S5Dewey

It only works if you forgot and left the windows (or your dome) open.

Moon was questioning his decision to stay yesterday. Fortunately from what he said today he pretty much dodged that bullet. Apparently the water stopped rising just inches from his front door, and even his cat came home. :-) I find it interesting how we're a bunch of internet posters from all over the country but we've also bonded enough to care about one another. Pretty neat, if you ask me! (but nobody did! LOL)

Not to minimize the Sox effort, but we also got some help from a bad defensive team too. But.. as I've always told the kids I was coaching and the people I was playing with, "If you don't score you won't win. I guarantee it."

I agree. It's too bad we can't use those guys every night. But using them was the right thing. "Don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. It might rain tomorrow". Otherwise known as, "If you've got a win within your grasp then go get it. You may not need those guys tomorrow, and even if you wish you had them you'll have those two wins behind you."

Ya. It was Ortiz. And I wasn't even talking about the '3 infielders on one side of the diamond' shifts like Papi faced. I was talking more about sliding the SS or 2B over in back of the bag, and how many hits that takes away. BTW, good to have you back posting. Aren't you somewhere near all that water?

Here's a thought.... Has it occurred to anyone that with these mini-shifts it's harder to get hits now than it used to be? There was a time in my demented childhood that infielders seldom played more than a step or two in one direction or another, but now it's not uncommon at all to see a SS or a 2B playing almost in back of the bag. And often a ball that's hit up the middle that was a hit 30 years ago is now an out.

It looks like Kimbrel is going to come in with a 3 run lead again. Let's hope we don't have the drama tonight that we had last night!

Well. the players and the announcers - the guys who've played the game all their lives. I believe in clutch and I'm not going to be intimidated into not talking about it just because some studies have said it's "not a repeatable skill". Very few things in baseball are a repeatable skill. Swinging a bat is a repeatable skill. Hitting a baseball with it isn't. Throwing a baseball is a repeatable skill. Throwing it for strikes isn't.

I agree. He squares up on the ball well. I like our OF going forward.

LOL Thanks. I had 'run it back' to look at an earlier play and forgot to catch up again. Your post reminded me!

No prob, Max. It's all good.

?? I didn't say that at all. What I'm saying is that the only way it works without the "cooperation" of the defense is if the defense allows the runner to go to 2B to keep the runner on 3B from going home. Furthermore, in that situation there were two outs and if they'd gotten Beni trying to steal the run wouldn't have counted. And yes, the catcher could have botched a throw to 2B, which was my point. In order for the run to score it requires a bad play by the defense.

Good point. Angel Hernandez is incompetent at any position.

The thing about that double steal is that it should never work to score a run. The only way a run is scored is if the defense botches the play. Which they did, thank you.

Intentionally or not, didn't we learn in the WS that it doesn't have to be intentional to be obstruction?

It's not like September 1 is a long way into the future. It's four days away!

If this trend continues it's going to be a long four years for us Sox fans.

One word. CLUTCH.

I'm pleased to see you posting this morning, my friend. I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that we're all hoping for the best for you. Please keep us updated as you can, just so we know you and yours are ok. I'm sure we're all going to be even more concerned if you miss a day or two.

I'm not trying to be argumentative.. honest... but we 'old timers' can remember when it wasn't unusual for a pitcher to throw a complete game. Then we started having a designated "Closer". Now we're having someone designated to pitch the 8th, and even down into the 7th. Can the 6th be far behind, especially if a team has built a bullpen with that kind of depth. Picture our starters going 5 innings, then a closing staff of Kelly for the 6th, Smith for the 7th, Thornburg for the 8th, and Kimbrel for the 9th. That would leave guys like Ross, Hembree, Abad, and Workman to fill in as needed for a partial inning or for long relief, with long relief defined as 'up until the 6th inning', or if a game got out of hand early. Is that was DD was trying to accomplish?

I've been wondering about this trend too, one of starters pitching fewer and fewer innings with designated pitchers for the 7th, 8, and 9th. If this continues we could have starters going 5 innings to get the Win followed by four other pitchers each with a designated inning, and three other guys in the pen in case one of them fails that day. The game is changin'. No doubt about it.

I agree. Showalter is the kind of a dick that would have his players stealing home with a 20 run lead, just because he wants to embarrass the other team. There's NFW he's going to overlook that opportunity if he had known about it.

We're a long way from the playoffs in terms of winning and losing streaks so I don't believe that what's happening during the last week in August is going to have an impact on how well the team is playing in October. Does how they were playing during the 3rd week in July have any bearing on what's happened the past two days? However, I do think that how well they're playing - or rather, how many wins they're accumulating - during the last week in September could have a bearing on what happens in the playoffs. A team that's breezing along with a good winning streak is often getting ~7+ innings from their starters and they're able to rest their bullpen whereas a team that's in the midst of a losing streak is usually overworking their BP. Losses due to an overworked BP is a self perpetuating thing in that the more they're overworked the less effective they are, and so ad infinitum. There's also the issue of a team having a "winning attitude" vs. having a "losing attitude" which I also believe in. I'm hesitant to open that can of worms again but I believe that's also a factor, albeit one that probably can't be statistically proven.

And isn't this what happened in 2016? A blazing hot streak followed by a freezing cold one in the short appearance in the playoffs? Much of winning the WS is a matter of timing. Who's hot when. That's why we say that the important thing is to get there. After that anything can happen.

As most of you may have gathered by now, I've spent most of my adult life in close contact with high school sports, and in doing that I've come to this conclusion. Once a person drops his butt into that seat he knows there are two things he can do better than the person who's currently doing it. He can coach better and he can officiate better. So I take all of this with a grain of salt.