Nick

I didn't care about Moncada but I sure hated to lose Kopech. No regrets with Sale coming over.

good summary on Matt Barnes, 2021 version https://blogs.fangraphs.com/matt-barnes-one-simple-trick/ Quick Discussion on throwing 1st pitch strike and swinging at 1st pitch strike. "When batters connect, they do more damage, as evidenced by the wOBAcon column (league average hovers around .370 in most years). That offsets the whiffs and fouls, such that the overall run value is slightly in the hitter’s favor. In other words, if you throw a pitch in the strike zone and the batter swings, you’re losing out on the deal. That’s only half the equation, though. When batters don’t swing, well, it’s a celebration. The loss in expected production after a first-pitch strike is massive. It works out to roughly four runs per 100 plate appearances, 10 times better for the pitcher than a first pitch swing is bad. Unless batters are swinging over 90% of the time at strikes, the zone is the place to live on first pitches. Unsurprisingly, batters aren’t swinging over 90% of the time. They’re swinging at 0-0 pitches in the zone 44% of the time so far this year, the highest mark since pitch tracking started in 2008. That development is a step in the right direction on the offensive side, because letting a first pitch strike fly by is disastrous, but hitters would need to swing a lot more before flooding the zone stopped making sense." In essence the article is saying that unless hitters swing at almost every first pitch strike, advantage goes to pitcher throwing the first pitch strike. Good read.

Basically, Cordero, Franchy, Dalbec and to some extent Kike has underperformed. Someone must be the first to go. To me Dalbec gets some leniency because he was projected to be our #9 hitter. You can wait on one player but not 3/4 players. Bottom line is other than Dalbec, other three do not have any history with Sox organization. May 12th is early to give up on anyone for sure, but not when at least 3 are faltering at the same time. Maybe Renfore is coming out it. Again, Cordero is first out to me. And Franchy as options.

Tuesday was the first game ever played at Polar Park in Worcester, and if it was any indication there are going to be balls hit out of that park on a regular basis. The two sides combined for six home runs, with two of them coming off the bat of Duran. The outfield prospect who is perhaps the prospect with the most fan anticipation right now has had some issues putting balls in play early on this year, already with 11 strikeouts in seven games. But it doesn’t matter when he’s hitting the all like this, and he’s at a .962 OPS on the year. It doesn’t sound like they’re in any major rush to bring him up, but he’s showing that he can make an impact at the plate whenever they’re ready. I rather watch this guy with plus, plus speed than Cordero.

I think above captures the essence of our weakness. Good energy, good bench guy, Kike, does not make a player. And we made him a leadoff hitter all on HOPE. Cora fell in love with Marwin for his ability to play multiple positions. Again, someone has already pointed out to me that the Renfore is a career .230 hitter. Cordero, just unfortunate that we put such a burden on him. I'm a big Dalbec fan but his slow start is highlighted even more because of lack of production from #7-#1 hitters. I thought we could simply hide him in the #9 spot. Problem is 1B is an offensive position. You can't have a gold glove, .180 hitter on first. (yeah I know he's probably not a gold glove guy) Last night in the game thread, someone basically told me to f*** off when I pointed out our lack of production out of 4 hitting spots. He said how can you complain when we lead the lead in many offensive categories? Well, all of us are relatively intelligent. We're fans and we want the team to succeed. Even on May 12th, we see that team needs to some tweaking. Unfortunately we have two players hurt. Quick fix is to make Kike full time outfielder. He's better than Cordero. So that's an improvement. Insert Arroyo/Chavis at 2B. Find a platoon partner for Dalbec. We don't need 4 guys that can play 7 positions. We need a guy that can play one position well. I'm with MVP on this. Again, I'm happy with Bloom. But not to make adjustments when it's needed is unacceptable.

Geez, ease up buddy. I'm worry that it's not sustainable..... WTF, Go sell tough eleswhere? Did someone run over your cat today?

other than strike out

we got a shot....need Marwin to do something

Well, Eovaldi did his job.....6 innings, 1 run.

Or Vaz...

No chance to score this inning unless Devers hits one out.

Perez was pulled after five with 74 pitches. Eovaldi at 85. You bet your sweet ass Eovaldi will return for inning 6.

Despite my complaints, Eovaldi is pitching a one hitter.

Pitch count....Eovaldi 70, Bassitt 43....that's with getting out of 4th with a double play for Eovaldi..... Look for pitchers that can throw strikes...If I'm the owner, I insist on it.

Maybe we're being too pessimistic. We lead the majors in runs per game with basically 5 hitters....Verdugo, JD, Xander, Devers and Valdez.

It's tough when you only have five hitters in the lineup.

The goal is 5 innings for our starters.......I'd think it's Whitlock's turn to go today.

Basically we have chance to score in innings 1, 3, 6 and 9th.

I like to see more DHern and Sawamura. You have to fix whatever is troubling Ottavino. What's he doing differently from 2019? Something is up. If the starters are only going 5 innings, we may need a third long reliever.

I do refuse to believe Whitlock is #9 in the pecking order.

This is why Sox should constantly evaluate and come up with fixes. And I'm sure they're doing just that. Our lineup can be tweaked. With nine men bullpen, I'd like to see the pecking order become clearer. Or is it always about analytics?

If I'm the owner, the question is when will he back surgery vs rest? Obviously you don't want to perform surgery on healthy body... That said, what I'm afraid is we wait and situation isn't improved and have the surgery in October. Then his 2022 season is shot and probable return of summer of 2023. If he has surgery today, he'll be back summer of 2022. I guess as long as he's not accumulating major league time, his absence won't really matter, unlike Sale where he's under major league contract and he's getting paid.

Yeah they are doing great. I was just getting greedy and ahead of myself. I think great starting pitching trumps offense. Especially in playoff series. I'm a big fan of Eovaldi and I fully supported Sox extending him what with Porcello's contract expiring in a year later. But for a guy that throws hard, he really doesn't induce swing and miss with his fast ball, which tells me there's not much movement. He gets hit hard. It seems it's a coin flip with him, not sure what you're going to get out of him when he takes the mound. As good as E Rod has been I have concerns about signing him to long term, big dollars deal when his 'throw' numbers are down. I get it that he's very consistent and have been good for us. Can he beat Cole? This is where I'm with Moon. You sign a #1 guy and drop everyone else down one spot. Will we have a better option than E Rod come this November?

Ultimately, there are opportunities for younger/less experienced players to 'take over' a position here and there. At some point we'll have to have discussion about how good is our starting rotation in comparison to top 10 teams. Do we have anyone better than say G. Cole of Yankees? We'll have time to sort it out.

To get to 90 wins which should be good enough for wild card this year, Sox need to be 18 games above .500. We're already at 9. Obviously you can go backwards just as easily. Winning the series will take care of won lost record. Just not sure how realistic it is for for #2-#5 hitters to keep up the pace they're on. Vaz can help and hopefully Hernandez will help from the one spot. Someone mentioned that Renfroe's lifetime average is around .230 so I'm not sure how much more we can expect from him. I know he's had good May thus far. Cordero will be replaced, it maybe that Hernandez moves to center and Arroyo takes over the second base job. At that point all you need is a left fielder. We can stay bit longer with Dalbec but if he doesn't improve, platooning maybe necessary. If we get to the playoffs and Sale returns in good shape, then we got something. Our bullpen is still little shaky.