moonslav59

Certainly, Criswell could easily have just been a flash in the pan for a few starts. I hope he isn't, but we all know he might be. Whitlock gave us two very nice seasons- both with over 73 IP, mostly in relief. 2.73 ERA 3.07 FIP 1.06 WHIP He started off this season, very well. 1.96 ERA in 4 starts (3.29 FIP/1.15 WHIP) He had one bad season (2023) and has battled injuries since being made a starter. I know you are not writing him off, and in many ways, a pitcher is only as good as he is right now, and right now, he's not pitching at all, but this guy has nasty stuff. He's a good pitcher, who just can't stay healthy. Sounds like a typical Sox pitcher, of late.

15 HRs with Men on Base (777 PAs) 0 Grand Slams 3 Three Run HRs 12 Two runs HRs 31 Solo shots (944 paS) .391 SLG Men on Base .411 SLG bases empty (pretty close) The team has a .718 OPS .702 Men on Base .678 RISP, but .777 RISP w 2 outs Here has been the killer: .515 Late & Close .532 High Leverage On High Leverage: it's feast or famine even within that .532 number: .889 Duran .875 O'Neill (a guy who is now starting to be bashed) .862 Refsnyder Then... .635 Devers (100 points higher than the team aaverage) .595 Valdez (in AAA) .567 McGuire .483 Wong (the biggest differential between overall and High Leverage) .469 Rafaela (most PAs in High Leverage) .095 Abreu (not a typo!) 6th in PAs in HL Others not in the top 9 in PAs in HL: .808 Smith .500 DHam .462 Yoshida .382 Cooper .333 Romy .277 Casas .000 Grissom

The Rays were not playing very well, when we faced them. Neither were the Cards. There is no saying "We lost to some good teams" on these recent losses. These are games we needed to win. These are games we need to win. Tonight is a game we need to win.

Devers has had a ton of big and clutch hits over his career. Memories are short, for some. He has not been "clutch," so far this year, but even some of his solo shots have tied game, or got us within striking range. They were not all useless. Here are the large sample size numbers: career 3,765 PAs for the 27 year old, who has just reached prime: .855 Career overall OPS (.842 home/.892 away shows that Fenway has not helped him.) .870 Men on Base (better than overall) .850 bases loaded (about the same) .905 RISP (better than overall) .892 RISP w 2 outs (better than overall) .876 High Leverage (Better than overall) .795 Low Leverage Can we stop with the "not clutch" talk? Is someone really being judge by a 34 game sample size? Is someone really being judged more harshly, because we didn't keep Betts, 4 years ago? It looks like the answer is yes, for some. Not me. Sure, I wish we kept Betts. I suggested we offer him $400M/14, if that's what it took. Sure, I wish we extended Bogey way before that last season with us. Sure, I wanted us to lock up Devers "forevers," and I'm still glad we did. We'd be much worse off without him, and we all know we could not have counted on JH to spend his money on others.

I just don't get the dislike for Devers. He's like a big teddy bear who loves playing the game. Like Manny without all the drama.

Falling below .500 sucks, bigtime. It's been a while, and hopefully tomorrow we get back to .500. We are still 2 up on TOR, but that offers very little solace, to me. We are 2.5 from the last WC slot, but we'd have to pass 4 teams to be in that seat.. 24-24-20 MIN (3rd slot) 24-22 TBR -1.0 (We had a shot at keeping them in the mirror and blew it.) 23-23 TEX -2.0 (Could be harder to pass than MIN & TBR) 22-22 DET -2.0 (Might be the only team we can pass by season's end.) 22-23 BOS -2.5 20-25 HOU -4.5 (Won 5 in a row, before tonight's loss.) 19-24 TOR -4.5 (I'm thinking they finish 5th in the ALE.)

Agreed. Many very good players go through stretches where they look horrible vs breaking balls, especially after missing time. I'm not saying I am not concerned, but this sample size is still small.

Crawford needs to stop the bleeding. The bats seem to be waking up, a little as the staff falters a bit. We need to put it all together. Go SOX!

45 PAs ain't proof of nutin'

I suggest to my students to study for a test. They don't and do poorly. I guess I am wrong. Red suggested the Sox not hire Bloom, but they did. Red was right. Got it.

Indeed. Deep in mediocrity can help, if you have more of that than other teams and injuries are rampant, everywhere, but we do need quality, too.

No, I did not think that, but with 3 OF'ers, as "balanced you can get is 2-1 or 1-2. I brought up Ref to show it can be viewed as 2-2, if we find a way to start and PH him vs LHPs.

Yes, it is one of the few bad starts we've seen, this year. Losing 3 of 4 to a formerly struggling Rays team, and now this, does not bode well for our future.

Rafaela and Ref bat RH'd. It would be nice to be more balanced, but we should be okay.

Very true, but no HRs allowed (0.0 HR/9 vs career 0.8) His 6.3 H/9 is above his career 5.8 mark but is his 2nd best number in the last 6 seasons. (it was 8.1, last year.) He's pushing his luck with all the BBs, but not letting up the key hits has saved hime, more often than not. BTW... 8 BBs in his first 5.2 IP 2 BBs in his last 10 IP (2 in his last 5 or 6 IP) He did miss some ST'ing, so maybe he is okay, now.

Jansen has had 4 bad games out of 16. He had 3 other games with 2 BBs but no runs allowed. He's not the same guy he was years ago, but he seems to be okay. A .542 OPS Against is awesome.

He looked much better in 2023, as compared to before, so this does not appear to be a fluke. He reminds me of Jacoby's turn-around on D. I still prefer him in LF, especially, if a Rafaela/Anthony CF and Abreu/Anthony RF materializes, as we hope it does.

Here are the OPS in order of most PAs for 2024. Rafaela being 2nd in PAs is both surprising and a big hit to the team's OPS. Red= likely to get the same or more PAs, going forward, assuming minimal injuries Black= unknown Blue= likely to get less PAs, going forward 135-200 PAs .784 Duran (continue FT) .595 Rafaela (continue FT, likely batting 9th) .902 Devers (continue FT) .924 O'Neill (despite missing time) .830 Abreu (should end up in the top 4-5 in PAs) 85-110 PAs .900 Wong (hopefully, he continues hitting well and gets some PAs as a DH) .452 Valdez (may not play much more for BOS in 2024) .857 Casas (will miss a lot more time) .736 Yoshida (a big question mark) .663 McGuire (may catch more as we use Wong at DH. he has been slumping.) 40-65 PAs .964 Refsnyder (with leading the team in hitting RHPs, he may play near FT, going forward- DH/LF) .451 Reyes (may not get another PA with BOS, this year) .377 Dalbec (see Reyes comment) .563 DHam (Romy should take away many of his PAs, going forward) .317 Grissom (likely to be FT'er going forward) .450 Smith and .584 Copper (likely to get almost all the PAs at 1B, unless we make a change.) 20-40 .617 Story (out for the year) .664 Romy (looks to be the primary IF utility player)

Yes. Unless, we find a middle infielder, but maybe Story fills that role. As everyone knows, I'm big on L-R splits and platoons, but we have a lot of reverse splits going on with this team. We do look pretty bad vs LHPs. 2024 splits: .717 v RHPs (.411 SLG w 38 HRs in 1237 PAs)) .698 v LHPs (.362 SLG w just 7 HRs in 443 PAs) More remarkable: .744 when a RHP starts .623 when a LHP starts. I think we will put our hopes on Rafaela, Story and Grissom to improve on these splits for 2025. Ref has a very surprising reverse split, this year: .726 v L 1.139 v R (leads team, and his 37 PAs is 6th on the team)

I have not given up, either, and I expected about a .500 team for 2024. Before the year started, I mentioned how we had so many "what if" players, and how that might not be as bad as it looked, because we did not need all of them to come true, at the same time. Obviously, a few things not only did not go right, but they went into the toilet with season ending injuries to Gio and Story and a near season ending injury to Casas. Those were 3 of the 3 biggest what ifs to start the winter/spring hopes list. Others have struggled out of the gate in one or more areas (O and/or D.) As much as losing Gio, Pivetta, Whitlock and a few other pitchers, here and there, our staff has almost all been good to great "what ifs." Our catchers have come through in mighty fashion. Devers looks a little better on D and is over .900, but needs more timely hits. Our OF has been spectacular, especially Abreu, Duran, O'Neill and Refsnyder. Big misses at 1B, 2B and SS have hurt us, and one could imagine 2B and SS being better over the next 3/4ths of the season, but maybe some standout player(s) take a dip to counter that. Overall, I'm liking what our future looks like, more now than last year or up to March/April. To me, that makes watching losses, this year, a little easier to handle. Plus, there are some exciting younger players to watch, this season.

We expected losing. Accepting it as what it is, is harder, but that seems to be happening, too- to varying degrees with each of us.

We'd likely try to find the next Renfroe/Duvall/O'Neill over paying an OF'er over $10M, let alone a QO. More likely, we just roll the dice with what we have coming back: LF: Duran, Refsnyder, Yoshida CF: Rafaela, Duran (Anthony) RF: Abreu (Anthony) If Anthony comes through, we can even handle an injury or two. As well as our staff is doing, now, I'd still invest in pitching and maybe middle infield, again.

Yes, Kike's first deal was for 2 years, and JBJ had an option with a huge buy out for year 2. My bad. Pillar did not stay for all of 2020.

I guess Story would get an F, because he is not coming back- same with Gio.

.680 OPS after 277 MLB PAs