Nick

Are we better off having Campbell bat 2nd and moving everyone else down? It would break up LL combo. Pros and Cons? Please don't tell me it will hurt Devers explanation.

It's actually the same thing. We are playing to get into the playoffs. You should always know your goal and where you are.....obviously playing over .500 increases the chances of getting into the playoffs. BUT THAT'S ALSO NOT THE CASE ALL THE TIME. I always look at the Wild Card Standings.

We are tied for last playoff spot with 2 other teams. Need to get some separation beginning tonight.

In my mind we had to fix 4 things going into 2025. To me we have done it. Q1, fix defense and replace power bat while playing 3B. Bregman. Q2. finally find a 2B going forward. Campbell. Q3. Bring in another reliever that can close. Chapman. Q4. Bring in a true ace so that we push down everyone else. I call this the Moon Rule. Get a starter at #1. Crochet. Catching, we knew Wong had to improve defensively but we thought he'd hit better than an average catcher. 1st Base, I am a big fan, noting we have 4 more years of team control. When he is not hitting, he is slow and looks unathletic. LF, I did not think Duran would match last year's production. But I still think he should be one of elite lead off hitters. CF, if Duran and Casas hit, Sox can carry him offensively because of his stellar defense. Not so much if they are struggling.

AL OPS Rankings by Positions (Qualified except for Catchers, used 37 AB, gave me 14 catchers) 3B .929 (1st out of 8), 5 over .700 (Bregman) We are still 1st if we go by position. 2B .900 (1st out of 12), 3 over .700 (Campbell) We are 8th if we go by position. RF .959 (2 out of 8), 8 over .700 (Abreu) We are 2nd if we go by position. SS .767 (5 out of 11), 6 over .700 (Story) We are 6th if we go by position. DH .684 (5 out of 9), 3 over .700 (Devers) We are 7th if we go by position. LF .638 (9 out of 11), 7 Over .700 (Duran) We are 10th if we go by position. CF .520 (5 out of 6), 2 over .700 (Rafaela) We are 12th if we go by position. 1B .509 (12 out of 14), 8 over .700 (Casas) We are 10th if we go by position. Our back up helps. CC .500 (11 out of 14), 5 over .700 (Narvaez) We are 14th if we go by position. 19 teams in 2024 had .700+ OPS. I don't have the stats in front of me from last year but I believe Bregman, as of now, is off to much faster start. I also just enjoy not having to watch Devers play 3B. I understand that Campbell is multi talented, BUT, why not just leave a .900 OPS guy that may win the Rookie of the Year especially if he masters at 2B. We bitched for what a decade about the lack of stability at that position? Why mess it up? Also take a note that we are ranked 8th, if we go by position. Just make it 1st by keeping Campbell there. Where in the hell are our analytic guys? STUPID. If we need an outfielder, bring up Anthony. I'm from basketball country and we used to say that only person that can stop Jordan in college was his head coach. Only people that can stop Anthony is Bres and Cora.

Casas 2023 10-75 thr 4/30 18-70 May Casas 2025 11-61 thr 4/15 He's actually ahead of his 2023 pace. May 2023 was just okay .257 .767 OPS

It will be ugly tonight.

Kutter. What went wrong? I just dont understand it. When and how did he get hurt?

I think as a group, our pitching has improved. It's just frustrating to see so many guys hurt.

Does that give us 4 lefties?

Thanks for starting this thread. It needs a separate thread.

Houck simply can not use regular season games as his spring training to fix whatever is wrong with him. It's unbelievable that we face starting pitching shortage, again. It's really unreal.

Has anyone ever seen him stretch? Not to mention he takes 100 little steps going from 1st to 3rd.

"Boston entered Monday sixth in the majors in runs with 77 but 40.2% of those runs came in two games against the Cardinals. Boston has scored 47 runs in its other 16 games (including Monday), an average of just 2.9 runs per game." This to me captures Red Sox historically. We'll outscore the opponent 21-9 in a 3 game series but lose 2 out of 3, winning 16-1 and losing 3-5 and 2-3. But hey we 'averaged' 7 runs per game. It's a mirage folks. I am very thankful we have not extended Houck and Casas.

There's not much we can do right now with our catching situation. We can continue to look under rocks. Anthony will give us a lift. He can fill in at all 3 outfield positions. What I'm saying is he can play full time. We can sit Duran, Rafael or Abreu, one game out of time. Anthony is more valuable than Refsnyder. I'd be damned if someone is advocating for Refsnyder over Anthony.

I agree to a point. I do think managers need to react little sooner. If I'm 1-20, I'm not going to get mad that I got moved down in order. As an athlete I should be upset with my performance and not helping the team win. I think that's what I'm mostly arguing about.

I think its ok to shift the lineup. Cora did the right thing by moving down Casas. He can come back up as soon as his hitting heats up. I just think Anthony belongs on the varsity team.

I think we need to live with Dever's contract. We are only asking him to do one thing he does well and not worry about something he struggles baseball wise. I don't see why he couldn't have the success that David Ortiz had DH'ing for the Sox. Ortiz started playing for the Sox at age 27. He played 14 years, only one year he played less than 100 games (90). Devers will be much younger when his contract runs out.

I just hope Fitts is not out for extended period.

It's time to bring up Anthony. There's at most 170 days left this season. He can not accrue 172 days he needs to earn a year's service time. We can control him for 6 years and 170 days. I just don't see anyway he's NOT better offensively than Rafael.

Great trade and the extension by Breslow on Crochet. We'll be alright as long as our starting pitching holds up.

This is why you think about trading THAT guy with what looks like a career best year. Especially when you have #2 prospect coming up. It's taking me 60 years but good starting pitchers win big games. Probably unfortunate that we didn't trade Casas. Isn't Roman Anthony 6-3 or something? How hard can it be for him to play 1B and all 3 OF positions?

Great game. It only took our ace to pitch 1 hitter, use up our #2 reliever and pitch our closer for 4th time in 5 days. This against 125 game losing team. Great job boys. This team is bailed out only by the Green Monster. This is not a good road team.

We need this and our pitching staff should line up well for this. Crochet starting, hopefully he'll go 7 Whitlock, has two days rest, ready to go, threw 31 pitches on Thursday so he may only be good for one inning Weissert hasn't pitched since Tuesday Wilson only threw 4 pitches yesterday. I think Chapman go back to back days, but this will be his 4th outing in 5 days, maybe not. It would be ideal to have Whitlock for the 9th inning to close.

Finally, Cora flips Abreu and Casas in batting order. He's not always smart as many think.