moonslav59

On the IL

If we pull this out, today, it will likely come down to Bogey's bat.

He never was "fielding," His hitting just masked it away.

Agreed.

Sad, sad, SAD!

Our defense rears its ugly head, once again.

Tell that to Arauz,

See, this is what gets me. Posters always say things like, "Pitcher learned how to pitch to him," or "They figured him out," but they never think the hitter has a chance to adjust to the adjustment, and sometimes that takes time and effort.

Bobby Dee's outs have been hard hit for weeks and weeks, now.

I didn't really "have a problem" with it, but after that long delay after he had already warmed up, I thought he'd be yanked after 65-70 pitches, at most. With the way our pen is looking, leaving in a starter who is looking good makes a lot of sense. Now, I'm under the table watching Robles.

Defense.

I must admit, I was a bit surprised they kept Houck in, especially after the HR. He was over 80 pitches and had the long delay after warming up.

Thank God!

You are exaggerating. Most of the Houck people bringing up the two pitch issue said they thought he should or could be our closer, so that's hardly bashing.

I'm also not going to forget that DD did pretty well with his drafts and was limited in IFAs due to penalties. Draft 1 Groome at 12 Chatham at 51 (traded for promising Victor Santos) Anderson at 88 (traded for Eduardo Nunez) Dalbec at 118 Shawaryn at 148 Nogosek at 178 (traded for Addison Reed) Espinal at 298 Draft 2 Houck at 24 K Crawford at 491 Draft 3 Casas at 26 Feltman at 100 K Cottam at 130 T Ward at 160 Granberg at 190 Howlett at 640 Draft 4 Cannon at 43 Lugo at 69 Song at 137 Murphy at 197

Nice game, Houck. Let's hope the pen can hold.

The ghost disappeared.

There must have been dozens of 'em!

69 pitches. I'd bring im out for the 5th.

Phew!

Time for a DP.

Not even close.

How many 2Bmen have we gone through? GS at 2B 42 Arroyo (IL) 40 Kike (IL) 30 Mawrin (DFA) 14 Chavis (DFA) 5 Arauz (Hurt, today) (Vaz has seem 5 innings at 2B)

Missed a nice chance, but expecting Arauz to pull more magic tricks was too much to ask.

I did not say I was right about the cliff. I was just describing my feelings about DD when he was here and when he was let go. I don't think it's fair to call 2019 as part of the "cliff" but some might. I do think the expectations going into this year and the decision not tp spend over the tax line we a result of "the cliff." (I also thought the cliff would start around 2021, so I was wrong about that, too. We certainly bounced back much quicker than I expected, so the term "cliff" does ring rather hollow, but we did feel some of the effects in 2019 and 2021. Just because 2020 was shortened doesn't change the fact that we sucked. The main point I kept saying over and over was that the system had changed making it harder for winning and high-spending teams to rebuild their farms while winning at the same time. A few things happened: 1) DD drafted better than I expected with such low picks, and I often gave him credit for that. 2) Bringing Bloom in to rebuild the farm was a stroke of genius. 3) Losing big in 2020 allowed two major things to happen: A. We were able to trade players for prospects that we could not have done, if we kept winning. B. We got a nice draft pick in 2021 and turned it into the best player in the draft by many accounts. C. We also will have a decent comp pick, next draft for not signing Fabian. 4) Not going over the tax line in 2021 without causing major grief among the Sox faithful will likely set us up nicely for a return to glory much sooner than I expected. 5) Bloom stealing Whitlock from the Yanks was a major get. (Who expects Rule 5 picks to do this?) I'm thrilled the "cliff" was so short, or if you please, never really happened. It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong and won't be the last. BTW, on DD's massive quantity of prospect trades, I was only against 2 of the deals: Kimbrel and Pomeranz, and I later admitted DD won those trades. (I was wrong, then, too, although Pom didn't really help us win a ring, and Kimbrel scared the beJesus out of us in the 2018 playoffs. They guys we gave up amounted to little more than squat.)