royf19

Dombroski scares me when it comes to him being a bit too willing to trade prospects. I'm usually on the conservative side. Having said that, I like the move. The Sox need two starters (one if E-Rod is OK). Pomeranz is just 27. He doesn't have a lot of innings on his arm. He ERA, albeit in relief) the last two years were good. Hopefully, it's a case where you have a former top draft pick who finally figured it out. I understand not wanting to trade Espinoza, but he's still just Class A and it's a crapshoot when it comes to pitchers. There are a ton of pitchers in baseball who have had Espinoza's potential in A-ball and ended up flaming out. So I think it's worth the gamble.

Oh, and I can't believe I forgot -- Johnny Pesky. Had a nice conversation with him back in 1993 for about a half hour.

Mike Greenwell. Had a conversation with him. Didn't like him as a player, but after meeting, I liked the guy. Frank Viola. Dave Roberts. Mo Vaughn.

He did get 80 games and played regularly last year. That's a pretty good chunk of games to prove himself. If he was 23, I'd say be patient, but he's 28-29. Sorry, that was his shot.

It's tough but ... Ortiz Wright Bogaerts Bradley Betts I reserve the right to change my mind.

Who anywhere on this thread has ever tried to tell you what you can or can't discuss. You're inferring things out of nowhere.

The Sox have been very good overall at running the bases, taking the extra base when possible. They've been aggressive. But with aggressive baserunning comes the occasional poor decision. But I'll take that as a whole than not being aggressive and going station to station.

The complaint about Farrell playing against righties was valid? No, that's your opinion. Players can't languish on the bench forever and be expected to produce. The Sox were in a stretch where they weren't seeing any lefties, so it wasn't a bad idea to get Young in. Maybe that's why he when he started seeing lefties he was able to hit well against them. Plus, it was April. You can't just simply look at numbers from a year ago make decisions this year on those numbers. Things change year to year. In some years, Young did hit righties. And look now -- while his average is just .224 against righties, he is productive. Maybe it's because Farrell made sure he didn't sit too long. "...head-scratchers he clearly isn't committing now ..." is an arrogant statement. Just because a fan doesn't agree with a move or non-move doesn't mean the fan is right and Farrell is wrong. For instance, Farrell took a lot of criticism for using Sandoval. Now I didn't agree with pinch-hitting for Shaw because Shaw had been good against lefties. But I also understood that Farrrell had try to see -- especially in April -- if he could get anything out of Sandoval. If you have a guy on the bench, you have to find a role for the player, otherwise, why play him. I've never objected to anyone being critical of a manager's decision. But I do feel it's tremendously arrogant of fans to always assume that what they would have done would have worked.

Agree with your thoughts on this thread. I love the Young example. All the Farrell bashers were tripping over themselves in ripping Farrell when Young played against a righty. But now look at his overall stats. And even though a .224 BA against righties isn't great, all four of his homers are against lefties, six of his 11 hits against righties are for extra bases and an .807 OPS against righties is very respectable. Critics loved to point out how he hit just. .182 against RHP in 2015. But while a manager should be aware of those numbers, he needs to be flexible too. In 2014, Young hit .243 against RHP and just .143 against LHP. Things do change from year to year. As for pitching or being a good in-game manager. The Sox first manager I remember is Eddie Kasko. So let's go down the list (off the top of my head): Kasko, Johnson, Zimmer, Houk, McNamara, Morgan, Hobson, Kennedy, Williams, Little, Francona, Valentine, Farrell -- of them, who were good in-game managers according to fans?

Yaz looked pretty good on TV recently. He could play LF in his sleep.

I thought Swihart looked good in LF. Made a nice play grabbing the ball off the wall with his bare hand and firing it into second to hold the batter to a single. Made a nice running catch close to the foul line and stands. He looked comfortable out there. With his upside as a hitter, I have no problem with him platooning with Young while giving him the occasional game behind the plate catching and letting Holt be a UT guy again.

Well, she just didn't have her game anymore. The ironing was sloppy, she kept burning supper and she was just going through the motions when cleaning the house.

What we have tonight is John Farrell playing Walter Mathau and Jackie Bradley playing Kelly Leak with Farrell/Mathau telling Bradley/Leak to catch everything in left that he can get to.

With the way the Sox have been hitting, they can afford to wait it out until Swihart is ready, someone else is ready (Bennidetti -- sp?) is ready, Holt gets hot again or the trade line approaches and Dombrowski makes a deal. And for the criticism Young took earlier in the year, Young is batting .255 and .375 against lefties.

I half disagree with you. I think Shaw is a great bet to reach 80 RBIs. He's no pace for nearly 120 RBIS. You want to say that he's not going to reach 100 -- fine. by he needs just 51 RBIs the final 4 1/2 months. That's just 11-12 RBIs a month. He's third on the team in RBIs and I could see him finishing the season in the top three.

Steve Garvey. Five times with 100 or more RBIs, four-time Gold Glove winner, 1 MVP award and for a seven-year stretch, he was the best first baseman in the game. In the end, he probably doesn't have the career numbers, but he was my favorite NL player back in the '70s.

Definitely great choices.

More amazing stats. Going into today's game, as a team: -- Batting .287 with .500 slugging and .861 OPS with 2 outs, RISP. -- Batting .382 with .513 slugging and .895 OPS with RISP. -- Batting .314 with .567 slugging and .948 OPS with runners on base. -- Batting .364 with .618 slugging and 1.044 OPS in the first inning with 42 runs scored. (Second place for most runs scored in an inning is third inning with 31). -- Batting .294 with .829 OPS and 60 runs scored with 0 outs; .303 with .859 OPS and 83 runs scored with one out; and .292 with .845 OPS and 76 runs scored with two outs.

What a difference a year makes. Last year, the Sox averaged 2.5 runs per game in May. This year, they are averaging 7.4 runs per game in May after today's game. Before today's game, the Sox were batting .370 with a 1.072 OPS over the last seven games and were batting .325 with a .941 OPS in May.

Thanks.

Luis Tiant. His stats are similar and in some cases better than Catfish Hunter and Don Drysdale. I've always felt that if Hunter is in the Hall of Fame, how can you keep Tiant out.

I agree. But the Sox needed someone to start two games. It's better to stick in a journeyman like him and hope for the best, rather than call up a minor leaguer who's not ready and stick him out there and perhaps set his development back. And what O'Sullivan did today makes my point about the first start. In his first start, while he's not very good he did get through six innings and allowed just four runs and set up the pen to bring to just pitch the seventh, eighth and ninth. He gave the Sox a chance to win w/o destroying the bullpen. That's doing his job. Today, he didn't do his job. He gave up five runs and couldn't get through the fifth inning and the bullpen had to scramble. See the difference.

I'll take the results and avoid stressing until he starts consistently blowing saves.

I agree. Some fans expect the bullpen to never give up runs, so when a receiver does, all of a sudden the bullpen sucks or the reliever sucks. It hasn't been perfect and there have been some letdowns, but that's going to happen. I think the pen has been good overall.

I don't care how many hits he gave up. I don't care if every out was a guy hitting a triple into the triangle and getting thrown out at home. For a guy who not going to be here long, I don't care about stats or one-game ERA -- pretty lame. I care about results. I want him to not kill the bullpen and give the team a chance to win. And like I said, the only ones who are complaining about that game are misguided fans. No one in the clubhouse and front office were complaining.