illinoisredsox

I think my signature says it all.

So which of Mookie and Bogaerts would you have sat? Those 2 made the biggest outs of the game (and soft outs in those situations at that.

Mookie needs to get out of this. His ABs with RISP really hurt them tonight.

Funny how I didn't see a single post from you about pulling Pomeranz in the span of the 6 pitches the game turned on.

Fenway cost them that inning. Hanley's single is out of most parks and Benintendi's had a shot in many as well.

This was true with Crawford; after he left he was okay in LA for a couple years and then injuries cropped up and his skills diminished in a normal pattern relative to his age. In Sandoval's case, it had nothing to do with the money or wearing the Sox uniform. His skills were gone and it would not have mattered where he landed or for how little money.

Sorry (not really), merely pointing out his he was off to a pretty good start his first year. He never was the same after he broke that bone in his wrist. Whether that was because pitchers figured him out, it never healed properly, he lost confidence, or any combination of those we will never know. But he never got it back.

Yep, my bad. Stiill, as Kimmi said, the Sox were not going to match Texas' 6 year contract.

A few things about Beltre and why he left: 1. Beltre came to the Sox on a one-year deal for the 2011 season to resurrect his career; as I recall, he was coming off an injury and took a substantial pay cut (25-30%) from his previous contract with the Mariners. He had every intent of going free agent after that season. 2. His agent was Scott Boras, so resigning him was not going to be easy. 3. While he performed well here, I'm not sure he liked playing in Boston; he really wanted to play on the west cost and settled on the Rangers. 4. They had Will Middlebrooks ready from the minors, and he (Middlebrooks) performed pretty well for the half season he played (OPS of .835, 15 homers and 54 RBIs in 75 games). Unfortunately, that was the highwater mark of his career, but at the time he represented big power at a very low cost. And the biggest reason of all: 5. The Sox had a money crunch. 2012 was the year Adrian Gonzalez's contract escalated from around $6 million to over $20 million. The Sox also resigned David Ortiz that same season. Lackey and Beckett were in the middle of large contracts and they had a lot of $ tied up in Carl Crawford.

Had to laugh yesterday when he said he's rather lose a game 10-0 than 1-0. That's because in a 10-0 game, he can complain about both the hitting and the pitching. In a 1-0 game, he can only bitch about the hitting (although there was one post about how bad Porcello was when he gve up the one run).

Not in the minds of some here. Got to be perfect from the start and improve from there.

I'm getting a little concerned about Scott. Any pitcher can have a bad outing or 2, but this is several games in a row he has given up runs, and often via the homer.

The dumb play was on Travis' chopper as Hanley should have scored.; Sox were lucky Tulo didn't tag Young out instead of throwing to first to get Sam. The tag out at the plate wasn't a big deal, Jays got a great bounce off the backstop that no one could have foreseen.

He should be here any second now that the Sox are down.

First, the bull pen pretty much has done the job this year. So I'm not real sure why one would choose to go that route. But for the sake of discussion, who are you taking off the major league roster to make room to cycle through these PawSox? Right now, your choices would be Barnes, Hembree, Scott, Abad, and Boyer (I'm assuming that Kimbrel and Kelly are safe under this cycle program). Abad and Boyer are expendable, but is changing the #6 and #7 relievers going to do much? Hembree is out of options, so you would have to release him. Scott is your lefty specialist; yeah he's had a rough last couple of outings but for the most part he has done the job this year. Barnes has been inconsistent, but are any of these guys going to better than him? The starters have been far more of an issue.

Why is it that lefties are able to throw those balls that start a foot behind the batters rear and end up with it hitting the catchers glove in the other batter's box, but right handers don't seem to have that same movement? You know the type of pitch I'm trying to describe.

I understand looking for a particular pitch in a particular spot on the first strike. No sense going after a pitch perfectly placed down and way on the outside corner. I might even buy it on the second strike. But protecting the plate is a lost art. Very few seem to do it anymore. I remember reading that the old Oriole first baseman Eddie Murray would spend a couple of rounds of batting practice practicing his emergency swings; the type you use when you have 2 strikes and you are fooled on a pitch. It didn't always work for him in a game, sometimes the pitcher gets you. But he was at least thinking about protecting the plate and worked at it. Closer to home, Fisk's homer in Game 6 never takes place if Carbo doesn't hit his in the 8th, and Carbo never hits his if he doesn't foul off a nasty 2 strike pitch with, as Sports Illustrated said. "all the grace of a suburbanite raking leaves". It was a horrible swing, but it led to 2 moments for the ages.

It's an interesting stat to a point, but how does it compare with other teams? I'd imagine most teams have pretty good records when they score 4+ runs and pretty bad ones when they don't.

I have to wonder if this is actually true. A few years ago, we had the same story about a girl in a neighboring town here in Illinois.

Especially since Boras is the agent for 2 of them.

Exactly. The guys whose job it is to know such things see some thing(s) he needs to work on. There have been references on these boards about some issues with breaking balls. I have no idea if that's what it is or not, but let's suppose it is. If he's having some trouble with them against AA pitchers, major league pitchers are going to eat him alive with them. While Devers may be destroying fastballs, we have to remember that AA pitchers are every bit in the same development mode that Devers is, so their organizations may be having them work on commanding fastballs rather than tossing breaking pitch after breaking pitch just to get a certain hitter out. Big league pitchers are not going to be under any such requirements. As you point out, he's had 250 or so ABs above A ball. Benintendi at that same age was still in high A ball. So was Betts. JBJ was still in college. Xander got to Boston, but his first full season (2014 when he was 21) was a struggle.

Using Hembree in that situation begs the question, is Kelly unavailable or have they moved Barnes from the 8th inning role?

By definition, good pitchers are tough to hit. That's why they are ... The problem isn't the good pitchers, it's they haven't been hitting average and back end types.

You do realize that Berrios has a better record, a lower ERA and a lower WHIP than Sale, right? Offense didn't figure to be a big feature on either side tonight. Not every mistake is a hit and not every hit is off a mistake.

Yeah, but Buckley from the Herald is doing his best to start that (I assume somebody at the Globe is doing the same, but since they are behind a paywall ...). I don't think there's been a column he's written since the incident in New York that hasn't had some snide remark about Price in it.