illinoisredsox

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.

I was a little surprised Blanton faked the throw to second; I thought the pitchers' fraternity rules dictate you don't do that to other pitchers.

Only way they use a 6th starter is if they have a doubleheader.

No, they don't stink. Would you really rather be the Braves or the Rays? Those teams stink. The Sox are not a great team. Much as we want them to be, they are not a championship team. They've been playing .500 ball (give or take) for a couple months. They may well be a slightly above .500 team. They've got a lot of young guys who need to learn how to win consistently over a full season. The 3 B's have never been through this before. Yeah, I know Bradley was on the 2013 team early and Bogaerts was on it late. But they were bit players that year. Now they aren't.

Maybe we need to accept the fact that they just aren't that good. OTOH, 5-6 on a trip to the West coast isn't a disaster. Whether or not they make the postseaon is going to depend on how much they can beat the O's and Jays over the last 8 weeks. If they don;t figure out how to do that, they aren't going to play in October (nor should they).

Bogaerts better figure out how to hit or lay off a breaking pitch because he's gonna see a bunch of 'em the rest of the way.

Some people just like to rant.

You aren't going to use a reliever; they might be needed to pitch. That leaves one of the starting pitchers. Porcello, Wright, ERod or Pomeranz. Pomeranz may have been a better choice since he;s actually run the bases some this year, but maybe Wright is the fastest of that group.

who says Papi can't play D?

That's just tough luck there. Great pitch and a great hitter just fights it off for a hit.

Man when Rodriguez loses it he loses it fast.

Rodriguez looks like he's aiming the ball. Go after him. Time to get the pen up .

That was a pair of well placed grounders.

Simple. They want him playing every day. Right now, Leon is playing 4-5 times a week which means the backup plays 1-2. Vazquez will be a September call-up.

Those of you old enough may remember some of the 3-6, 2-8 type west coast trips that seemed to occur all too often and sank many seasons. When the O's undertook a very similar trip a month ago, they went 4-5 and got swept in a 4 game set in Seattle. So 5-6 on the trip means they held serve, 6-5 and they picked up a game. There is something to be said for that. Making the postseason is going to come down to how they fare against the O's and Jays the rest of the way. They need to start figuring out a way to beat them more often; if they don't start doing that, it's not going to matter.