moonslav59

He's trolling. Just ignore, and hopefully he'll go away.

Since I use OPS for batters, despite its flaws, I like OPS Against for pitchers.

ERA is not a good indicator for a RP'er effectiveness, as they often come in with 1-2 outs. Slaten's OPS Against shows he's much better than Alcala and most other RP'ers on our staff, when healthy.

I hate the idea or moving Rafaela out of CF, but with our loaded OF and Rafaela a plus defender at 2B, too, I think he should play 2B FT. Maybe Romy can play 2B to give CR a day off, but I'd use Romy at 1B FT, or call Campbell up to play 1B v RHPs.

PR DHam, have him steal 3B and give the team 2 chances for a fly ball or correctly placed ground out and 3 chances for a hit or WP/PB?

I'd swap Abreu with Yoshida in the line-up, but Cora seems to get things like this right more than wrong. L Anthony R Bregman L Duran R Story L Yoshida R Romy (no Toro- thank you, Cora!) L Abreu R Rafaela R Wong

I realize KC was hitting worse than Toro has been for a couple months, but I think we should roll the dice. 2nd option: play Romy at 1B full time.

Top Sox OPS over the last 50 games (2 months) .961 Romy (BAM!) .874 Duran (Who is the clown wanting to trade him!) .867 Bregman (glad you're back) .863 Story (Finally!) .828 Abreu (Steady Wilyer) .826 Anthony (for real) .811 Rafaela (growing sample size of competence- take not, Fred!) .771 Ref (if this is your slump, come back, next year!) .707 Yoshida (leash loosened, recently) .653 Mayer (IL) .611 Narvaez (injured) .557 Toro (5th most PAs is killing us) .453 Wong (doing better on D) .449 DHam (looks like a great PR)

We are 33-17 since June 10th (2 months.) Pitching in these 50 games: 7-1 Giolito 2.43 (IP leader at 67) 6-4 Bello 2.26 (2nd in IP at 64) 7-0 Crochet 2.09 (60 IP) 3-2 Buehler 5.61 (51) Pen 2.08 Whitlock 22 IP 3.10 Murphy 20 0.49 Chapman 18 2.65 Bernardino 17 (demoted) 3.46 Wilson 13

Great post, oldtimer, as always. I had wished we traded for a 1Bman, too, but I keep wondering why we keep playing Toro, when Campbell should be ready, by now. Even going with Romy FT seems like a better option. We also keep playing Yoshida, but at least he has started to show some life in his bat. I'd swap Abreu for Yoshida in the last few line-ups, but WTH...

Maybe he really thought it was "Tolle."

He has yet to play a game there in 2025, so he has not advanced to that point, yet. Campbell has played some 1B, so he seems like a possible 2025 solution. BTW, I see Romy starting at 1B over Toro vs a RHP. ABOUT TIME! Romy is hitting RHPs okay (.729) and does even better when he starts games vs RHPs (.931 v .889 when he starts v a lefty.) I'd demote Toro, call up Campbell and try a Campbell-Romy platoon at 1B for a while. Romy could play 2B, a few games, too. (Very nice play at 2B by Rafaela, last night.)

All inclusive. I'm sure the Padres had their Alcala. Guess what? As good as the Sox pen has been, this year, and surprising, too, they have 10 RP'ers with worse ERAs than Alcala (and 3 had more IP in the pen): ONE IS SLATEN! 6.59 Hendriks, 5.56 Kelly, 5.40 ICampbell, 5.25 Hicks, 5.06 Criswell, 4.15 Guerrero, 3.86 Wink, 3.47 Slaten, 3.38 Dobbins & Newcomb. (I did not count Bello's 3.60 in 5IP, so it's really 11.) Slaten has brought down the team ERA more than Alcala! Here are our OPSA leaders w 70+ PAs Against. (Matz is at .298 in 14 PAs) .403 Chapman (171 PAs Against) .465 Slaten 90 (IL) .530 Guerrero 72 (IL) .565 Whitlock 220 .566 Bernardino 185 (demoted) .614 Murphy 87 (had a rough time, last outing) .649 Weissert 204 (2nd most- thanks DUGO!) .694 Wilson 148 .788 Kelly 103 (IL) .791 Newcomb 85 (traded) (Alcala has 66 PAs Against and is at .886- pretty much the worst on the team, except for 4 guys with 4-15 PAs against.) We are right: he sucks!

We also got Fitts & Weissert for Dugo.

That is amazing! Here is how our two pens compare: IP SDP 11th & BOS 13th fWAR: SDP 1st (6.2) & BOS 5th (4.5) ERA-: SDP 1st (76) & BOS 2nd (79) OPS Against: .630 SDP .643 BOS

That was a tough loss, but we battled to the end. Let's win, tomorrow!

Fitts pitched today: 4IP, 5H, 2ER, 2BB and 8K Sandlin & Moran did not do well in relief. Hickey homered in the loss. Sogard is heating up (2 hits.) POR won 4-3. Castro with 2 hits. GRE won 1-0. Sprague went 5 and Kirwin 2. SAL won 6-4 as Cespedes went 2-3 + SF, and Azocar homered. Brito went 2-2 w BB and HBP, scoring 4 and batting in 4. DSL Blue should make the playoffs, after a bad start to 2025. Red is out.

I hope this is not a sign of something wrong with Gio.

So? He will likely get 1 less PA than some in front of him.

Nobody said that. The responses were to the statement that made no mention of any good trades we made. It's what the Red Sox do. Give, but receive almost nothing in return. Time will tell.

Is anyone else surprised our HR leader and righty killer is batting 7th and behind 500-something batting Toro? Abreu is 7th and Rafaela is 8th, while Toro bats 6th. Just because he's a lame switch hitter?

Romy has only started 16 games vs RH'd SP'ers (28 v L.) The amazing thing is, he has hit .942 in games he starts vs R and .889 v L. People speak of the need for Abreu to bat v Lefties, when it seems like Romy might be our FT 1B solution.

To DH? If and when Mayer returns, he'll be squeezed. Too bad he or any of our OF'ers can't play 1B. (Good thing Rafaela can play 2B & SS.)

Agreed, and this is something relatively new. Previously, extensions were more for the Nate's, Sale's and Porcello's. (The Pedro extension from long ago might be the closest one I can think of- sorta like Crochet.)

The Devers dump has renewed my worry, a bit, but I think he spends to the line or over, this coming winter. That should be enough to help us be even better in 2026, but adding Wacha, Strahm & Hill did not work too well after 2021, so one never knows in this great game of baseball!