illinoisredsox

Great read but when did Pedroia get hurt? There certainly were no DL trips this season.

What changes is that in a tie game at home and the game gets to the 9th, there's no save to be had. You bring in your best available reliever for the 9th; once he is done,, you go with your next best, etc. As I wrote above, in the postseason and especially in an elimination game, the "rules" should not apply. If your on the road and you don't score, in the top of the 9thor later, you've got to get 6 outs to win the game, the home team doesn't have to get any. Yo have to prolong it as long as you can.

Marrero was 1-12 this year (and hit .198 in Pawtucket); the idea that he can PH is ludicrous. PR sure. None of the 3 can be relied on as hitters (although Hill and Hernandez are better than Marrero in that regard), so it comes down to what else can they give the team. And let's be realistic, if the Sox are using a back-up SS in the postseason, they are fooked anyway.

He was warming up in the top of the ninth (I assume in case the O's took the lead). It's the postseason, some of the "rules" have to go out the window.

You could make a case for Uehara, although whether he can be effective back to back is a huge question. However, Kelly has never closed a game in his life; the postseason is not the time to find out if he can do it.

They went with 11 pitchers in 2013 in the ALDS, they probably will do the same this year. That leaves 14 position players. Hill offers better D, Hernandez more speed. Given the 14 slots available, I think both will be on the roster as I can't see them taking 3 catchers (if one were Swihart, maybe, since he at least offers a potential bat, as is, no way 3 are on the roster). Offensively, neither one of them has gone to the plate often enough lately to really say which would be better: Hernandez's plus stats are almost entirely from a few games in late June/early July and he only came to the plate 7 times in September; Hill didn't do much all year although he did go 8-27 in September. Bottom line is we are talking about the #6-7 infielder here.

True his postseason record is less than stellar. On the plus side, he has always pitched well against the Tribe; career against the Guardians he is 10-2 in 14 games with a 2.24 ERA. At Progressive Field he is 5-0 in 7 games with a 2.24 ERA. This year, he only faced them on opening day, he went 6 innings, allowing 2 runs while striking out 10 and walking 2. All of which means ... nothing. He is likely to be facing Kluber, so a game similar to yesterday could easily be in the cards. The team that has beaten him up throughout his career, no matter what uniform he's wearing, is the Rangers.

FWIW, while the Rangers were 36-11 in 1-run games, their record in those types of games against the 4 other AL playoff teams was 4-4 (and that going a 3-1 vs. the Jays). Their overall record vs. the other AL playoff teams was 15-12. Baltimore was 25-26 vs. AL playoff teams and 32-29 against all playoff teams Boston 27-23 and 31-26 Cleveland 9-17 and 12-21 Texas 15-12 and 16-14 Toronto 27-25 and 30-28 All of which means ... nothing. Any team can get hot for 5 games (a week) and any team can just not have it for a week.

And the Tigers would have thrown out a AAA line-up at best. My guess is the game would have been akin to the Columbus Clippers playing the Toledo Mud Hens with a few Indian and Tiger backups filling in the gaps. Not that it would have mattered, because unless the game would have determined as to whether the Tigers could have qualified for the post-season or not, it would not have been played. They don't play games for seeding.

Chad Finn absolutely nails it: http://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2016/10/02/farewell-to-david-ortiz-the-best-thing-ever-to-happen-to-the-red-sox

Bunting is a not a part of the Sox offense and the fastest way to sure defeat is to start trying to do things that are not normal for you. Outside Leon and maybe Holt, there's nobody on the team who can bunt worth a darn anyway.

Well to be fair, this ump is not helping in that regard. He's missed a bunch on both sides tonight.

You will note he has disappeared from posting since the Sox took the lead.

IF everything holds up, Orioles would be 1 game up on Toronto and 1 1/2 up on Detroit. O's and Jays have 2 games left; if Detroit is ahead or behind the second wild card spot by 1/2 game on Sunday night they will have to play a make-up game with Cleveland on Monday

You're one of those people who's not happy unless they aren't happy, right? With their play the past 3-4 games, you must be ecstatic.

So how many times are you going to make this same post? I realize you treat every game like it's an NFL game (realize that the baseball equivalent is 10 games). That being said, you don't know what the plans are line-up wise for this weekend. We do know the Sox announcers last night said that the plan is at least MOST of the regulars will play tonight (assuming there is a game tonight). The Boston weather forecast for the weekend absolutely sucks, so they easily could be playing 2 on Sunday or even 1 or 2 on Monday, and all kinds of plans get thrown out of kilter.

Well, per the Sox announcers last night, you will see most of the regulars tonight (I could see Bogaerts and Bradley getting the night off since they played last night). With the forecast for tomorrow (50s and rain), there is no way I would send any regulars out there if they even manage to play. And if they don't play, that means a doubleheader on Sunday, and you aren't sending the regulars out there to play 18 innings. I also think you will see Buchholz in a relief role on Sunday to get some action in before his playoff start and avoid 10 days between games. EDIT - Now that I look at the weekend forecast for Boston, they will be lucky to not to have to finish the season on Monday.

Well, we don't have that guy this year. Do I wish we did? Yeah. But aside from the O's and Britton (who I showed is not always 1-2-3), who really does?

This is where reality trumps perception. In September, he has made 10 appearances. He has 6 saves in 7 attempts (Wednesday night was a save attempt in my mind, but since he was taken out, he technically didn't get a blown save). For what it's worth (admittedly not much for a reliever), his ERA at the start of September was 2.86. Going into Wednesday night, it had gone down to 2.65. If one assumes that the the unearned run he allowed in Oakland on the Holt error as earned, his ERA rises to all the way to 2.82 before Wednesday). In his 9 appearances up to Wednesday, he was perfect 4 times and allowed 1 runner 4 other times (1 H (albeit a home run), 2 BB, 1 HBP). While Britton seemingly hasn't been scored on since Yaz was a rookie, this month in 11 appearances he has allowed (gasp) 10 runners in 11 innings (he's been perfect 4 times). Do I wish Kimbrel would be more efficient? Absolutely. But looking at his record, he has always walked his share of batters (not as badly as this year I will grant you). And I think that knee has something to do with it. If a reliever is going to allow 6 runs in a month, I would rather it be the way Kimbrel has done it (1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 4) than something like 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1,, 0, 1, 1. As for Koji closing, do we know if his shoulder would stand up to back to back or back to back to back appearances? I doubt it.

Nothing you can do about that. The team I really don't want to see is Detroit as they have really bad the Sox number this year. 3-3 vs. Texas, 4-2 vs. Cleveland, 11-8 vs. the O's, 8-8 vs. the Jays. 1-5 against Detroit.

I know you don't, which is why any team you would manage would be toast by mid-July.

Close. First seed plays the winner of the wild card game, which will probably be 2 of Toronto, Detroit and Baltimore.

Would you rather they do that starting next Thursday? Getting the bad games out of the way is the way to look at this. they look tired; they are tired. They've been on the road seemingly non-stop since mid.August. A few nights in their own beds should do wonders.

Sounds like you'll get your wish tomorrow night. The forecast for Saturday sucks; cold and rainy. No way I want to send any regulars out in that. I just hope they play; otherwise they may have to play 2 on Sunday which would really suck.

They are going to have 3 days off starting Monday. That's enough to blunt any momentum, positive or negative, that may or may not build up over the weekend.