moonslav59

It should have been 4 plus.

Jh. Garcia went 3-3 w 2 rbi and a 2B. Ehrhard also went 3-3. POR is being no hit through 5. (Campbell w 2 BBs)

It is possible it fixes itself, and/or Martin, Hendriks and Slaten give us a boost. Things can turn North just as they turned South. (I'm not predicting it will, but it can.)

Injury Report per MLB.com: RHP Liam Hendriks inching closer to rehab assignment For the second time this week, Hendriks threw live batting practice, this time on Saturday at Fenway Park against teammates Enmanuel Valdez and Romy Gonzalez. The righty, who is coming back from Tommy John surgery, threw 20 pitches and was pleased with his progression. Hendriks will throw a third live batting practice on either Tuesday or Wednesday, and there's a chance that will be the last one before he starts a Minor League rehab assignment. The plan is for Hendriks to be back with the Red Sox at some point in September. RHP Brayan Bello placed on paternity leave list; LHP Cam Booser recalled from Triple-A Worcester. Bello was placed on the paternity list prior to Friday's game against the Astros, but he is expected to be activated in time for his next scheduled start on Monday night against the Rangers. RHP Justin Slaten (right elbow inflammation) Expected return: Mid-August. A key setup man for the Red Sox, Slaten has thrown out to 105 feet during long toss and should progress to mound work in the coming week, according to manager Alex Cora. Slaten owns a 3.38 ERA with 45 strikeouts over 42 2/3 innings this season with Boston. He has been on the IL since July 12. OF Tyler O'Neill (leg infection/illness) Expected return: Aug. 14 or thereabouts. O'Neill was placed on the injured list on Aug. 7 (retroactive to Aug. 4) due to a left leg infection. Before that, he had an an illness and it's unclear if the two things are related. At this point, the Red Sox are still hopeful O'Neill can return at the 10-day mark, which is the Aug. 14 finale of the current homestand against the Rangers. 1B Triston Casas (torn cartilage in left rib cage) Expected return: Aug. 15 at earliest. Casas continued his Minor League rehab assignment with Triple-A Worcester on Aug. 10. Red Sox manager Alex Cora said he would speak with the slugger about his progress after that game. Cora said he doesn't expect Casas back during the current homestand, which ends on Aug. 14 against the Rangers. Casas should be back at some point during the road trip that starts in Baltimore (Aug. 15-18) and continues in Houston (Aug. 19-21). His 20-day rehab assignment expires on Aug. 20. “Right now, it's up to him," Cora said on Aug. 9. "He's healthy. Like I said, he's been taking grounders for a long time. I think the baseball part of it, the physical part of it, he's ready to go. Now the timing part of it, he'll let us know. He's been hitting the ball hard. Obviously, you know, he's coming through this injury. We knew it was going to take time.

Another tough loss. We need to start having some "tough wins."

Agreed. Let's hope we have more memorable big hits vs the Yanks, later on, this year.

I'd guess Priester > all those traded combined.

As bad as we all thought the staff would be, nobody thought 6.10 bad. I do not project we finish the season with a 6.10 ERA. 5.10, maybe, and that would probably leave us out of the dance. 4.60 seems possible and might be enough to squeak us in, assuming our O keeps going strong. I'm not sure this staff is capable of pitching 4.10 or better, over the last 7 weeks, but we do have some new additions and returning IL players on or about to be on the 13 man staff. Houck, Jansen and Wink are showing signs of doing better. It's not impossible to imagine a staff that can finish somewhere between 4.10 and 4.60. Maybe not probable, I agree, but certainly not out of the question. Nobody expected the staff to be under 3.00 in April, either. Weird things happen in baseball, all the time.

I'm not sure we turn it around or not. My "optimism" is based more on looking around and seeing how badly everyone else is playing, too, than any evidence that the Sox might be capable of doing better. If we everyone keeps playing like they did from June 30th to today, we're in. I'm just surprised you think it's delusional to think we can do it.

1. Duran .860 (.933 v R) 1.091 last 4 weeks 2. Abreu .843 (.900 v R) .983 last 4 weeks 3. Yoshida .754 (.810 v R) .847 4. Devers .976 (1.112 v R) 1.072 5. Jansen .703 (1.000 v R w Sox) 1.143 6. Smith .714 (.715 v R) .891 7. Sogard .787 (1.000 v R) .787 8. Rafaela .708 (.706 v R) .716 9. DHam .712 (.734 v R) .646

The Sox are not alone in the philosophy, so in many ways, the whole league watches and waits. I like our pitching in the lower levels, but I realize I'm a homer on our prospects.

Best AL records since June 30th: 19-13 MIN 19-14 HOU 18-14 BOS, OAK & KCR 17-15 TBR & TEX 18-16 DET 15-16 NYY 16-18 BAL & TOR 14-18 SEA 15-20 CLE 4-29 CWS (2-2 v BOS and 2-27 vs everyone else) Other than the CWS, the standings are almost upside down since June 30th.

July + AUG 18-13 MIN 18-14 HOU 17-14 BOS 17-14 KCR 16-17 BAL 14-16 NYY 14-17 SEA 15-19 CLE June+July+August 35-22 HOU 32-24 BOS 33-25 MIN 33-29 BAL 29-29 KCR & SEA 29-30 CLE 28-29 NYY Nobody is playing like they are a lock for the playoffs, and this is the main reason nobody should count the Sox out.

It seems that the DHam-Romy platoon at 2B was doing rather nicely, but out of nowhere Sogard is taking away their playing time. Granted, DHam was slumping, and Romy is pretty much a straight platoon bat, who has been playing 1B vs LHPs, so Sogard playing more makes sense, but still... OPS last 14 days 1.256 Romy 1.143 Jansen 1.106 Abreu 1.021 O'Neill (IL) 1.020 Devers .921 Ref .913 Yoshida .865 Duran .835 Smith .791 Rafaela .787 Sogard .680 DHam .668 Wong Last 28 days: 1.022 Romy .787 Sogard .646 DHam

I had hoped for more than Paxton, Garcia and Sims. Once again, I think we have over relied on returning pitchers from the IL. (Slaten, Martin, Hendriks...) I certainly will blame another missed playoffs on the lack of pitching. It is clear. Last winter, I advocated signing 3 solid SP'ers and we signed a questionable Giolito and hardly any depth (Criswell & Chase Anderson.) The trading away of Sale came back to bite our ass. Brez may have chosen "a lane," but not full throttle. BTW, we did add a prospect in Priester. I'm not happy with the choices we made with our staff, last winter or during the season. I will say, I was not for selling, this year, and I still think we have a better shot at the playoffs than we did in '22 or '23. (Both of those seasons I wanted us to sell.)

We have a better record than the Astros, and I won't cry about divisional strength, but these Astros have had more and worse injuries than we have, and they are in first place in the ALW. No Tucker for over 3 months. No Verlander and a big chunk or the rest of the rotation has been out for most of the year. GS'd: 10 Verlander 7 Javier 5 France 0 McCullers Jr 0 Luis Garcia 0 Jose Urquidy With all this gone, they are still 59-55.

It would make sense if there was a (secret) 5 year plan in place starting in 2020. (Not saying it is, and for all I know, it could be a 6 year plan or no plan of ever spending bigly again.)

No, I never even came close to saying or thinking this. Our pitching has been in a steep decline for months. My point is about the fact that along the way, we have seen ups and downs, even with the pitching. Baseball is hardly ever linear. Just berak it down to half months, and you can see the difference: 3.10 Early May 5.02 Late May 4.23 Early June 4.54 Late June 3.65 Early July (pretty promising, right?) 6.08 Late July (only 12 games due to ASB) 6.05 in first 7 games of AUG (5.11 first 5) You are assuming we repeat the last 19 games for the rest of the season and think it's delusional to have any hope we can reverse the slide. I think it's delusional to think we do NOt have any hope. Nobody know where we go from here. It's delusional to think we do know. That is my position. I am not predicting we turn it around- only that we can, and it is not a long shot. You think it's delusional to think it's even possible we don't continue sliding downwards or can improve on 6.05.

I'm not predicting a turnaround, so I can't be right or wrong on this. I'm just saying it is very rare when a team repeats it's last months' numbers over and over again, with no change- and this team has been up and down in all areas, numerous times. It's not a long shot chance we turn to the good with out pitching.

Again, you assume there is no chance for a turnaround, while this team has turned it around countless times, already, this year. Garcia and Simms were added, and had some bad games, since joining, but why assume they have to keep being bad? Jansen was written off by many, here, when he had a meltdown stretch months ago, then he bounced back. Are you saying it's impossible for him to work off his last good outing and be strong for 7 more weeks? No way Martin can do well? Zero chance? No way Slaten can come back? Look, I'm not seeing signs for a resurgence, either, but the norm of this team is to bounce back. While true, the pitching woes have been a steady decline, it's not impossible to imagine a few guys getting their s*** back together. Houck and Jansen might have already begun the turnaround- maybe others follow. Do you really think teams are doomed to keep repeating their last month's numbers over and over? Of course, if we keep allowing 7.1 runs a game for the next 7 weeks, we'll be toast, but I think it is equally delusional to think that happens as it is to think we go back to a sub 3 ERA the rest of the way. More likely, we go about 4.25 to 4.75 and if our hitting continues doing well, we'd have a shot. Also, are KCR and HOU/SEA looking all that great, right now? We just need to do better than 1 or 2 of those teams to make it.

Ih he shows half a heartbeat, sign his ass!

We all remember "Restgate" in 2019, and there has been some talk about relying on too many pitchers to throw way more than their previous career highs in IP, but I have to think this is part of it. Not adding SP'er depth was the biggest swing and miss, this past winter. Sure, Gio's injury hurt like hell and forced the overuse of what little depth we had, to begin with, but adding just Criswell and Anderson by opening day was a huge blunder. Here are the OPS Against by month: .613 April .688 May (still very nice, but actually the biggest drop by month) .722 June (not bad) .790 July (uh-oh!) .843 August (horrific)

I'd be thrilled with one TOTR pitcher and another Criswell type or two. I'm not sure that will be enough, though. Why are we expecting full successful seasons from Gio, Houck, Crawford, Bello and Whitlock? While I feel better about most of them than I did in March, all are still question marks for 2025. Plus, no Pivetta, Jansen and Martin is a big hit to the staff.

The actual signing of 1-2 year pitchers did, in fact, start after DD was fired, so that part was accurate. And, DD signed/extended nobody "NEW." Nate's contract started in 2019 and was the last big pitcher signing the Sox made. Sale's extension started in 2020, but was signed earlier. The following SP'er additions were mostly misses, and at these prices, one should not have expected much better results: 2020 $6M Martin Perez I $6M/1 Pivetta (trade for Workman & Hembree) 2021 $23M ($23M AAV) Martin Perez II $5M/1 Garrett Richards $10M/1 Adam Ottavino $8M/1 (trade) 2022 $49M ($31M AAV) Matt Barnes $19M/2 (extension) James Paxton $10M/2 Michael Wacha $7M/1 Rich Hill $5M/1 Jake Diekman $8M/2 2023 $60M ($35M AAV) Kenley Jansen $32M/2 Chris Martin $18M/2 Corey Kluber $10M/1 2024 $49M ($24M AAV) Lucas Giolito $39M/2 Liam Hendriks $10M/2 If you look at just the AAV signed each of the last 4 winters, we spent enough to sign a top pitcher at over $24M x 4 years, but we broke it down and spread it out, instead.) Had we "hit" on more of these signings, it wouldn't look so bad, but you get what you pay for and we got mostly crap. It's weird that perhaps our best season for adding pitchers was 2022 not 2021, so the results have not matched up with the team's success, either.

I think our farm pitching is starting to show signs of improvement, especially in quantity, but what worries me most is two-fold: 1. Our pitchers that are closest to ML-ready do now WOW anyone. Fitts Gambrell Penrod 2. Our highest ranked pitchers are not having great seasons in 2024. Perales (Out for the season with surgery) Sandlin Fitts The guy who is maybe #4 on both lists is Dobbins, who might end up okay, but he WOWs nobody, too. Our best hopes are far-aways and Perales returning from major surgery.