illinoisredsox

Bagwell will go in next year; he was 15 votes shy last season and has been rising steadily over his time on the ballot.

It is interesting. I'd would think that the teams that have a higher OPS for their pinch hitters also employ platoons to a fairly large extent, so that players are actually hitting on a fairly regular basis. Definitely cannot be said of the Red Sox this year or most years. When Rutledge hit for Shaw against Britton a week or so ago, it was his first PA this month. Hitting maybe once a week is not going to lead to great results.

Let's not pretend hitting for Shaw is an everyday occurrence, nor is he sitting against all lefties. He has played in every game the Sox have played this year (71), and has started 68 of them. Shaw has been pinch hit for 6 times this year, with 4 of those in the first 10 days of the season. Since then, the ONLY times he has been hit for were on June 14th (Rutledge) against the O's Zach Britton (this one was questionable since it was Rutledge) and Monday against Duke (Pedroia). The latter I can understand since Duke does appear to be very tough on lefties and you had a .300 hitter in Pedroia available. He was not hit for last night, he came out because the ankle was bothering him from fouling a pitch off of it on Tuesday. No matter how you want to spin it, the facts are that this year he is hitting lefties to the tune of .204 with and OBP of .250 and a slugging percentage of .347 and that includes the 3 hits over the past 2 games.. Yes he hit them well last year (in 85 plate appearances). He has not hit them well this year (in 52 plate appearances). Now I will agree there are definitely better in game managers.

First thing is Tazawa needs to move to the 8th inning role. He's been successful at it in the past. Hembree takes the 7th. Koji is 6th or earlier. Unfortunately, Koji right now is all or nothing, and once he gives something up, he gives it up in bunches. He is no longer capable of pitching 2 days in a row and while he didn't get in the game last night, he did warm up.

Giving back to the Boston media what they (the media) dish out is a point in his favor, IMO.

No, just a decent one. Somebody has to step up and take the #4 spot. If we can consistently get 3 runs in 6 innings type pitching from a #5, the staff will be in good shape.

I would hate to see your definition of stuff then. He had one bad inning and wriggled off the hook. Against guys like him, you usually don't get second shots.

Okay folks, fess up. If before the 1st pitch you could have penciled in Buchholz allowing 3 runs in 5 innings, would you have taken it? Be honest. Given how he's been this year, I would have.

He's streaky. He'll go 2-3 games where he's hitting the ball fairly well (good contact) and gets 5-6 hits over that span, then he goes 1-20 over his next 5 games or so and looks terrible. Not unusual for a young player. I also don't think it all that unusual for a catcher to struggle more than most early in his career hitting wise unless he is just a gifted hitter. Like every young hitter, pitchers get a book on them and they have to adjust if they are going to succeed. Given their duties with the pitching staff, catchers don't have the same time to work on the adjustments as any other position player. Vazquez is unlikely to ever win a silver slugger, but given time he will probably be serviceable.

Bradley also brought that elite defense that gave them a reason to keep giving him a chance as well, not to mention the age difference. I'm assuming the professionals were seeing things that us armchair types would not pick up on. Maybe he was refusing to take coaching advice. Heck, for all we know, his bat had slowed down even further. It's been pretty well reported he was having trouble hitting fastballs and they aren't talking about the Kimbrel/Chapman type when they say that. Let's face it, if you can't hit an average major league fastball and you don't bring something else special to the table, they are going to find somebody who can. Rumor has it there was a big worm party held at Fenway when he was sent down earlier this year and an even bigger bash Saturday night when they heard he had been waived.

Castillo has been placed on waivers; he's no longer even on the 40 man roster, let alone the active one. The options were the right handed hitter LaMarre or lefty swingers Leon and Marrero. None of those is a going to be confused with Minny Minoso or Gates Brown.

If you think Shaw would have done anything with that pitcher you are delusional. 3-4 pitch K. Pedroia needed to come through, he didn't.

Abreu can hit anybody's fastball. He's a good hitter. The killer was the walk to start te inning.

20-20 hindsight. Make that comment before the AB and after and it would be taken seriously. As for allowing Shaw to hit, not with that lefty on the mound. Given that motion and delivery, Shaw would have fared exacty the same as Pedey did. And Vazquez is the guy who actually hit the ball in that inning.

That isn't what concerned me. He had hit 2 to Shaw already tonight; he's thinking the other way.

Don't like the shift here.

And IMO they shouldn't even try. Next year and maybe even the year after that they should rotate guys through the dh spot. I don't say that lightly. The production will be hard enough to replace, but the legend will be impossible, and in this town, anyone who gets the gig full time will be unmercilessly scrutinized by fans and press alike on both aspects.

And if he isn't fully healthy, he should not be going out there. Trying to pitch when you are not healthy can lead to several things, and none of them are good. This isn't some 15 year vet on his last legs. He's too young to be messing with a potentially pretty good career.

And that was by a guy who is a borderline Hall of Fame candidate. I said the other day that any pitcher at the major league level has the ability to shut any team down. What separates the great ones from the mediocre ones is how often they can do it.

Not sure. I thought I heard O'B and/or Remy say something about 95 in one of the first couple innings but I could be wrong on that. They did say that right now he's only throwing the fastball and a straight change; he needs a 3rd pitch to at least show hitters.

This would be a perfect situation for Daniel Bard. He could drill a few O's and legitimately claim he had no idea where the ball was going. OTOH, the bat boys might be in danger so maybe it wouldn't be a good idea.

It does appear that is the case. I'll give him a slight break. I think when he hit against Britton on Tuesday it was his first AB since he came up to replace Holt a month ago. Not very many people who are going to look good not seeing the batters box in a month.

Surprised Shaw's ball didn't deflect off the 2nd baseman's glove to Jones in the air.

Part of the deal Showalter made with the devil in September 2011 (or maybe even before that). He spent his whole playing career in the Yankees organization (never made the majors) and his first big league managerial gig was with them as well. They didn't call the play Damn Yankees for nothing.

For those wondering, the first player was the Boomer, George Scott. Those numbers are from his 3rd year in 1968. Player number 2 was long-time Rangers catcher Jim Sundberg, who posted those numbers in his second year, 1975