illinoisredsox

I agree. Willis may well be going as well. Either he can't figure the pitching staff out or the entire staff is totally tone-deaf to any instruction. Either is possible.

They didn't sign him to a long term extension to have him go manage somewhere else. He's the next guy,

Of course, that assumes Buchholz wouldn't have imploded as well (he only faced 1 guy). Abad looked good for 1 hitter (struck Gardner out). Barnes has been very good the last 4 times out; I could have seen leaving Buchholz in but I can make a case for using Barnes there as well.

That's easier to do in the off-season; impossible during the year.

Well, like I said I would have used Pomeranz, who as at least been on the bases this year. Although, as I type this, it occurred to me that holding Pomeranz back as a potential PH had the game gone on long enough would not have been a bad idea (he's got 12 major league hits and 9 sac bunts). That was probably beyond Farrell's range though. Given last night, I guess he would have had his choice on "garbage bullpen" guys.

It's a distinct possibility. Pineda can be very good, and the Sox line-up figures to be further depleted with almost certainly no Mookie and likely no Ortiz.

Sunday against the Dodgers,the Sox had pulled to within 1 run. Farrell sent Brentz up to hit for Price. LA countered with the right handed Joe Blanton and Ortiz hit for Brentz. Big Papi walked and once he got to second, Wright ran for him. At that point, Hill had already replaced Holt, so the bench was down to Hanley and Leon, and it makes sense that they would be saved until later in the game. So that left a pitcher, and since relievers might still be needed, by extension, a starter. While Wright was on second, Blanton broke the pitchers' fraternity rules by faking a throw to second, Wright dove back in and hurt himself. I had no issue with a pitcher running for Papi there; NL pitchers are used as pinch runners all the time. I might have used Pomeranz, who has pinch run this year, but Wright had the longer time to the next start so I can see using him. Frankly, AL managers would greatly increase their flexibility by doing so as well, even if it would be less frequently. It would not kill AL pitchers to work on it in spring training and run some drills on it during the year. You've heard of the Midas touch? Right now, Farrell has whatever the opposite of that is, no matter what the move.

Team definitely needs a kick in the ass but to be fair, Girardi benefitted greatly by having his players actually do their jobs. Funny how good a manager can look when that happens. Penwise, the only really questionable move was taking Buch out so quickly but Barnes has been good lately so it wasn't ridiculous. Abad sucked but Ross was worse. Tazawa looks shot. And let's not forget Kimbrel blew goat chunks Tuesday night. I'm not sure how a manager (any manager) overcomes that.

I blame Blanton. As I wrote the other day, I thought it was part of the pitchers' fraternity rules that you don't do stuff like that to other pitchers.

Say what you want, but in the big games, he wanted the ball and generally came through. This pitching staff could use a little of that mentality.

Good God, can 1 f***ing reliever get a freaking out

OTOH, his 2014 stats say maybe. So do his 2015 stats. And, as you so often like to respond to me: sss

Not according to these: http://www.overthemonster.com/2016/5/9/11639650/red-sox-rich-hill-free-agent-rumors http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/john-tomase/2016/05/09/rich-hill-one-got-away-thats-ok-because-he-has Both indicate he "wanted a clear shot at starting", to quote the weei link

He wanted a guaranteed starting spot, they could/would not give that to him. Remember, the projected starters were Price, Buchholz, Porcello, ERod and ?. Wright, Hill, Owens and who knows who else were supposed to compete for that last spot. Nobody could have forseen ERod getting hurt and Buchholz sucking as badly as he did (he underperformed the low expectations even his harshest critics had for him). Edit - I forgot Miley was still in the equation when all this came down in November. Add one more to the list.

Yep, except this one. I agree its stupid but in this case, NY was correct. Link to the Fenway ground rules, #3 is the applicable one: https://groundrules.mlb.com/redsox/index.html "Batted ball in flight striking to the right of yellow line on left center field wall behind flagpole: Home Run."

Nobody with Price colored glasses is claiming he's having a great season. But neither has he "stunk" as several have said. For whatever reason, when he has pitched well over the past 3 months, the team has decided to take the night off with the bats. Oddly, when he has pitched poorly, the offense has shown up most of the time.

Case in point, Lackey in 2011. His ERA was 6.41, among the worst in the HISTORY of major league baseball over a full season. Somehow, he managed to go 12-12.

"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing" - Warren Spahn How many times do you see the same pitch trying to hit the same spot at the same speed from our pitchers? Major league hitters will catch up to it eventually even if it's Chapman throwing 103. Nowadays, there is nothing special about a low 90s fastball. 15-20 years ago there was. I don't know how many people were railing at the fact the the hitters couldn't pummel the "soft tossers" on the recent road trip. If you watched them carefully, it was up, down , in, out, different speeds. In other words, just the way Spahn described it.

It's the chance you take when you sign a pitcher who is over 30 (especially one who has been around a while).

Then get tired. He's had 11 good starts since May 12 in 17 games (games the team should have won, in a few of them, all they needed to do was score 2-3 runs, in the rest, 4 would have done the job). He's had 2-3 mediocre ones (where he hasn't been terrible and he's given the team a chance to win) and he's had 3-4 horrific ones (ironically, the offense has actually shown up in a couple of these). As I said, he hasn't been Cy Young like, but he's been decent.

Maybe Price only takes advice from people with the initials DP.

1) Pitchers will take advice from anyone. 2) Actually, no he hasn't. Here are his line scores since: Date IP H R ER BB K DEC 5/12 6 2/3 6 1 1 1 12 W 5/18 7 1/3 5 2 2 1 5 W 5/24 7 5 3 3 1 6 W 5/29 6 1/3 5 2 2 3 3 ND (Sox won game) 6/3 7 6 3 3 4 5 L 6/8 8 3 2 2 2 7 L 6/14 8 5 3 3 0 11 L 6/19 6 8 1 1 0 7 W 6/24 2 1/3 12 6 6 0 1 ND (Sox won game) 6/29 6 1/3 9 4 4 1 10 L 7/5 8 8 3 3 1 10 L 7/10 8 4 0 0 1 10 W 7/17 5 2/3 11 3 3 1 1 L 7/23 5 2/3 11 5 5 2 4 ND (Sox lost game) 7/28 8 7 0 0 1 6 ND (Sox lost game) 8/2 7 7 4 4 0 5 ND (Sox lost game) 8/7 5 6 6 3 5 3 L 17 games, I count 11 good starts (and certainly starts that you would take out of any pitcher and ones the team could have won had the offense shown up those days), 3-4 bad ones and 2-3 mediocre ones. Since Pedroia's advice, ERA has dropped from 6.75 to 4.34 (still above where it needs to be, but a significant drop). While he hasn't been Cy Young level, if that's sucking, 90% of the pitchers in both league suck. EDIT - Apologies for the eye chart, haven't figured out the table thing yet. Works great in WORD.

Re. Price, I think Eck was onto something several weeks ago when he said that Price is in a transition process as a pitcher, moving from the flame thrower we remember into a guy who will have to rely a little more on location, etc. He's always been more of a pitcher than a thrower, so he should be able to do it, but unfortunately for the 2016 Red Sox he's still going through the process. Not much anyone can do except let him go through it. And let's face it, the last game not withstanding, overall he's been pretty good since June 1. Not his fault that in most of those games the offense decided to take the night off.

To be fair, my guess is they weren't going to use Porcello since he pitches Tuesday. ERod pitched Saturday, I'm sure he was tired. That leaves Pomeranz and Wright. Wright's got the most time to his next start, so he got the nod.

This. That left basically using starting pitchers as PRs, since the bull-pen guys might be needed to actually pitch. I thought maybe Pomeranz would be a better choice since he's actually run the bases at least a little this year, but among Porcello, Wright, Porcello and ERod, maybe Wright's the fastest one.