moonslav59

Are they not good enough, yet, to put out there in a ST'ing game?

If you are counting Robles, someone who became a FA, did not go to another team and was re-signed, then others like Martin Perez, Moreland and others would count.

Cora announced Houck is starting.

That is rather bold. There are so many pitchers who may end up getting a look-see. Eovaldi Sale (IL) Pivetta Paxton (IL) Wacha Hill Houck Whitlock Crawford Seabold Winckowski Groome Bello Barnes Brasier Taylor (IL) Diekman Robles Strahm Davis DHern Sawamura Valdez Holland Bazardo R Garza Not on 40: Keller Schreiber Hart C Murphy B Walter V Santos Kelly Feliz Danish Cole Bracho Ort Gillies Hartlieb Feltman German Shugart Wallace

Starter or potential Sox starter ST'ing numbers: 0.00 R Hill (5 IP) 0.00 Whitlock (5 IP) 2.57 Eovaldi (7 IP) 2.57 Wacha (7) 2.79 Pivetta (6.2) 7.20 Houck (5)

They both will. Cora has a way with maximizing weak to mediocre pens, but I'm not sure how much longer we can ask for that to continue.

Much better, actually.

Please, don't bring Weber back!

Maybe he'll trade for Renfroe at the deadline.

I think you are right, but if Cora wasn't so stuck on Kike as the leadoff, one could argue Verdugo should be in the top 5 vs RHPs over Kike and to a far lessser extent, Story. 2021 v RHPs (career) .894 Verdugo (.847) .744 Kike (.690) .735 Story (.809) By the methodology, one might argue Dalbec could crack the top 5 vs LHPs: career .902 Dalbec .826 Kike (Note: I would not place Dalbec ahead of Kike, unless he's been doing much better over a good chunk of 2022.)

Sawamura was even worse! Good to see Hill & Whitlock each go 3 strong!

"One step up and two steps back..."

I bet he turns it down.

No, but they might think about using it to slightly improve our base running potential. I'm not in favor of batting Devers 3rd, but this lineup might work better: 1. Story 2. Bogey 3. Devers 4. JD 5. Kike 6. Verdugo 7. Dalbec 8. Vaz 9. JBJ

I can see Cora flipping Verdugo & Dalbec in the 6-7 slots depending on a lefty or righty starter. He might also flip Devers and Bogey in the same manner.

Since '04, yes.

The thing is, it will affect only the hitters who had the shift used against them, and I would assume there would be varying degrees of affects among those players, as well.

Will this be Cora's main go-to line-up? 1. Kike CF 2. Devers 3B 3. Bogey SS 4. Story 2B 5. JD DH 6. Verdugo LF 7. Dalbec 1B 8. Vaz C 9. JBJ RF Or, will Story bat 2nd and Devers 3rd or 4th?

His change up was awesome, but no, I don't know if anyone has that info.

We sure could use one... or two.

Rossario was claimed by the Yankees and assigned to AA. After claiming Kyle Taylor off waivers on Tuesday, the Sox released him on Thursday, so they could claim Ralph Garze from the Twins. (Tyler was claimed by the Padres.)

Maybe because we rarely get picks as high as #7, people hoped we'd strike gold when we finally did. You're right, we have done well acquiring young and not-so-young pitchers in other ways than drafting. Guys like Erod and Whitlock never pitched a single pitch in the bigs, before coming to the Sox, but they don't count as "home grown," because they were not drafted or signed as IFAs. No doubt, we all wish we had struck gold more often with out drafted pitchers, but we've done alright in other areas and seem to have a lot of promising young pitchers in the system- perhaps more than we've seen for over a decade. Here's a breakdown of our pitchers: Red=not on 40 man roster Drafted: Houck Barnes Crawford Groome C Murphy B Walter N Song T Ward IFA: DHern Bello Mata Bazardo W Gonzalez Rule 5: Whitlock Waivers: Valdez R Garza Acquired by trade: Sale (extended) Eovaldi (extended) Pivetta Seabold Taylor A Davis Winckowski Free Agent: Paxton Wacha Hill Diekman Strahm Sawamura Minor league FA: Brasier

The whole "wait til next year" mantra and feeling is often based on the assumption your team can improve- sometimes magically. The draft is one way that can happen, so fans hopes, sometimes against all odds, their team can score that "special player" in the draft. Yes, expectations are always high and almost always higher than they should be, but many teams have become great based on one or two key draft picks. That is why that hope never goes away, and with hope, there is often disappointment- sometimes deep disappointment.

Let's remember Houck missed some time, last year and had just 10.1 IP in the first half of the season. 4.35 ERA 1st half (1.45 WHIP in 10.1 IP) 3.38 ERA 2nd half (1.07 WHIP in 58.2 IP) OPS against by month: .806 April (45 PA against) .335 July (44) .741 Aug (100) .493 Sept (96) 0.677 WHIP in 10.1 playoff innings, but the 3 HRs really hurt (5.23 ERA) Houck has done really well in the small and scattered sample size he has in the bigs. His overall MLB numbers dwarf his AAA and minor league numbers. ERA/WHIP 2.93/1.08 MLB (86 IP) 4.17/1.39 minors (270 IP) 3.92/1.04 college (301 IP) 4.11/1.28 AAA (46 IP) 4.25/1.43 AA (82 IP) 4.24/1.43 A+ (119 IP) 3.63/1.30 A- (22 IP

Fitzy.