moonslav59

We had a few chances, early in last night's game, to take advantage of Hunter Brown's struggling moments. Then, he kicked it into another gear, as good pitchers often do, and we lost. A bad pitch by Buehler hurt. I hate to beat a dead horse, but I really think Abreu should bat 5th- not Yoshida. It might have helped, last night, but who knows.

Hence my plea to trade from strength (our OF) and add to a weak area (P, 2B, 1B.) Rafaela needs to play CF FT, unless there is an in game emergency situation or until we call -up someone for an injury replacement. This should not happen, often. I love all our OF'ers, and all have some great strengths and very few weaknesses. It's hard to know which one to trade, but IMO, it has to be done, this winter, and that is even if we had no Jh Garcia, Campbell or Refsnyder/Yoshida in the 2026 OF mix. Simply put, our 4th OF'er is worth way more to another team as a 1-2-3 OF'er than he is to us as a DH, 2Bman or bench guy. Weak areas of our 4 OF'ers: Anthony: none that I see Duran: not a great arm, but fine for LF and some CF Abreu: has not shown he can hit LHPs well enough to play FT, yet. Rafaela: plate discipline and questionable batting skills, going forward. Yoshida: should only DH or play short corner OF in emergencies. Refsnyder: may retire. Not great on D, but okay in short corner OFs. Jh Garcia: untested but pretty good on D at all 3 slots. Campbell: batting is questionable, defense in CF might be okay. Maybe can learn to play LF at a plus level.

fWAR at 2B in 2025: 0.6 Romy (needed more at 1B) 0.2 Mayer 0.1 Sogard -0.2 KC -0.3 DHam (way below 2024's number) -0.7 Rafaela (can't hit as a 2Bman, this year) Team: -0.3 at 2B

The once highly ranked Sox prospect, Mata, is working his way towards pitching for another team, next year, or just forever being a Sox AAA pitcher. He gave up the only run in yesterday's Woo loss. POR lost, despite Castro's 2 hits. GRE lost, despite 0 ERs allowed by Futrell in 4 IP and 2 hits by Taylor. SAL may get the only system win, yesterday, if they finish off their suspended game with a W. Gonzales is 3-3 (.792) and Yuten is 2-2 w a BB (.741,) so far.

Agreed, It's just a temporary insurance move.

I'd put the chances of winning the AL Pennant as such: 21% DET 19% SEA , HOU & TOR 14% BOS 8% NYY

The 3 game stretch? It's 9 BBs, which is still ugly as sin. I'm not for calling up Harrison to start. I just pointed out he's gotten decent results in his las 3 starts, despite the 9 BBs.

If Mayer can stay healthy (yea, right) maybe we see Story at 2B, next year. Of course, Bregman needs to return, so Mayer is not needed at 3B.

Fangraphs has the AL odds like this: Make Playoffs 98% TOR & DET 95% SEA 94% HOU (wonder how a BOS win last night might have changed this) 85% NYY 73% BOS 27% CLE, 16% TEX World Series Win: 9.4 SEA 9.0 TOR 7.8 NYY (continued Yankee favoritism) 7.5 DET 5.8 HOU 2.9 BOS

Meh me and see what happens!

He had a rough first two starts with Woo (9IP 7 ER,) so if the "tweak" isea is for real, maybe it took a few games to see the results. Here are his game logs since July 9th: IP ER 3.2 0 6.0 1 3.2 2 5.0 2 5.0 0 5.0 0 Last 3 starts: 15 IP 2 ER (11 hits, but 9 BB. 20 Ks is nice.)

Agreed, and sometimes you even catch a bad to average pitcher having a great night. Also, playing certain teams when they are doing well or poorly, have new injuries or just catching them when their 3-4-5 starters are scheduled to pitch. You figure the randomness evens it all out, but it never can perfectly. As you know, I live outside Houston, and for some reason, we always play the Astros in August- home and away about a week apart. Every year. It seems it should be mixed up from year to year and H & A series should be more spread out.

Wong is hitting a mighty .703 in his last 10 games! Extend him, now!

We have Criswell coming off a nice start, Harrison as an option, Fitts probably not as a starter option, right now and the two current starters: Buehler, who did not look too bad, last night and May, who looked good a couple nights ago. I'm not sure Cora boots Buehler or May from the rotation, so these others may just be pen options for 2025.

We just went through the toughest part of the schedule and did not show another August collapse. Although there is still time for that to happen, I see a fight in this team that wasn't apparent in previous seasons. We just went 17-11 against no bad teams 4 TBR, 3@CHC, 3@PHI, 3 LAD, 3@MIN, 3 HOU & KCR and 3@SDP & HOU. Miami is no push-over. They were one of baseball's hottest teams, recently. BAL is playing better that the first half of the season. We still have some tough teams to face, including teams trying to pass us for a playoff berth. One game at a time, guy! Let's do this!

It seems that way, but... .755 season OPS .766 RISP .771 Men on Base But then again... .705 RISP w 2 outs .730 High Leverage .669 Late & Close Losing 2 series in a row sucks. Outscoring the Astros and Padres in each series does not change anything. It's timely hitting and spreading out the hits & homers that seems to be the issue with out offense. That's not really a skill set. It's not something you can fix or even trade for. I'm not sure what can be done. I've suggested some line-up tweaks, but I'm not sure how that addresses these two issues.

He homered after one ribbing, so I'm sticking with it.

Still Yoshida 5th and Abreu 7th. I'm leaving soon for the game.

Arias hit a 3 run blast, last night to lead GRE to a win and possible/likely playoff slot. Drohan returned from a long IL stint. KC had 3 hits in the Woo win.

Ref may not retire. Jh Garcia might get a shot, if we make a trade, or if someone plays another position.

There are a few posters who are happy, or very happy like me, with Breslow's total body of work- from the 26 to the 40 and the farm upgrades.

Does Toro have a permanent rib issue?

I guess we are not alone with this situation. Maybe Story will be our FT 2Bman for the next two year- maybe Mayer. I doubt KC gets ober 550 at 2B.

I might not even put MIL as my second choice in the NL. 1. LAD 2. PHI (very close to LAD) T3. MIL & SDP

It's funny how KC was "ML Ready" the first two weeks of the season, then "wasn't" the next 2 months. Brez and Cora were geniuses in mid April, and now, it was a "mistake." Players have rough stretches all the time, and for various reasons. Sometimes, we never know the reason, but in this case, some seem to think they know KC failed because "He wasn't ready." Maybe they are right: maybe not. Nobody really knows. They called Dobbins up with a 5.09 ERA with Woo. Was he ready? Oh, I guess so, since he did well. Is it really as simple as hindsight evaluation?