moonslav59

I'd be fine with that, even though the luxury tax hit would be significant.

Actually, 2 blown saves, but point well taken.

The other issue was EE's inability to play 1B even half the time. We'd have had to play JD in the OF over half the time in order to keep EE in the line-up daily. We'd be benching our hottest hitter and GG OF'er to make that happen, or we'd be praying EE can play 1B FT and bench over $12M in contracts by Moreland & Pearce.

That EE homer helped put us one game closer to the Rays!!!!

Had we known the price would drop this much, and that Pearce would struggle, we might have been able to afford Kimbrel and stayed just under the max line with no Pearce, Thornburg and ?? Holt ?? I still think we made the right choice. We can spend our precious budget space on pro-rated contracts this summer.

Let us win tonight, have a much needed day off and come hom to an 8 game homestand vs TOR (3), CWS (3) and then the Yanks for 2. The homestand rotation might look like this: TOR Sale +1 day rest TOR ??? TOR Porcello +1 CWS Price +1 CWS ERod +1 CWS Sale NYY ??? NYY Porcello or we could go without the extra day rest for all but Sale Sale +1 Porcello Price ERod ??? Sale Porcello v NYY Price v NYY

Exactly. You can't trade for a "timely hitter." You can't teach or practice "timely hitting." We also seem to have untimely pitcher meltdowns, if you call letting up 1 run in the bottom of the 8th and 13th innings as a "meltdown."

Brown stain bad!

Our "closer", Barnes, did great. He pitched a scoreless 9th inning. It was the non closers that let up the runs.

The funniest part of his post was the 1.80 ERA. Had Price gone 9 IP at a 1.80 ERA clip, we'd have still been tied 2-2 after 9. The pen was not the reason we lost- not even close.

Yes! Max was 100% right and yes, 12 IP with 3 ERs is a plus not a minus. We had a 1 run lead 3 times last night. We were down 1 run just once. It's been all about the timing, this year.

It's been all about the lack of timely hitting and untimely meltdowns by our pitching staff.

MLB.com's updated prospect rankings has us with 1 Top 100 player, and he's at #97 (T Casas). http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2019?list=prospects The Rays have the #1 prospect and... 3 in the top 34 5 in the top 55 8 in top 94 The Yanks have 48 Florial 98 Loaisiga The Astros have 9, 10 and 11! (Plus, 49 & 99)

Pearce was on fire before he got hurt. Moreland was heating back up, too. JBJ's cold streak was 38 games at .421. His hot streak is nearing the same length at 28 games (1.015). Vaz & Leon combined are hitting way better than last year. Beni is not far from last year. Bogey has improved on a great 2018 season. Our 2B mix has hit way better since Chavis was called up and Holt returned from the IL. Even Nunez is hitting better than his putrid start. Marco has helped. Devers has taken a huge step up. Only Betts and JD have declined (and JBJ's overall numbers vs 2018). It's the timeliness of our hitting that has gone south. That's not something easily corrected by trades, demotions or whatever. It's not a teachable skill. It's not something you can just call a player into your office and tell him he needs to hit better when we need it. (That might actually make it worse by adding pressure.) I do not think we are losing because of Cora's decisions. It's not like he has Kimbrel in the pen and is choosing not to use him. He's had 2-4 scrubs on the 13 man pitching staff all year long. I'm not going to cry about injuries, because we've had way less than the Yanks, but the Eovaldi, Johnson and Hembree injuries have hurt an already shallow depth staff. Our starters blew a lot of games early- now the pen is not coming through in key situations while looking very good for long stretches between those blown saves. The pen is doing better than expected, but what does that tell you about how well it was constructed? If we cut the season in half (May 7th), here's how our team has done by position: Last 38 games/First 37 games OPS .736 C .743 .716 1B .767 .706 2B .654 1.021 SS .810 .917 3B .781 .682 LF .818 .893 CF .419 .809 RF .881 .773 DH .699 SP 1st 37 games 7-15 5.08 1.39 WHIP/ 4.36 xFIP RP 1st 37 games 11-4 4.12 1.25 WHIP/4.25 xFIP SP last 38 games 14-11 3.92 1.13 WHIP/ 3.98 xFIP RP last 38 games 8-5 3.71 1.35 WHIP/4.08 xFIP .

Many were blown before a traditional closer even got into the game, but I agree, getting a closer bumps everyone else down into a more reasonable role.

We've gotten lucky with guys like Walden, Shawaryn and others. I'm not saying these guys all suck, but we can'y have 2-3 of them on the 25 man roster all the time. Tonight, we had these guys all on the staff at the same time: Johnson Velazquez Taylor Shawaryn (been doing well, but is it smoke & mirrors?) Brewer (who has actually done better since I said we should cut his ass) Trade for 1 RP'er now. Wait out Hembree and then trade for another one at the deadline. Send 2 packing soon.

You're right, but having one more solid RP'er has to make us have a better chance in games like this. (I'd like to see us get 2, and they don't have to necessarily be closers.)

Vaz did leave 7 on base (JD 4).

We've had 2+ scrubs at all times. We've been burned too many times by our 6th, 7th & 8th best RPer's at any given time in the season. Our better RP'ers have struggled, at times, but to me, we can't keep needing to go to these scrubs in key games day after day and expect better results.

3 times we had the lead by 1. 1 time we trailed by 1. Tough way to lose.

14 men LOB

Killed by Kepler!

We got too many white flags in the pen: Velazquez, Johnson, Taylor, Smith, Poyner, Thornburg... We need pen help, and it doesn't have to be a closer.

It looks like loss written all over it.

true enough.