oldtimer

We could wind up facing Oakland.

We won't do anything this year, but I hope there is a change coming for 2019.

It looks like Moreland and Bogey can use a rest. Our catching situation is what it is. Rest may help, but I am skeptical.

Those are the relievers I prefer as well, although Workman needs to avoid another meltdown where he refuses to throw strike. At least he has a sinker that can force groundouts.

Maybe he'll get the booby prize for the lowest batting average in the league! The guy needs a rest.

It showed last night and has to be deflating to the Guardians. They had most of their first string on the field and we had mostly backup players on and yet we still beat them. I didn't expect what happened, but there it is.

8 games to go and if we split those we would be at 109 wins. Hard to believe. One more win or 1 loss by Houston and we clinch home field advantage in the PO's. Looks like that will also happen.

Hard to miss. When we got a save opportunity, we went back to Kimbrel and I am glad Cora did. This win has to put some doubt in the Guardians fans minds.

Great for him. He can play. On a night with 12 hits and everybody except JDM having hits (he walked twice), LTime to think of something like a rest period while Vaz catches. I still question whether both Vaz and Leon will make the PO roster.

I agree. Doesn't seem to learn quickly. Maybe he can field at 1st but that is no slam dunk either.

I don't like the idea of putting Wright in to a game with opponents in scoring position. Passed balls are at a high risk. Better to bring him in to a clean inning where they can a passed ball. Coming in at the 5th or 6th inning, he could bridge to or through the 7th. With Barnes, Brasier and Kimbrel available, we should be able to handle two inn ings late.

Pretty easy to see, although Barnes needs to show he is okay. The question I have is whether Workman gets the final spot. Certainly Kelly has had problems and Hembree is at the extreme back of the line and should be gone next season.

Hembree the Horrible. Seems to fit. Problem is, it will stick Sale with a loss he didn't deserve.

Now we are through with the Yankee series and it ended well. Some of the PO roster directions which came out of the series include the following. In the field: Devers has looked better at the plate and with Nunez borderline gimpy, he appears to be a lock for the roster. Pearce, Swihart and Holt also are playing well now and also should make the roster. Our catchers continue to be an offensive liability. The question will be Lin or one of the catchers and it will probably be both catchers. Pitching: With the absolutely awful outing by E-Rod and a good one by Eovaldi, a preference for the 4th starter became obvious. I don't have the credentials to analyze why E-Rod gets so out of sycn under , but that he does is obvious. Too bad, because he might be our future 3rd starter. Wright has proven his utility on the PO roster and one would assume that E-Rod will also make it so we have 4 starters, and two long relievers, leaving room for 5 relievers. Clearly Kimbrel and Brazier make it and Cora still has time to bring Barnes on board. I expect Poyner to make it so that leaves a spot for one of Kelly, Workman or Hembree. All have continually tried to move to the back of the line so Cora has a tough decision.

Hate to say it but it was so predictable. E-Rod has great raw talent but something is missing. Could he be so dumb to continually nibble himself into trouble? 4 of the runs were due to his walks. Hembree has been and continues to be unable to get any job done. Good job Cora. If I could see it coming, he could as well. Kind of makes you sick to see the Sox throwing a winnable game away. The Yankees aren't that good.

Looking at the MLBB projections, they have the following: A total of 11 HR's thru the end of the regular season. 2 each for Mookie and JDM 1 each for Bogie, Beni, Kinsler, Pearse, Moreland, Devers amd Bradley It would have been nice for us to exploit the short right field at Yankee stadium, but we have faced tough pitching so far so no dice. The Yankees look more like the NY Giants at the plate. They go from large to huge. Tough for a lefty to pitch to them, especially when trying to hit the outside corner on a righty.

Sometimes our perceptions are different than reality. Clearly the catchers have had a miserable 2nd half. Beni has hit the ball but not with as much authority and Moreland has been slumping. Be good to see the guys heat up at the right time. Be interesting to see what our homer rate has been as a team over the 2nd half versus the first. Seems like it has dropped. Beni for instance is 2 for 16 in the 2nd half and others also have marked differences.

And that's a key point. Paying big bucks on a long term contract basis assumes things will go along in future years as they have in the past. In fact, as players age, there is at least a gradual drop off and with pitchers it can be more pronounced and sudden. We will be losing dead salary next year and also the following year when at least Pablo and Porcello's salarys expire. Of course we will have to replace players at the market rate or develop some younger players to balance the salary structure. I am confident that DD will do a good job of finding suitable players if we can't sign guys who become overpriced.

Kelly again proved to not be able to get people out. All the bad outings rule against guys trying to make the PO roster. Kimbrel will be very hard for us to sign next year. Giving a closer a long term contract at big buck would bite us in the end.

The tone was set with men on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out with Bogaerts up. He has popped the ball up the last two games in critical situations. I have no advice, just an observation. The weakness we have with 3rd base defense is another thing that can and did bite us. Not much we can do about it as both our guys are error prone. Price was not as sharp tonnight, but Yankee stadium is not a place for him to pitch. He lives on the outside corner and all the homeruns he gave up were either outside or to the outside part of the plate and at the top of the zone. None of those were out at Fenway. More of a concern were the walks. If he doesn't walk people, Nunez error was nothing. Another demonstration that Kelly cannot be trusted as a setup man.

Teams like the Yankees have been able to add players like Britton, Happ, McCutchen and Stanton to name a few because they have both the prospects and salary cap space available, while we didn't and don't. DD has done well to add those we did like Kinsler,Eovaldi and Phillips. They had a big advantage this year, yet we are still way ahead of them. We wont draft well, nor will we have much cap space so it has to be our cadre of young players to lead us forward. I believe we will lose Porcello, Kimbrel and Sale by the 2020 season. Pitchers do wear down anyway, but lets hope we are smarter with our contracts in future. No more Pablo, Pedey and Price types going forward.

Workman lost ground because he came into a 1 run game and would not throw strikes. I think he could of but fell in love with his hard sinker, which he couldn't get over. It's a situation you wish you could talk to him and say what your doing will lose the game for us. Smarten up. Brasier gets a pass, although he too put himself into a hitters count and had to come in.

It was on Workman tonight. Giving up 2 walks is not what a reliever needs to do in a 1 run game. Brasier came in a put himself in a tough position by going 3 and 2. When he had to come in the batter had the advantage.

I was most disappointed with Kelly. He started out well and still has maintained his velocity but has lost command far too often for an experienced pitcher. Just because he still has velocity, I wouldn't give up on him totally, but since he is a FA next year he probably will not land with the Sox anyway and he is probably not a PO pitcher. The most we will see is a few appearances before the seasons end.

I didn't realize we get to keep Sale for another year. Thanks for the clarification. Porcello has been such an inning eater for us that he still has a lot of value. One could argue the salary limits us but to get another starter of equivalent value to us would run to big bucks also. You and I apparenttly agree that we can't afford a Kinsler while Pedey is on the roster. You also are thinking of a utility player as backup. It is a high risk position, but one the FO put us into by resigning Pedey to an extended contract. You remain high on Holt as do I and he has come back strongly from the concussion syndrome that bothered him. I believe they will place Devers at third along with Nunez for one more year until Moreland's contract runs out. If that is the case, Moreland could use a right handed backup. It might be Swihart or if in spring training either Chavis, Dalbec or Ockimey show a lot, they have a chance to fill that slot. Swihart, however, gives us flexibility in the outfield and catcher, so his utility and experience might rule in his favor. I believe Kimbrel will get an offer we won't be able to match or want to match. You leave out a little hope for Kimbrel but he would have to grant us a discount. Don't think it will happen, so its out on the market. Finally, I would think this is the year to act on our catching. You put Leon and Vaz up but that leaves us with an extemely weak offensive position. Hard to supplement with pinch hitters for them all of the time. I predict some action in that area for 2019.