illinoisredsox

Exactly. For all those who seem to think that the line-up Farrell put out on September 29 somehow screwed up the season, I give you the line-up the Guardians fielded on September 27 (after clinching the AL Central the night before): Tyler Naquin, cf Michael Martinez, 2B Abraham Almonte, rf Carlos Santana, dh Brandon GUyer, lf Jesus Aguilar, 1B Chris Gimenez, 3B Adam Moore, c Erik Gonzalez, ss Mike Clevinger, p I count 3 regulars there. BTW, the Guardians lost 12-0. By any measure, Francona tanked that game. They also lost the next night (with their regular line-up) and at that point had lost 4 of 5. Then it suddenly turned around and they swept KC over the weekend. I didn't bother looking, but it would not shock me to see that every team that clinched something early ran out a second string line-up the day after clinching. What the Red Sox ran into was a team that got hot. They ran into what the Blue Jays, Orioles, Yankees and Rays ran into during the Sox' 11 game winning streak. It happens. We've seen it many times.

Baseball Reference lists Craig's servie time as 4.154 years, which I think means 4 years, 154 days. I'm pretty sure the standard is 180 days = a year of service time (season is about 180 days long), so he is 26 days short of the 5 years.

Hanley has gotten better as the year has gone on. He made several plays in September/October that he would not have come close to making in April.

You mean like Bochy did last night? I didn't have a real problem with Pomeranz facing Crisp. Coco was 0-5 in the series at that point. He was batting from his weaker side (a .214 average with 3 HRs). And Pomeranz was coming off an easy 1-2-3 inning. Crisp got him, it happens. The way things were going for the Sox in this series, had Ziegler been brought in, he would have given up a couple of infield hits followed by a 27 hopper that hits second base just as Bogaerts or Pedroia was about to field it for a DP. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the wind died just prior to the pitch to Crisp and then roared back up again right afterwards. While the Tribe had many hard hit balls, Cleveland also had several hits during the series that found holes and set up multi-run innings. The Sox had several hard hit balls that found gloves, or in a couple cases, bounced off gloves right to other gloves. I think if Betts' ball gets passed 3rd in the 8th, a ball he hit for a double many times this season, the Sox win the game and then who knows how the series goes from there. Did anyone not think the ball he hit in the 8th was gone; I sure did, off the bat, it looked like many homers he had hit during the year. The wind had other ideas.

So very true. It went further than that. Koji came out of basically no where to put up one of the greatest years a reliever has ever had. Mike Carp and Daniel Nava had the best year of their careers. The core of that team was much older than their 2016 cousins. Among the regulars and semi-regulars, Middlebrooks was 24, Saltalamacchia 28 and Carp 27, and none of them were the mainstays of the team. Pedroia and Ellsbury were 29 but had been around for 6-7 years. The others were 30+. A stark contrast to this year's club.

Moon, they can't "Castillo" Panda. Once a player has 5 years in the majors, he can't be sent down without his consent. Panda's been around since 2008-2009. So the only options are to trade him or release him. If the latter, anyone can sign him for the MLB minimum, with the Sox having to pick up the difference. Either way, they are not going to be able to get out of paying a decent part of his contract and having it count against the limit. They are between the proverbial rock and hard place with him.

Bradley's numbers outside of his 29 game hitting streak, in IMO, are concerning, especially when viewed with his previous years results in mind: 127 G, .232/.317/.416/.733 It's hard to say what they have in him at this point. He's been a "regular" for 15 months or so over the past 4 seasons. He's had 2 incredibly hot months, a 3-4 more decent months and the rest very mediocre (with a couple downright putrid). He has been awful in September the last 3 years. Once thing to keep in mind for those ready to give on Bradley. The Sox once had a kid (great defensive player who had some power) who came up and struggled offensively quite a bit his first 6-7 years. He had moments where he looked fine and others where he looked terrible. Dwight Evans ended up playing 19 years for the Red Sox and eventually became a very good hitter. I'm not saying JBJ will become Dewey. That would not be fair. But there's something the Sox brass (and other teams' brass as well) see in Bradley that many of us amateurs don't. I'm not saying they should stick with Bradley come hell of high water. I also don't think you dump him for the sake of just getting rid of him. But neither do I see him as untouchable; if he has to be included as a part of the right deal, fine.

And you, seemingly, are still incapable of differentiating between managing the marathon and managing the sprint.

LOL More directed at the doom and gloom crowd pointing out that series started out very similar to this one. Pedro hurt himself in game 1 as well; they had no idea what they would get out there f him when he came into Game 5.

1999 ALDS Tribe with HFA: Cleveland 3, Sox 2 Cleveland 11, Sox 1 Sox looked putrid at the plate; sound familiar? Sox 9, Cleveland 3 Sox 23, Cleveland 7 Sox 12, Cleveland 8 (Pedro with 6 innings of no-hit relief)

Don't get me wrong, Price did not pitch that well. He was off on location all day. But as has happened a lot this year, he gave up hits in bunches, cheap as a few of them were, followed by one big one. Still, had he been perfect, he gets a no decision due to the Sox offense and the defense was terrible. And Porcello was awful (I blame lack of his lucky hat). Far worse than Price IMO.

The thing is he wouldn't be wrong. Think about the bad inning. An out. A hard hit ground ball single. An infield chop in a perfect spot followed by a bloop in a perfect spot. Then the one real bad pitch he threw all night. The other run he gave up doesn't score if Holt turns the easy DP. Don't get me wrong, he could have been better. But let's also be realistic. If he had pitched perfectly, the best he would have gotten is a no decision. No phase of the Red Sox game showed up today.

That sums up just about the whole team.

The really sad thing is he made 1 bad pitch.

Maybe we need to look at this like game 3 of the 2004 ALCS. One other history lesson for you doom and gloomers. (actually 2). Google the 1999 ALDS. Then google the 2003 ALDS.

So if they get hot it has nothing to do with the manager but when they cool off it's his fault. Got it.

That's 2 DP grounders they've effed up today.

God you are pathetic. Bye.

But according to some that's Farrell's fault.

The play off Holt's hit sums up this game completely.

The homer was the dagger but the chop and the bloop set that whole inning up.

Kluber's got a lot a late movement on his pitches today. Sox have a bead on it and it moves just off the sweet spot at the last split second. Let's face it, he's good.

Nice try; ain't going to work.

But again this inning, infield hit on a ball Bogaerts could have made a play on and Holt booting an easy DP ball. Result is a cheap run. Guardians are white hot, they are getting a few breaks and they are taken by advantage of them. Things are going for them the way they were for the Sox during that 11 game winning streak.

I blame you.