oldtimer

Marerro is being brought up so its clear where JF thinks he wants to go. holt will now be the utility outfielder.

Lin hit 280 for the Sox when up.

Yes, they need to get Brentz on the 40 man and your suggestion is a good one. Early on they can also use Lin and Travis who could actually get some burn right now, especially until Pedey comes back. Carson Smith if he is ready (don't think he is quite there yet) and Maddox might also help. Furher additions like a catcher to give Leon a little rest might help only when we have secured our spot. I doubt if that will occur early in September. If we caan hold Cleveland off and get home field advantage it is worth playing our top guys right until the end of season.

fister will deseredly get a lot of praise for last nights great start but i also wanted to give a shout out for our quiet man, Jackie Bradley Junior. JBJ is a quiet guy but I see him as having immense pride in his work which has allowed him to develop into one of the best all-time outfielders the Sox have ever had. He is paid $3.6 million this year and is with the team until 2021 and is eligible for Arbitration for the rest of his contract. He is still only reaching the peak of his career and through his efforts he continues to improve himself. He is a sneaky good athlete who makes tough plays look easy and makes nearly impossible plays fairly often. Like last night, he was giving his all when he injured his thumb. I hope it won't be too bad as we will need him back in the fold. I have been around for most of the great Red Sox center fielders (except for Tris Speaker) and have never seen anyone better defensively. The great ones, Fred Lynn, Dom Dimaggio, Jimmy Piersall, Coco Crisp, Jacoby Ellsbury and of course Tris Speaker were never better defensively. Hard to compare offensively, since they played in different eras but overall, JBJ ranks up there among the top 5 all time. I hope we can keep him in a Sox uniform for his entire career.

This is a guy who throws around 85 mph. He befuddled a good hitting club tonight. Good for him and good for us. The BP had a much needed night off.

Beni lined to Bruce in right. good sign as he pulled a ball and hit it hard.

The hE HAS BEEN HITTING THE BALL HARD, JUST IN BACK LUCK. nOW HE HAS 5 RBI TONIGHT. The Sox can save Kimbrel tonight.

Hurt his hand. swe will know tomorrow. For now he is out for precautionary exAM

Baseball is like horse racing. Longshots do come in.

The Sept 1st call up is still 10 days away and in those ten days we are playing American league teams, so it makes sense to make a player move now to try to plug our weakness with a utility infielder. I heard Pedey is doing well, but I don't expect him back in those ten days. Its a tough stretch with games daily so cutting back to 12 pitches could put some pressure on unless we are willing to shuttle some back and forth. In looking at what teams typically do on Sept 1st, we can add any person from the 40 man roster but typically teams don't add too many (3 to 5) until the AAA minor league season closes. An exception last year was the Cubbies who added 8 players on Sept 1st and then 2 more later on. I think Brentz, Lin and Travis would make sense for us along with a couple of BP arms.

Perfect chance to bring up an infielder but instead back to 13 pitchers

The question about Swihart is whether his 250 batting average and 550 OPS at Pawtucket in 209 plate appearances is good enough to bring him up. We don't need a catcher and both Travis and lin could fill a needed position better. I really hope that Blake gets back to what he was doing but so far his minor league play hasn't impressed.

One has to wonder with really giant guys in the BP, whether they have trouble with coordination. Certainly some of our guys can't find the plate and then are forced to throw fastballs down the center.

JF seems to love Holt and he sticks with the team. we don't have the option to send him down without losing him for nothing I suppose, but we do have Lin available, who is flexible and probably a better fielder than Holt and can certainly play a better short. When he was with Boston he had a 280 avg and a 738 ops. Not great but maybe better.

What Farrell said about last night is that he went to Barnes, knowing that he has been having trouble, especially away from Fenway, to save others for future games. Its a judgement call and it is hard to criticize him not knowing what the long term alternative would be. I personally like to try to win the games when leading late and let future games be handled as they come due. Each approach has itss merits and demerits. JF will be judged based on the body of work. Its hard to know what a replacement for him would be like. Certainly not perfect.

I watch the hitting pretty closely during each game and though we only got 5 hits last night there weren't wholesale problems. Nunez has cooled off a little but he is one of our few hitters who will offer at a first pitch over the plate. His plate discipline has gotten worse as he is swinging at high fast balls out of the zone. That said, last night he hit the ball hard to the third baseman and went to right pretty hard. Just bad luck he didn't get on. Betts does tend to take first pitch strike most of the times and does tend to have more swing and miss or swing and foul off than in the past, but last night his pllate discipline was very good and he walked three times and scored 3 I think. he did a good job. Beni hits best when he goes to center or pulls the ball. When he hits to left, he often pops the ball up. He did a good job last night as well. Hanley is a low average hitter these days but he can lose a mistake and is dangerous because of it. His two run homer gave us the lead. Devers has shown the ability to shrug off a poor at bat and come back and put up a good swing. Last night he didn't but the kid can hit. Bogie is still mired in a slump. He did work a couple of walks so that was an improvement, but he takes the first strike down the middle time after time and gets in the hole. He tends to have serious issues seeing sliders down low and away. His swing mechanics are not very good either. I hope he can recover some of his mojo this year but no signs to date. They show him having discussions with the hitting coach after most AB's. Holt was in because Moreland couldn't go. Holt is an experienced hitter but really is below average for most major leaguers in contact and power. We probably have versatile players in the minors who could do as well or better. Vaz is hitting well for a catcher and is fairly hot right now. He makes contact and hits the ball hard. He doesn't have much speed but if he wasn't catching he would be a good pinch hitter. JF is hesitant to use him when Leon catches in case Leon gets injured. JBJ seems too have trouble recognizing some pitches but has certainly done enough and has hit the ball well enough to even be moved down a couple of slots. Bogie could occupy th e 9th slot. We don't have alternatives on the current roster to allow him to sit. All in all, our weak spots are Holt and Bogie. Hope Pedey will come back soon and perhaps we can bring up another versatile infielder.

We had a shot to win the game, even though we only had 5 hits but we did take some walks. From the 8th on, we made some fundamental errors which finally cost us the game. Barnes just didn't have control and he got pulled. I don't count that as an error, just lack of execution. Beni's throw from the outfield when Lindor scored was definiitely an error, which allowed both runners to move up to 2nd and 3rd. It took some excellent pitching to avoid another run from coming in that inning. The next error was when Vaz hit the ball off the fence and sort of jogged to 1st and didn't turn it on until he got to first. Maybe he thought it was going out? By then, no chance to get to second which he had a good chance of doing if he had run hard right away. The third error was Holt, who fielded the bunt and double clutched, finally making a tough throw to Devers allowing the winning run. Two were lack of fundamentals and the other just a poor play. Tough one to lose as had wwe been able to get to Kimbrel we had a good chance of winning.

Virtually no one agreed with me either when I pointed out that they sent old with one out in the ninth and Bradley up. JF risked two outs (which happened) instead of giving Bradley a chance to advance him or drive him in. We were down one. My opinion that was not good baseball and Isand by it.

Lots of accolades already for Devers but it is good to remember Judge was getting the same and more earlier in the year and has fallen back to earth. In my opinion, Devers will continue to do well, but there will be bumps along the way for him.

Kimmi, maybe it comes down to how you define a better hitter. If a hypothetical 0 for 30 stretch occurs and your hitter puts a lot of balls in play but is unlucky, then there is room for hope and reason to continue to play. On the other hand if the 0 for 30 occurs with lots of strikeouts and weakly hit pop-ups and ground balls, is this guy really your better hitter? Everyone goes through slumps and tries to make adjustments while in real time opposiing teams attempt to continue the slump. Some players have historys of beinng hot for part of a season and cold after that. How long can the team allow a hitter to be totally non-productive and what measures can be used to bring him out of it? jf has tried the rest and movement in order approach. The schedule grind ihas to wear on these guys so rest seems to make sense. One presumes that the batting coach spends time with and communicates to the player about weakness in plate approach and suggest corrective measures to be worked on in the cage. On the other hand, our backup players have that status for a reason and they are not likely to contribute in a major way when brought in. Its a complex issue to deal with but doing nothing and letting things play out doesn't seem to be a reasonable approach.

If I was JH, I would remind the FO experts to get into the pitcher development business seriously and try to avoid as many of these huge, long term contracts as we can. That the Price contract is turning out very badly seems indisputable. That the Sale contract has been excellent is also indisputable. So we win some and lose some, but a loss at this level can impact the team for years to come. We have to be in the market but please be smart.

The bottom of the order came through today. We can't expect Nunez, Beni and Devers to stay hot all the time so it was nice to see others chipping in. Bradley especially had a good day.

he did get 2 today.

So holt will start today. Don't like the idea but they must be giving Nunez a break.

I was against giving an aging pitchers a 7 year mega contract but also didn't expect a decline so early in the contract. The injury is a part of pitching, especially for those with accumulated innings and could have been anticipated and used as a reason not to sign for more than a 3 year period. If we couldn't get him then so be it.