S5Dewey

I agree, and if we didn't have poster(s) here continually bragging about how great the Yankees are and how the Sox are out of the race in August it probably wouldn't be happening. Sox fans are usually a pretty understanding bunch but we do have our limits!

Then neither does all your garbage about his being a poor teammate.

Correction: "The Astros don't scare me if we can get that short RF porch going for us. We need some kind of a built-in advantage to beat those guys!"

Does 2013 runner-up ROY count?

You.. ah.. know that Devers was 16 at the time of the trade, right? Do you have any other 16 year olds you'd like to project as being as good as Devers is now?

Him too, but that only applies on days when Leon is catching and as of now he's only catching every 5th day or so. Would you want JDM only DH-ing every 5th day?

But Notin's point was that having an excellent DH allows a team to carry a weaker offensive player who's a wizard in the field.

You mean like.... JBJ? No, because he's not "No hit". He's just streaky.

I'm in both camps - if that's possible. I don't think it's impossible that the Sox could end up with a WC berth. Unlikely, but not impossible. So I'm just sitting back, munching popcorn and enjoying the games much like I did in 2015.

Ok, I was going to give him a pass on this, but since you brought it up... I was never in favor of trading either of them. Bogaerts @ 3b & Iggy @ SS. And I still haven't changed my mind that it was the best strategy. (And please don't be playing Nostradamus and say that he would have blocked Devers. Please.)

I still can't believe that actually happened. If Brady's performance didn't silence those people who think there's no such thing as clutch....I simply don't know what to say.

This^^. Although I'm disappointed in where this team is I haven't actually given up. I'm just realistic enough to know that it probably (that's probably, not definitely) ain't gonna happen.

I agree with Jung's rants. IMO there is a lot of truth in what he posts, but what he's posting about doesn't bother me as much as it bothers him. I have a different pet peeve that I promise not to rail on about after today. Well, maybe a little if this post gains any traction. Which it won't, and that's ok. My pet peeve is that not a minute goes by when there's not some sort of commercial or promo. It used to be that commercials only happened between innings but now they're everywhere, even during play. "Today's lineup is brought to you by...." "Now let's look at the defense, brought to you by...." 'The first hit of the game is brought to you by...." "According to the ..... pitch zone that ball was on the corner" "Let's look at who's hot and who's not, brought to you by..." This list goes on and on and on and on and on and on, and it doesn't begin to mention the promos. "Tomorrow night Whatshis name and Whatsherface will be in Taunton to sample the food at ____ on NESN at 7:00". "See The Mad Fisherman tomorrow at 5:00 on NESN". "Cruising America on Sunday Morning at 10:00 on NESN". And so on.... And these don't mention the little promo boxes ("bugs") at the top or bottom of the screen several times an inning touting something else on NESN. I'm tired of them. I just want to watch baseball and not be inundated with commercials and promos. One of these days I'd watch a game with a clipboard in hand to record how many commercials, promos, and 'bugs' there are during one game but I'm afraid I'd die of frustration if I actually KNEW how many of them there are. I'm old. I remember when we used to watch baseball and the commentary we heard between pitches was all about baseball - the players, the teams, and insight about what's happening on the field, AND WE LIKED IT!!! There's my rant on this topic. Grrrr.

bam!

Yes. TANKING is exactly the word I was looking for. Unfortunately Tanking is one of the long term strategies toward making a team successful for short periods of time in the future. Tanking seems to be despicable when other teams do it but some folks think it's OK for the Sox to do it.

Fixed that for ya!

Ah yes, the ubiquitous "might" again. :-( A top three of Bellhorn, Notin and S5Dewey might pitch better than the top three of the Red Sox too, and there's no way to prove that until we take the mound. "Might" means essentially nothing.

Baseball is a funny game. Sometimes you lose games you think you have a lock on going in, and sometimes you win games that you thought you had no chance of winning before the game started. Nothing would surprise me now. While it looks bleak at the same time this may light a rag under the rest of the team and they'll suddenly become invincible. Strange things sometimes happen in baseball.

I agree. I've always doubted that a couple of dozen innings pitched in ST would have that big an impact on how a pitcher is performing in June. Or even May.

Let's take a breath here. This isn't the end of the world, even if Sale's injury is the "worst case scenario". To put the best spin on it, it may be a blessing in disguise. If we lose Sale for 2020 he's still going to come back for 2021-2025. I now see a rebuild for 2020 & 2021, keeping Beni, Devers, Bogaerts & Vaz with everyone else being replaceable. It does solve our salary problems to some degree and it allows The Cliff Dwellers to say 'I told you so'. 2020 won't be much fun, especially with the non-trolls around reminding us how bad the team is but we can very well be ramping up again in 2021 and able to make a semi-serious run again in 2022 and being very good again in 2023-2025.

C'mon guys. This can't come as a complete surprise to anyone. Anyone who'd seen him pitch knew that his motion practically screamed "ELBOW INJURY!" Many of us were holding our collective breaths during the 2018 season, especially when he went down with (alleged) shoulder issues. Here's what went wrong in The Master Plan IMO: The Master Plan was for Sale to remain healthy through the "window period" of 2018-2020 and we'd worry about him in 2021 when the time came to reset some. Then this season started circling the drain when three of our starting pitchers didn't get out of the gate until the rest of the horses where at the quarter-pole, and things went downhill from there. However, even then there was still the 2020 season ahead with the only serious pitching issue being Porcillo. After all, Sale was healthy (we thought) and Price was pitching better. The pen is what it is and most of those guys are replaceable with players of like salaries if we chose to. Now that circling whirlpool has about emptied the sink with Sale's injury (and if there is anyone here who isn't thinking "TJ Surgery" please raise their hand). My guess is that there is some serious brainstorming in the FO right now as JH, DD, LaRussa & Co. decide what to do now and when to do it.

To answer your question (the following day!) and possibly splitting hairs because I don't have cable, I have DirecTV and I have to upgrade my package from "Basic" in order to get NESN. The package that I have is called "Choice". It has 175 channels ("57 channels and nothin' on") and is the least expensive one I can get that contains NESN. It's about $120/month before any discounts for things like bundling, etc.

thanks for reminding us.

The wall giveth and the wall taketh away.

Only 7 pitches for ERod in the first. That's a good start, especially for him.