oldtimer

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.

Not a good start by the team. Sale and the BP did the job but 7 hits without a run. This team needs to get it going.

We are going to run out of people to blame and its only April 2nd. Its the starting pitchers, no Hembree sucks, no its the hitters (some are fat), no its Devers who will break the seasons errors for a ML 3rd baseman. It must be Cora, lets blame him.

Looks like Devers error rate could be high again. May increase the pressure to move him to 1st for 2020

Hard to believe they could be that bad. Not all of them. Just crazy bad numbers for a season start, and yet our BP was pretty good. So its something to do with the preparation with our starters. If Price sucks, we will at least show consistency.

Strange how what sounded like out pitching strength, the starters, have had a rough go and the BP came through at least last night. Baseball is confusing and unpredictable in the short term but in the long term things will be okay.

Perhaps it's short for fantasy!

I watch "The Damn Yankees" every year just prior to the season. Kind of like a kickoff to the season. Young people may not know that one (Whatever Lola Wants).

I also like this lineup. Devers, JBJ and Nunez have been talked up as the most likely to improve over last year. Now we will see how well the lineup functions and of course we need to be patient with them. Pearce and Pedroia will add to the lineup when they return from the first road trip.

Hope the regulars start hitting and the pitchers get back in the groove. The season is uponn us.

So with Pearce and Pedroia starting the season on the DL, we will go with 12 field players with Travis, Holt and Nunez filling in and 13 pitchers. Not getting either Pearce or Pedroia back during the first 10 days of the season.