Nick

Question regarding Rule 5 players. What if Whitlock is injured? Can he even go on IL? IF yes, can he get a couple of rehab appearances in minors?

The pen should be well rested. I think I only saw 2 IP by Whitlock, very few 1.1 IP, mostly 1 IP or less. M.Barnes.. 29 xx xx 26 xx xx xx 22 xx 20 Ottavino... 29 28 xx 26 xx xx xx 22 xx xx Josh Taylor 29 xx xx 26 xx xx xx 22 21 xx Darwinzon. 29 xx xx xx xx xx xx 22 21 xx Sawmura... 29 xx xx xx 25 xx 23 xx xx 20 Andriese.... xx xx xx 26 xx xx 23 xx xx xx Valdez....... xx xx xx xx xx xx 23 22 xx 20 Whitlock.... xx xx xx xx 25 xx xx xx 21 xx Workman pitched a clean inning yesterday in Worcester. 14 pitches, 3 K's, 0 BB, 0 H. Chavis went 0-7, 6 K's. He will not get better at AAA. He is, what he is. .751 OPS hitter that strikes out a lot. It doesn't help that Cora has no confidence in him.

you beat me to it.....Go Tigers...get the bloom out.

I'm good with it......to play in this weather....just about money.....sucks for fans and players.....play on a nicer day.

Changing topic...we live in time where from outer space we can pinpoint a spot on earth. We need to use technology to provide consistency in calling balls and strikes. We use videos when the call is challenged. Calling balls and strikes requires keener eye than the challenges. Between two teams, you see over 200 pitches. There's no f***ing way a human being can be right making balls and strike decisions. Impossible. I'm sure someone has tracked the right call rate. I'd like to know what that is. Ottavino was lucky today. A ball outside the strike zone was called strike to bail him out from walking a batter. Not the last game but the game previously, Ottavino ran into some tough calls by the ump. Calls went against him. (based on TV replays aided by the strike zone box) The strike zone is not consistent from pitch to pitch. We really need to address this in a near future.

Per MassLive Pitching prospect Josh Winckowski — who the Boston Red Sox acquired in the Andrew Benintendi three-team trade — threw 7 scoreless innings for Double-A Portland on Saturday. He earned the victory over Hartford, giving up just one hit and no walks while striking out nine. Portland won 4-3. The 22-year-old righty is 2-0 with a 1.33 ERA and 0.89 WHIP in five starts. He has held the opposition to a .152 batting average in 27 innings. He has 26 strikeouts and nine walks. I will take Renfroe, Kike and Verdugo trio over Beni......wait till we find out who else we're getting in the deal

Renfroe is growing on me...helps the has gun in outfield, when he makes contact, he hits hard

Only 8 players in AL with OPS above .900. Sox has 3, Angels 2 (not Trout). Pretty impressive....

Definitely team full of guys with command issue...

Sawamura has good stuff....theoretically we can have a decent pen 1 Barnes 2 Ottavino 3 Sawamura 4 Darwinzon 5 Taylor 6 Whitlock throw in Brasier and long shot Workman...add Houck to the group...beginning to take shape

Yankees down 6-1 to Tigers in 8th.

I don't see any need to be looking outside the organization for anything at this point. I fully agree with that statement.

I think you and Bellhorn04 are pretty smart. So we can only 'worry' about one thing at a time? Mark my words. Our top hitters will come down. Bottom of the lineup will eventually have to be accountable. Lets talk about pitching shall we? Our starters have been healthy. We're little concerned that they can't seem to go deep into the games. Right now it's 5 innings and handoff. But they've exceeded my expectations. Our issue right now is lack of depth mainly due to injuries. 1.Brasier appears to be on the mend. 2 Not sure if he can come back to 2018 level, but Workman is back with the Sox 3 Houck has started throwing....he can give us bullpen depth or as a starter if someone gets hurt 4 Seabold I hear is week or two behind Houck, potentially another depth piece for rotation We have 9 non starters in the pen. I bet the management is looking for improvement from those 9. 1 Ottavino can be a stud. I thought last night was perfect example. After getting two quick outs, he walks next 3 batters. I get it, it was f***ing crazy to have to pitch in those conditions. He was visibly frustrated. He finally was able to get a good grip on the ball and I think he threw 3 straight strikes to end the game. My point is he is frustrated, sometimes I think he thinks umpires are missing his pitches. When his strike zone command returns, he will be a shut down reliever in the 8th. 2 Darwinzon...another stud with strike zone command issues. If you give him a clean inning and allow him to walk one batter, he can get couple of strike outs to get out of the inning. I don't trust him with runners on base. But if you need a strike out, he's probably the guy. He can be a shut down reliever in the 7th. 3 Sawamura...I thought the management was pleasantly surprised with his 'stuff', better than expected fastball. Maybe he's still adjusting to bigger baseball. I thought he'd be our shut down 6th inning guy. 4 Whitlock....I posted an article on him where its noted that he's working on a slider. He needs it to be spot starter. I always forget that pitchers are constantly working their craft on off days to improve. Although I'd like to see him pitch more, Sox are doing the right thing with him. 5. Taylor...it's been night and day in May for him. Another guy I thought that struggled with command of his pitches. He's pitched well lately. 6. One guy is the designated third shift clean up guy. Colten Brewer has that job right now. Our pitching staff can get better internally. Getting everyone healthy would help the depth. Eventually, return of Chris Sale will elevate the pitching staff. Who starts for us in the wildcard game? We'll probably have to outscore the opponent. Sooooooo, can we talk about replacing low OPS guys to score more runs?

American League OPS median is Ray's .718. Sox lead the way with .767. JD leads DH with .976. Only two others are above .900 Xander leads shortstops with .973. What's amazing is 2nd place Bichette has ops of .801, pretty big drop from the leader. Devers leads 3B with .939, next 4 are all in the .800's. Verdugo is 10th with .824: taking into account that 3 outfielders on the field at the same time, you can say that he's in top 3 for one of outfield positions. It will be interesting to watch if they can keep this up, I think we'll see a slight drop off as competition gets better. Arroyo at 2B ranks 13th, .673 with those with 70 bats or more (Arroyo has 73 AB). Interesting that Chavis has an ops of .758 albeit, a small sample size, 33 at bats. Dalbec is ranked 15th at 1B .640. He's headed for platooning unless he heats up vs right handers. Vaz is ranked 9th, .651 for those with 70 at bats or more. He can do better. Kike and Refroe are 31st and 35th (70 at bats minimum) in the outfield, .728 and .689....I'd say they're both just outside of top 10, combining the outfield positions. (only 3 players on the list are worse than Cordero by the way). Kike's .728 ops would rank him 6th among 2B in AL. Wouldn't it be a no brainer to play Kike at 2B and find another outfielder? I need a name. Also maybe, maybe, we should have worked in Chavis in left field. His .758 works in left field and at 1B (yep, I'm a big Dalbec fan) We're trying to lengthen our line up, no? Lack of production from bottom will become more noticeable once the top cools off. We lead the league in runs scored so why worry, right?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/05/27/sports/how-red-sox-reliever-garrett-whitlock-is-making-necessary-adjustments-hitters/ Very good article on Whitlock...working on his slider... For Whitlock, while his changeup-sinker-four-seamer mix is impressive, in order for him to take that next leap they know he will need another pitch. Despite working at different speeds, his changeup and sinker have the same arm-side run. As a result, big league hitters can sit on a location but still adjust to velocity. So, Whitlock has been working on a slider, just to give hitters a different look on a pitch that, ideally, runs in an opposite direction. In addition to direction, Whitlock is trying to adjust the speed of his slider. This is type of information I wish more writers would write about....

Grossman of Tigers with 2 out, 2 run walk off homer in bottom of tenth to defeat the Yankees 3-2. Yankees go 0-10 with RISP, scoring only 2 runs on 11 hits.. G Cole only goes 6 innings due to throwing 103 pitches. Good day for the Sox. Sox game called, 5-2 win.

Just checking out radar.....it's solid rain until 4:30 am (there's no break in weather), rain getting stronger around 1:30 am....I say 4:30am only because the radar only projects out 6 hours. Do they want ME to make the decision? They don't have to pay me either. PS. checking out the hourly projection, 100% rain until 8 am, then drops to 97%, steadily drops to 40% by 4 pm. Game 2.

"Game Delayed Due to Weather" ...I don't think so..."Game Delayed Due to Dangerous Field Conditions" People, I'm muti tasking...lots of non-coherent s*** coming out of my typewriter.

If the capacity was limited to 12 1/2%, they could have moved it to Miami.......

Looks like they won't stop the game until someone turns his knees due to field conditions. Players union has nothing to say in this? I'd be pissed if Devers gets hurt.

Trashing seems harsh.....I think he would be very good utility player. I don't see him as a core group guy. He's holding spot for Duran in CF and maybe Downs at 2B. I also think Marwin gets a big time pass from Cora. He's hitting .199. Not very impressive. He's another valuable utility player. I'm also willing to admit when I'm wrong. I usually use reverse psychology hoping they make me eat my words. I was not a fan, AT ALL, of Matt Barnes before 2021. He's now my hero.

Based on Cora, I was expecting the better version of past Kike....

Can the game be called due to unplayable conditions?

let me rephrase, I don't think he's a leadoff hitter but I've been told lineup really doesn't matter......I grew up thinking you put your best hitter, 3rd but apparently that's not the strongest spot in batting order....

Ok. let's call the game....field's too freaking wet....