S5Dewey

Leon double-pumped and still threw him out. More or less. :-) Edit: Never mind. I just realized that I'm behind. Caught up now.

That's a perfect throw by Leon. Knee high in front of the bag. All Rutledge had to do was catch it and hold it there.

If you had a garage full of Mercedes and Lexus' would you trade one Bentley for three Chevrolet Cruzs?

I have the same issue with calling Devers up that I had with Beni - if they have to send him down then 2017 is an option year. I'm not sure that we're not at "dire" stage yet though. IMO we've passed "dire" and rapidly approaching "panic". Providing his defense is as advertised, I'm about a week from having Devers called up in spite of the option year issue. If he's any worse offensively than who's playing 3B for us now.... would it matter?

Nobody anybody would be willing to give up.

They will. Be patient. The Yankees are playing .700 ball and the O's are at .677. Both of those are unsustainable. And if either of them continues at that pace we just have to tip our hats and say "Wow!". .600 ball translates to 97 wins. The Sox need to get themselves to that area and let everything else play itself out. Back in my youth I was a part of a team in another sport that had the most talent in the league. When we got behind early in the game I'd start doing a little hand-wringing and the senior member of the team would always calmly say, "Don't worry 'S5'. The cream will always rise to the top". He was right.

I've often wondered how much time they spend "working on things" once the season starts. Look, I'm not suggesting that we shed any tears for MLB players but at the same time their "job" is demanding both physically and time-wise. They're expected to show up at the field 4 hours before game time and don't leave until an hour after the game is over. During that time they have to get dressed (leisurely, I'm sure!) have their BP, share the field with the visiting team, and have the field vacated in time for the grounds crew to get the field ready for play. These guys are professionals and they've played hundreds of games and spent thousands of hours practicing by the time they get to this level. IMO they know what to do in just about any situation. It's the function of the coaches to remind them of those things. IMO the Field Manager's primary purpose isn't to handle in-game situations as much as it is to run the clubhouse. He has 25 players with 25 egos in the clubhouse at any given time, and s*** happens. Being field manager is secondary to trying to the clubhouse issues. I agree completely with cp in that for the Field Manager it's all about establishing expectations, demanding those expectations be met, and motivating. Tito was an excellent on-field manager and handled the bullpen well, but it was losing the clubhouse that led to his departure.

My guess is that Farrell will go back to business as usual. It was a very easy decision to pull Kimbrel after the Sox accumulated that 11 run lead but it would take some real courage to have Kelly pitch the 9th with a one run lead.

Ok. You and I are convinced. Now let's talk to John.

Ya. Mookie hit a HR yesterday that would have been a single @ Fenway.

As Leo Durocher said, "Don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. It might rain tomorrow." To paraphrase that, 'Don 't save your closer for the 9th. You may be behind in the 9th.'

I usually have a very long leash on players but I did my share of complaining about Kimbrel last year and I'll admit it. His decent numbers belied the fact that he was on a tightrope all the time - a disaster waiting to happen because he couldn't find the strike zone. He lived off his past last year because he had the reputation of being someone who throws a lot of strikes so hitters were flailing away at too many pitches out of the zone. That's also not to say that I wasn't hopeful that things would turn around every time he took the mound though. Now... OTOH... I'm not complaining because unlike last year he's throwing strikes and not going to a 3-ball count on most hitters. I'm reserving the right to complain about any player who's not performing as expected and to be happy with him when he turns it around.

Right now Travis Shaw has made 4 errors in 28 games, or one error every 7 games. Do we have an 3B who can say that? And he's carrying an OPS of ~.850.

I agree. I'm always fascinated by the number of people who undervalue defense. The Red Sox outfield is arguably the best defensive outfield in baseball and that will save runs. Apparently there are some who would concentrate on the fact that JBJ's strong throws are sometimes off target and use that as fodder for a "trade him' argument while ignoring that he gets to balls that most other CF's don't get to. The fact is that he'll get to more balls than he'll make errant throws on. He's a defensive plus. Of course a team couldn't survive with a batting order comprised exclusively of GG playes who had a collective BA of .225 but when a team has one outstanding defensive player in an 'up the middle' position, especially one who has a history of going on hot streaks good enough to carry a team, that's not a player a team should be looking to get rid of.

The issue isn't how good the CF's are on other teams. The issue is how good OUR OF is going to be. Yes, we can move Beni over into CF and put ?? there but then we've weakened two positions defensively, probably in the hope that whomever we pick up to fill LF will put up the equivalent of JBJ's .800+ OPS only won't be streaky when he does it. Does that make any sense?

I dunno. Ugh. IMO we're putting too much blame on our players for this and not enough blame on the umpires. That ball became an Infield Fly the moment the ball was at the peak of it's flight and Hardy called everyone off. The only people on the field who didn't acknowledge that were the umpires. These guys have played a lot of baseball and they know an infield fly when they see one. There are some things a player just takes for granted and he doesn't have to look to the umpire for verification - If a ball gets to the base on a force play before the runner does, the runner is out. He gets to go to first base after four balls and he doesn't have to look to the umpire to be sure that's true. My best guess is that these players don't even hear the umpire unless they feel there's some question about what the call will be. I know I didn't when I was playing. That ball was obviously an Infield Fly and they behaved accordingly. Holy Hell... I'll even stick up for JBJ. When's the last time you saw a player hit what they knew was an infield fly and then go to first base and stand there, just in case the umpire botched the call? I'm not forgiving these players for some of the other gaffes, but I do think those mistakes have made fans more critical of their baserunning skills than necessary.

Yep. IMHO the umpires failed to enforce a rule that was established specifically to keep what happened from happening.

Yeah, but I'll tell ya what... Hernandez has committed 5 errors in 9 games @ 3B with an OPS of .628. That's a pretty low bar that Devers has to clear to be better than Hernandez.

If they'd have been playing in the same place JBJ would have caught that ball!

That's exactly what I thought at the first mention of bringing Devers up early.

Where was Beni? In comparison to where JBJ would have been playing, I mean.

We certainly give Workman a look. He was respectable before the TJ surgery and is worth holding onto until he proves he can't do the job. Also, IIRC Kendrick has an opt-out in June so we also need to make him feel welcome during May.

In addition to that, he also gets to balls that other CF's don't get to. Benintendi had a ball drop near the triangle a few days ago in a spot where JBJ caught one just a few days prior. Sure, the case can be made that we don't know where the fielders were positioned, but still... that means that Beni may have been positioned CLOSER to where the ball hit than JBJ was. We don't know. I don't know how many runs saved plays like that amount to over a season but it's probably enough to more than make up for JBJ's offensive streakiness.

If it was at 3B, bring him up YESTERDAY.

I'm usually looking for someone who can play adequate defense and hit for power at the corner positions. An outstanding defensive player is a ++. Right now we don't have anyone who can fill either of those criteria so given that I'll take a guy who can bring the leather until we can find a raker. A glove guy not be able to create runs, but at least he's not giving runs away.