Ferguson w 2BB Salem was one hit in a 7-0 loss.

He doesn't want the other teams to think we are running up the score on them.

We just passed TOR and are hanging tight with the O's (3 GB second place in the mighty ALE!) Run diff: 114 TBR 69 TEX 28 LAA 27 MIN 26 BAL 25 BOS 22 HOU 9 SEA 4 NYY 1 TOR Games vs >.500 Teams: 27 BOS (14-13) 20 NYY (9-11) 18 HOU (11-7) 16 MIN (8-8) 16 TOR (7-9) 13 TBR (9-4) 13 LAA (4-9) 12 TEX (7-5) 12 BAL (6-6) 12 CLE (4-8) 9 SEA (2-7)

We are beating good teams. We are beating good pitchers. We are scoring like runs grow on trees. Gotta like what we are seeing, lately!

You jinxed the Bra Man!

Yup