moonslav59

That’s a sweet line up!

The change was announced, perhaps made earlier.

It took Ellsbury years to be a plus defender. I’m hoping Duran does better or improves more quickly. Ellsbury’s first season was a small sample size, and it was years before he had that wild outlier season. The rest of the time, he was mostly 5th to 8th in OPS on the team. I’m not just hoping Duran does better: I think he will.

I think Dalbec will see the greatest decline in PAs since Duran’s arrival. Give it time.

Not even close to what it was in the 70s, 80’s & 90’s.

Winning it all can’t be the only thing GMs are judged by, if they run small budget teams, but no rings by Bloom with the Sox would be a failure, IMO.

True, but low budget teams have a huge disadvantage. Now that Bloom no longer has those restrictions he should be judged differently.

If he’s no good, sure!

If hoping for better than Ells.

Theo, Ben and DD might have had no Sox rings with the budgets theRays had, so I’m not sure it really matters much. Bloom knows talent and developing prospects. I’m hopeful that when he spends big he spends it well- little experience and all

i was going to call this the worst game of the year, but calling it evens game does a disservice to the sport. This was a travesty on so many levels. Baseball will die if this sort of thing keeps happening.

Yes, I was on the Owens bandwagon. Ughhhh!

I'm not saying he was unpromising. He was the 7th ranked prospect at the end of 2019 and got to around #4 before that, but nobody was really gah-gah over him until those 3 starts in 2020.

Based on this? 2018 (A+) 4.24 ERA/1.429 WHIP 2019 (AA & AAA) 4.01 ERA/1.402 WHIP or based on what?

Can Bloom and his staff, especially the minor league pitching development people, get some credit for Houck's immergence from rather low expectations in 2018 and 2019? 2018 (A+) 4.24 ERA/1.429 WHIP 2019 (AA & AAA) 4.01 ERA/1.402 WHIP Did anybody have any idea he was going to become what he has become back then? He even had a 5.14 ERA/1.238 WHIP in 6 starts in AAA in 2020 before his call up and excellent 3 starts.

Lance Lynn agrees to extension for $38M/2. How does this affect the ERod market? Not much in common, but it looks like prices are not going down.

I'm confident I'll be starting the game thread, tomorrow.

The team going 12-6 in ERod starts and only 11-7 in Perez starts shows ERod has gotten lucky.

I called Kike (going forward) "the rover." It looks like that era has begun. I still think he starts 9 out of 10 games: 1 at SS or 3B (Bogey or Devers rests) 1 in LF (Verdugo rests or moves to RF when Renfroe rests) 1-2 in CF (Duran sits vs tough lefties) 5-6 at 1B (Dalbec sits)

Looking at every Sox starter and using the following criteria for saying the start was decent or better, here are the results: 4+ IP 0-1 ER 5+ IP 0-2 ER 6+ IP 0-3 ER 8+ IP 0-4 ER GS'd meeting this criteria: 11 out of 18 Perez (not counting 1 GS with 3.2 IP 0 ER) 11 out of 18 Eovaldi (no close calls) 8 out of 18 Pivetta (no close calls) 8 out of 18 ERod (1 GS 5.1 IP 3 ER) 8 out of 18 Richards (close: 7.0 IP 4 ER, 5.2 IP 3 ER) 1 out of 2 Houck (no close) Team record in GS'd 12-6 Pivetta 12-6 ERod 11-7 Perez 11-7 Eovaldi 10-8 Richards 0-2 Houck

1 more and we have as much as the next two combined. That's impressive.

Perez has been yanked earlier than any other starter, and sometimes while doing well or pretty good, hence the few QSs. He's had these non QS outings IP ER 5.0 2 5.2 1 5.2 2 5.0 1 5.1 2 5.1 1 He's had good stretches beyond just one month: From April 29th to June 3rd (7 starts) he was our best starter: 1.98 ER .587 OPS Against 41IP 34 H 9 BB 37 K After his two bad starts on June 8th & 13th (2IP 6 ER/ 1.1 IP 5 ER), he has been fine: 2.74 ERA (but a bad OPS Against .837, so maybe lucky) 23.0 IP 30 H 7 BB 15 K So, he's really only been bad, in terms of allowing rund his first 4 games and 2 starts in early June. He has had a 7 and 4 game stretch of doing well. Pivetta's bad starts seem more scattered. Overall: M Perez 115 ERA+/ .791 OPS Against/ 1.476 WHIP Pivetta 108 ERA+/ .722 OPS Against/ 1.277 WHIP Maybe Perez has used smoke and mirrors to have a better ERA, but he still has time to win that 4th slot behind Sale, Eovaldi and ERod for that last slot in the playoff rotation.

On the farm... from soxprospects.com: http://news.soxprospects.com/2021/07/cup-of-coffee-german-scherff-lead-sea.html Worcester fell to Scranton for a second straight game despite a big night from Franchy Cordero. The leftfielder went 2 for 3 with a double, two walks, stolen base, RBI, and a run scored. Yairo Munoz had three hits and swiped a pair of bases, Danny Santana started his rehab stint, going 0 for 3 with a walk and a run scored. Scranton connected for three home runs off of starter Steven Gonsalves. The Sea Dogs made it 11 in a row as Frank German continues his resurgence. He allowed one run on three hits in five innings, striking out five and walking three. After struggling through May with an 8.37 ERA, German has a 3.86 mark in 35 innings since the calendar flipped to June. The bullpen took over with four straight scoreless frames to secure the win. The most impressive of the group was Alex Scherff, striking out three in two perfect innings. Devlin Granberg and Ronaldo Hernandez both homered in their respective 2-for-4 efforts. Tyreque Reed did not record a hit in his first taste of Double-A, but the first baseman recorded a pair of walks. Christian Koss continued to torture Asheville from his leadoff spot. After going 3 for 5 with a double, Koss is now 12 for 19 for the series and 22 for his last 48 overall. Nick Sogard reached base four times with two hits and two walks, and Dom D'Alessandro blasted a two-run homer in the sixth inning. Chris Murphy allowed three runs on five hits in six innings, striking out nine, walking two, and surrendering two home runs. Just as in the Portland victory, the bullpen was unhittable as a trio of Drive relievers went a hitless inning apiece. Salem's rally came up just short after falling into an early 7-0 hole. The Woodpeckers reached Bradley Blalock for five runs on six hits in four innings, saddling the right-hander with the loss. Stephen Scott led the rally with a pair of doubles, driving in one run and scoring another. Nick Northcut also tallied two doubles, while Nick Yorke continues to be a catalyst at the top of the order, as he doubled, was hit by a pitch, and delivered a sacrifice fly. Yorke has reached safely in 21 straight games, raising his OBP from .311 to .381. Gilberto Jimenez extended his hitting streak to eight games with an eighth-inning single.

...and even then, a hot or cold start should not define him or be an indicator of what we can expect later in the year, in 2022 and beyond.

Nice summary. I’d only add that he is throwing first pitch strikes way more often, this year.