illinoisredsox

That would be the same Pat Light of the 23.63 ERA with the big club? The 3.00 WHIP? That would be the Pat Light who has walked 16 guys in 28 innings at Pawtucket? What has he done to merit a recall over Ramirez? Noe Ramirez is not good, but he has at least gotten though a couple appearances in Boston without getting shelled. Frankly, we are talking about the #7 pitcher in the pen (I think Buchholz is #8 right now), so it's not like he's going to be used in a stress situation unless they get into a 15-16 inning game.

I'd call the one that ended an overused 40 year old's season last year freakish.

No, that's a legit concern. I'm talking about the people blaming Farrell because it was a 4 run game and that he never should have been brought in ... It sounds like the kind of thing that could have happened warming up in the pen, on the mound or on any pitch he threw and regardless of score. Frankly, it may have been lucky it happened in a 4 run game. How comfortable would anybody feel handing the ball off to Barnes or Layne in a 1 run game against the 2-3-4 guys in the lineup? Edit - My remark about the critics probably would have been better in the Referendum on John Farrell thread.

Jack Flap's link above says right side pec, but I agree with you it seems like more of a freak thing than anything use related. I'd be a lot more impressed with the critics if they had made their remarks prior to the last pitch to Posey. I double checked the game thread, not a peep. Right after the injury, sure, but nothing when Koji first came in.

All of this makes for nice discussion, but Ziegler gets the closer role for now if for no other reason than he's done before, and done it quite effectively. He was 18 of 20 THIS YEAR with the Diamondbacks. When he blew a save in late June, it ended a streak of 43 straight. He was 30 of 32 last year. He has 81 saves over his career. If Farrell turns anywhere else, the Referendum on John Farrel thread should rightly explode.

Since Direct TV is giving the entire MLB package free this week, I was going back and forth between the Sox and Giants broadcasts. When they were closing out their broadcast last night, the SF announcers said the last time the Giants won a game at Fenway was 1915. Sounded funny to me, but they were indeed correct, they beat the Braves at Fenway on June 3, 1915. They last beat the Red Sox at Fenway in Game 7 of the 1912 World Series. The Sox took Game 8 and the Series the next day (Game 2 ended in an 11 inning tie).

Trying to remember didn't the Sox get off to a slow start offensively after the break last year as well?

I just want to see them start stringing together some hits. Most of their runs vs. the Yanks were on homers. Not complaining about that but I love seeing 4-5 hits in a row to put a lot of pressure on the other pitcher. Pitch count is not nearly as important as how many pitches does a guy have to make under stress.

But the deviation on that is ridiculous. His first 11 starts (through the end of May) they got him about 7 runs a a game. Since June 1 they've scored 24 runs n 9 games (and 8 of them were in that disaster in Texas). If he were consistently getting 5 runs a game it would be great. But lately it's been less than 3 and in many of those it's been 1. Nobody wins many games with that level of support. As I posted in the game thread the other day, Kershaw is something like 22-43 when getting 2 or less runs per game, which is quite amazing. Bumgarner is 10-48 which I suspect is pretty typical.

Then say that to start with. It just points out the vagaries of wins and losses. Price got several wins early on when he was pitching poorly but got bailed out by the offense. Lately he's been pretty good but has been victimized by poor support. Ironically the one time they got him some runs over the last month and a half was his worst outing of the season against Texas and they came back to bail him out. Let's just hope 8 days off was too much and he'll be sharper next time out on more normal rest.

W-L is not a good barometer but since you seemed solely on whether or not an ace wins or loses a game and you say Price has to match Lester: Price with the Red Sox is 9-7 (.562 win percentage) Lester since leaving the Red Sox is 26-20 (.565) Seems like a close match to me. Like I said, I don't like W-L over such a small sample but you seem to be focused on it ...

And since June 1 they've scored 22 runs for him in 9 starts (2.44 runs per start). 8 of those were in 1 game meaning in the other 8 starts it's 1.75 runs per game). Basically there's been no in between with him on the mound; they've either scored a ton (as in his first 11 starts when they averaged almost 7 rpg) or very little as in the last 9.

The idea that "aces" win consistently with little run support is stupid. As I noted above Kershaw is 22-43 with run support of 2 or less runs. Baumgarner is 10-48. I think we would agree that both of them would be considered aces under any definition of the word.

Becoming an all too familiar theme with Price on the mound. Since June 1, the Sox have scored 2, 1, 2, 2, 8 (the game at Texas that Price was absolutely brutal in), 0, 2 and 4 (with 1 tonight). Even Kershaw would have trouble winning a lot of games with support like that. Edit- career wise Kershaw is 22-43 when the Dodgers have provided him 0-2 runs. Baumgarner is 10-48 for the Giants.

Agreed. Most of the runs this series have been on homers, almost no stringing hits together.

So his last start before the ASB wasn't good enough?

Sox pitchers could take a lesson on how Tanaka is pitching tonight. In-out, up,-down. He is epitomizing what Warren Spahn said: hitting is timing, pitching is upsetting timing.

IMO Price needs to pitch inside more (not just tonight). Teams are sitting on everything being away.

He did early on but the last month or so that is certainly true. Tanaka is good so it's not like you could expect a lot of offense tonight.

Unfortunately it looks like good Pineda showed up tonight.

Round is a shape.

Luck. Pitcher A gives up 3 infield choppers and reasonably deep fly ball will likely allow 1 earned run. 3 seeing eye singles or bloops and said fly will may yield 2 earned runs. No decent contact has been made but the pitcher has allowed 1-2 runs. Next/bottom half of the inning, Pitcher B has 3 fly balls hit to the triangle in center that go 419 feet but are caught on the run by the CF. No runs allowed, but who really had the better inning? Team dependent: obviously a team with a great defense, especially infield, will probably allow fewer earned runs. The late 60s/early 70s Orioles had vacuum cleaners in Brooks Robinson and Mark Belanger on the left side of the infield. It took a howitzer shot to get the ball past them. The Sox of the same era had Rico Petrocelli at short and Guys like George Scott and Joe Foy at 3rd. Decent players but not exactly guys with a ton of range over there. And I guess the deal with the pitchers' errors merely reflects that once a pitch is thrown, the pitcher is considered the same as any other fielder. I know the rules are different for number of bases awarded if a pitcher throws a ball into the stands as a pitcher (say trying to pick a guy off first) vs. any fielder throwing it there on a ball in play. I can see points on both sides of that discussion. Like everything else in baseball, aa these things tend to even out over time and players rise or sink to the level they are supposed to.

Which version of game score are you using?

I thought Eckersley made a very good point about Price morphing into a different type of pitcher. He's no longer the flame thrower he was as a kid so he's adjusting his game accordingly. Luckily, Price has always been a pitcher as opposed to being a thrower and has decent secondary pitches, so the transition should go fine for him.

I'm also quite certain that the same conversation was held in Yankee Stadium and Busch Stadium and Comerica Field and Turner Field and ...