oldtimer

As far as making judgments on hitting, Betts is off to even a worse start than Swi, so it seems premature to DFA as yet. Cora probably been facing a lot of pressure to bring Leon up for the same reason fans on this site have advocated for Leon. It remains to be seen what happens, but the die is cast now and Swi probably is gone for good. Leon is hitting half the avg that Swi had at Pawtucket so some great transition in our pitching staff will be needed to justify this move.

Have to pose that one to Cora. He makes move like these that leave the fans guessing.

This has been a really poor start for the team , which has already played 10% of their games. As you indicate, starting pitching has been a major sore spot, with a bright spot here and there. Perhaps getting them ready was flubbed. One hates to think they have regressed that much. The hitting has been especially weak also, with Betts, JBJ, Pedroia and Vazquez off very slow. Devers error problem is still with him and in some of our games the defense wasn't focussed. Lots of problems to overcome. An unkind thought is that the guys got caught up in reading their own press clippings instead of aggressively trying to win games. The next stretch could be brutal. Come on guys. Play hard and win some series.

Then again, Leon might NOT be the best Sox catcher. Whether collectively or driven by individual decision making, the Sox management made the decision based on what they had seen. Vaz did the job with the bat today. Some would like to blame Porcello's struggles on the catcher but I wonder if the staff just is struggling due to poor preparation.

Right now we have a number of players that are hitting poorly or at least well below their norms, including Vazquez. Betts, Devers and JBJ who are off poorly. The hope is that they all start to show improvement and soon with the Rays and Yankees coming up. Leon sits in the minors hitting 111. The idea of bring him up doesn't make a lot of sense to me at this point. There would be salary impacts and the loss of Vaz or Swihart. Too little benefit for a small perceived gain. Be patient with Vaz. Maybe he and the other underperformers will start to come through.

It seems like every year JBJ talks about all the work he has put in on swing mechanics and how that will make him a better hitter. He is a chronically slow starter who does seem to have a hot month late in the season. His fielding has always been stellar. Similarly, each year the talk is about how we need to get a better bat in center field. It is a shame that he can't seem to become a consistent hitter for us and as his expense grows we should ask ourselves if we can do better, but we have no minor league outfielders that could and I doubt we can go into the market and get a FA or into the trade market for a replacement. I tend to agree that patience in JBJ's case is the best approach. Accept inconsistent hitting and rejoice over the great defense.

Nice to get the HR but most of his balls are hit to left and left center. I didn't see all his at bats this game but he did ground to short. Please Beni, try an pull some balls, you have more pop if you do.

By the way, Leon is hitting .111 with a .269 OPS in Pawtucket in 18 at bats. Can't see that helping us much.

Not necessarily true. Swihart is the better offensive player and may have been up anyways. Leon cleared waivers and is in the minors where Swihart might have been in there had been options. I don't see where we are worse off. We don't have a Johnny Bench on our roster so we made do with the perceived best of the lot.

I thought your post was informative. I had only watched JBJ hit a few times and in those cases, when he made contact it was solid. I drew the wrong conclusion from that. In fact, despite his talk of changing things for the better with the bat, it hasn't shown in results as yet.

The Red Sox front office and coaches saw Leon as the third best option and put him on waivers. The fact is that no other club would take him for the money, despite some with needs, speaks to the view of his value by other teams. The Red Sox still have him in the system so an injury or sustained poor performance by one of our other catchers could land him back on the roster. I haven't heard anyone on the site pushing for his early return. Most people are willing to let the Sox decision play out and see what happens. I will check Leon from time to time to see how he is doing in the minors. I suspect he is not hitting all that well.

He is startig out as he played for much of last year, hitting the ball hard but getting little to show for it. I haven't analyzed his swing and miss rate or whether he is staying in the zone for his swings, but there is hope he will come out of it. In the case of others, Cora has indicated some are back to their approach of the past, taking pitches middle middle and getting themselves into a hole. One of the big improvement areas last year for guys like Bogaerts was to swing at the first good pitch at least a percentage of the time. Maybe that will wake some guys up. I also see Beni as hitting the ball to left and losing some of his power too often. If anything, Beni has added weight and strength and should be able to hit the ball out at stadiums with short right field porches. Bad habits die slowly.

Friendly Fenway will not be so friendly based on the weather forecast, which indicates 45 degrees and light rain. The Sox will want to play as they get their rings today, but conditions will be tough.

The first long west coast road trip is over and taking stock of it, we have a not inconsiderable 11 games in the books or 6.7% of the season. With 10 starts by our vaunted rotation, we have one good game and one decent game by them with 8 really bad starts. The BP was used a lot and gednerally did well. Our field players (outfielders) made uncharacteristically careless plays to lose us games while Devers and Nunez were back to their sloppy fielding in the infield. A few of our hitters look like they are settling in, like Beni, Bogaerts, Moreland, Swihart and JDM while Betts, Nunez, Bradley, Holt, Pearce and Vasquez need to do more. Bradley in particular talked about making changes in his swing mechanics but what little I have seen of him doesn't back up that claim. Having Pedroia may help the team, can't do less than Holt and Nunez, but Friendly Fenway will be cold and raw in early April, so no picnic. Heres hoping that we start to play more like champions and less like a disinterested team. We need to start winning series, and to do that our starting pitching needs to show up every day. Cora also has to get his act together as clearly Spring Training did not get the team ready to play.

Swihart caught the shutout. Cora is pretty cool leaving Betts out of a game wee really needed to win. I know that is his style, but I would love to see the team gel with our top lineup in together for a few games. Five hits tonight and we needed great pitching to win this one.

You seem to be advocating putting another .170 hitter into the lineup when we are having trouble scoring runs. Our starters have been very weak, but our BP has been pretty good with some exceptions. Maybe Leon being out only impacts the starters and not the BP. (Reductio ad absurdum)

Maybe I missed it, but I saw no comment of why Holt went on the IL (eye?) and what move has been made as a result. Will Pedroia be brought back ahead of schedule?

Another sorry start and poor defense and hitting. Ouch.

Is this your approach to deflect any criticism of the way Spring Training was handled?

I think you are closer to the truth of the situation. Starting pitchers werre babied, thinking the season is too much of a grind for them and guess what? They aren't ready. Maybe it will work in the long run but it isn't getting us off to a good start. Also the starting field players were played very little and not until the end was the lineup assembled. They do look unfocused and unready. Hopefully, the message will get home to them and we will at least see a better effort.

I was hoping last year that he could pull at least some balls, especially when on the road. Places like Yankee Stadium reward left handed pull hitters. He does have an inside out swing which means a lot of balls are in the air to left field.

Another tough game with E-Rod not pitching well. A little stirring in the hitting area, with Swihart getting a pinch hit. Lets hope some of the guys start to figure things out. Better starting pitching, better defense and more consistent hitting. Otherwise, all areas of play need improvement and probably will, but we are digging a hole now.

Typical E-Rod with high pitch count and only in the 4th inning. Only one walk, so he continues to nibble. I though he and Cora were discussing this and going to alter e-rods thinking. Nothing seems different. Bad habits die hard.

I just went back to read the in game thread and now will need electroshock treatment to get over a bad case of depression. The Sox came back to win one. Swihart hit well, the pen was good again, a few others finally got some important hits. I'll take it as a omen of things to come. God bless us every one!

Maybe the question that should be asked is, Was the Spring Training preparation adequate? There was very little opportunity for the Starters to work the bugs out and very little time for the starting field players to be in as a unit. Also, starting on a long road trip can't be helpful. It is what it is, so the guys have to suck it up and start to play winning ball. Don't want to see us in a big hole going into May.