moonslav59

Why would they need to agree?

Only time this has happened... 6 divisions (aka, every single one of them!) in which a first-place team has blown a lead of at least 5 1/2 games. According to Elias, this has never happened before in the six-division era, which dates back to 1994. The Yankees were as many as eight games up in the AL East before the Blue Jays caught them. The Mets were 5 1/2 games up in the NL East before the Phillies caught them. The Cubs were 6 1/2 games up in the NL Central before the Brewers caught them. The Astros were seven up in the AL West before the Mariners caught them. The Dodgers were nine up in the NL West before the Padres caught them (though the Dodgers have since recovered). And most astonishing of all, the Tigers were a season-high 15 1/2 up in the AL Central at one point, but they finally got caught by the Guardians on Tuesday night.

From MLB.com 341 ERA+ for resurgent Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman here in his age-37 season. This means Chapman has been 241% better than the league average reliever! Only three times in history has a reliever 37 or older had an ERA+ this high while logging at least 50 innings -- and they were all relatively recent Red Sox. The others were Koji Uehara in 2013 (379 in 74 1/3 innings) and Chris Martin in 2023 (434 in 51 1/3 innings). So if you’re a reliever getting up there in years, you know where to go.

Matz has done okay, too.

Same line-up as last night.

...and then, they almost reverse flopped, so how does that figure into the complicated flop exemption guidelines?

I'd die, if I did. As John Mellencamp would sing..."and dyin' to me don't sound like all that much fun"

Bunch of floppers!

Good post. I will say that our bottom of the order has been statistically better than other teams, and although Yoshida was batting clean-up, it has been unsung heroes, all year long. Romy, Ref, Lowe, Yoshida recently and Toro for a while, too. Eaton, too. How about a guy who started the season as our back up catcher and is now at .723- not bad for a catcher. We've gotten 106 GS out of 157 of our scheduled top 5 SP'ers, and that is counting Crawford as our #6.

Of course not. 4-2, 11-9, 18-12 and 45-27 are not flops.

When you consider this team has come this far while missing these players for extended time, it's somewhat amazing: #2 SP: Houck- our "ace" last year (missed 5 months) #4/5 SP: Crawford- our IP leader in 2024. #5/6 SP: Sandoval- expected to miss 3-4 months, but missed all 6. #6/7 SP: Fitts- for over a month #7/8 SP: Dobbins- for 4 months #2-4 RP: Hendriks- missed 6 months #2-4 RP: Slaten- missed about 2 months 1B: Casas - an .820 batter before 2025 (missed 5 months) OF: Anthony- had become our best batter (missed last month) 3B: Bregman- our best batter all year (missed several weeks) OF: Abreu- was our HR leader before missing some weeks on 2 occasions. 3B/2B: Mayer- set to be our FT 2Bman after covering for Bregman at 3B. (Then, we traded away Devers!) Yes, other teams have had more injuries- maybe not to as important players as these, but many. TOR has their 3 best SP'ers with 30+ GS. The Yanks lost their #1 all year. HOU loses 3-4 SP'ers every year. Other teams had big injuries. Some are making the playoffs- some aren;t.

It is, and I'm happy they made this choice. I'm hopeful it's a step towards total Robo umps for pitch calls.

Now, that looks like a flop. So, would Detroit.s chart.

10-9 and 4-2 are not a flop, so it IS spin.

I've agreed over 10 times that Brez failed at the deadline, but since we do not know what could have been done, I'm not going to hold him over a fire for it. I know you do.

It's okay, but 100% robo calls and Balls and Strikes is better.

That's not proof of a choke or flop. They lost their best batter and dropped about 2 games to TOR with a chance to gain those back in 2 days. SEA passed them by going something like 16-2. We passed HOU and DET along the way and are still at #4 in the AL. You can spin all you want, but we retained our same slot at Sept 1.

They need to just go 100% robo umps and Balls & Strikes calls.

Offense. If Abreu can't regain his skills in time, others need to step up.

MLB.com.... INJURY UPDATES OF Roman Anthony Injury: Left oblique strain IL date: Sept. 3 (10-day IL) Expected return: Mid rounds of postseason at earliest Status: The star rookie feels better moving around, but still hasn't been cleared for baseball activities and doesn't seem all that close. (Last updated: Sept. 23) https://www.mlb.com/redsox/news/roman-anthony-exits-game-with-injury

We had also won 3 straight up to Sept 2nd, Anthony's last game. Yes, we've been about .500 since then. BTW, OPS since Aug 1st: .851 Naylor (8HRS and 26 RBI in 172 PAs) .682 Suarez (11 Hrs and 24 RBI in 195 PAs) Our 1Bmen and Anthony replacements: .815 Lowe (2 Hrs and 14 RBI in 101 PAs) .787 Romy (2 HRs and 17 RBI in 147 PAs) .794 Eaton (1 HR and 10 RBI in 59 PAs) While the HR total are way unbalanced, the RBIs are 50 for SEA in 367 PAs and 41 RBIs in 317 PAs for BOS. I wish we had gotten Naylor and Ryan, but we didn't and Ryan has kinda sucked, so let's get over it.

I see two flops, 3 Mehs and 2 hot teams. Here are some cherrypicked sample sizes: SEP 14th> 8-1 CLE 7-1 SEA 6-3 NYY 5-3 BOS 4-5 TOR 3-5 HOU 1-7 DET AUG 31> 16-5 SEA 17-6 CLE 13-8 NYY 12-9 TOR 11-9 BOS 8-13 HOU 6-14 DET AUG 21> 21-10 CLE (1-2 v BOS) 20-9 SEA 20-11 NYY (4-4 v BOS) 18-12 BOS 16-13 TOR (0-1 v BOS) 15-15 HOU 9-19 DET July 4th> 45-27 CLE 43-26 BOS 43-27 SEA 41-29 NYY & TOR 32-38 HOU (2-4 v BOS) 31-38 DET

Like teams carry on tendencies from wholly different players from past debacles. Plus, why can't one view our team tendency of winning 4 times in less than 30 years, when a league with 30 teams should produce only 1 ring per 30 years? Interesting to view a team with 4 rings in 21 years as a flop. Our 50 Man roster (40+ 10 on 60 Day IL) Why does one or two team's ghost crowd out 4 teams' ghosts? Then, when you look at what "flop" actually means, it means a team with high expectations does not meet them, or a team that was way ahead of everyone, then fell apart at the end. The Sox are neither of those. I know what it's like to feel negative about the Sox chances. I was a fan from the early 70's and expected defeat and chokes like I expected the sun to rise. I get it, but yes, what is the basis for this example of a team? Our current 50 man roster (40+10 on 60 Day IL) has 42 players who weren't even on the 40 to start the 2022 season! 34 were not on the 40 on opening day 2023! Hell, Hendriks is #25 out of 50! 24 players were added after the 2024 season began, and that's not even counting the players, Like O'Neill, who came and went.

5 games to go and we have a tenuous hold on the 4 slot in the AL. 2 games behind SEA and 3 behind NYY looks too hard to do anything about, especially since we do not play them. We are one up on DET & CLE, who play each other 2 more times. We have the tiebreaker w CLE but not DET. We are now 2 up on HOU and hold the tiebreaker, so they would have to gain 3 on us in 5 days. Another win or two vs TOR would do wonders for the nerves and anxieties.

We were 2.5 out from 1st place, yes- now we are 4 out. We had the 4th best record inn the AL then, and still do, now. We were 3.5 up on team #6 and now we are 1 up. We are currently 2 up on team 7 with the tiebreaker (kinda like being 3 up) and were 5 up on team 7 on Sept 1st. A bit dramatic on the "choke" thing, right? A 2 game swing is not a choke. If anything, we've been pretty even over the system. We've had lots of small ups and downs with a couple or three more longer ups than downs. It looks, to me, like other team's have had more stark winning and losing stretches. Go SOX!