oldtimer

Having watched another pretty good pitching performance go down the drain I am not in the best of moods. Our third base situation is not acceptable. Hernandez is a decent young hitter but looks lost playing third. Two errors tonight, both on relatively easy plays. Then there was Hembre and his inexplicable throw in the direction of Pedroia and 10 feet from Bogaerts covering 2nd for the double play. Our throwing from the outfield has been poor with Beni making a poor throw to home where he might have gotten an out. Seems like our outfield needs to make accurate throws instead of winging it. JBJ has done the same thing several times this year. He has the arm strength but some reason just unloads the ball wildly. Then of course there was the rally killing bonehead running into second which was occupied by Beni. Is he paying attention? Beni didn't want to risk running into an out done 3 as we were. Baltimore looks far more polished on defense. Our hitting also left a little to be pessimistic about as well. Not getting enough hits with runners in scoring position although Baltimores defense took away several that might have been hits had they been made against our defense. So what do we do? Most of the guys are doing their jobs but we need to find an answer for 3rd base, instill in the outfield that the throw needs to made accurately and I don't know what to suggest against bonehead base running plays. Its not just limited to Hanley although he may be the worst in that regard. Smart pills? Does the manager need to get on these guys to play good ball? I really don't know what to suggest. Meanwhile, our bright future looks a little dimmer with each error filled monstrosity like tonight.

Maybe we should have put wright in to run for him.

I agree. Don't know why he held as he was at least a third of the way to the plate before he turned around.

His hitting flaws are obvious but I know he really wants to improve. The time to improve was in the off season to correct his approach that results in infrequent contact. His past performances show that he can be a very important hitter for the team. So what is going on between Chili Davis and JBJ. Davis is a professional hitting coach and must see the flaws and try to help. I can only conclude JBJ does not listen and learn.

I understand the Sox have decided to go with Vazquez as the primary catcher, moving Leon to a backup role. That move makes sense for now and agrees with one of the movess I had suggested. Now bringing back Ortiz as a clubhouse presence (not to play) in some form might give motivation to some players. Don't know how to get JBJ going as he still has hitting flaws that he hasn't addressed. The elements are on the team, we just need help at third and maybe from center to get more runs going.

Since this thread is labeled hitting, I will confine myself to that topic. I have been disappointed by the season to date and had hoped for more with the guys we have. I find it difficult to play the pollyanna for this team as I don't see a clear way forward to be competitive. True, we have Beni actually performing perhaps better than expected with in excess of a 320 average and on pace for between 15 and 20 HRs. Betts will hit and still has the ultra quick bat. Pedey is still a pro and I expect he will hit but perhaps with reduced power as he ages, Moreland is hitting better than i expected. Good signing by DD. Bogearts will hit but I don't expect a lot of power. The problem I have is with the rest of the starters. Rameriz tends to be erratic and I postulate he missing Ortiz presence to keep his spirit up. Hope he can produce in the DH role and give us 150 games. JBJsaid he worked on his hitting this off season. What I see so far is he is not seeing the ball and cutting at ptches outisde the strike zone. He still has that long, looping swing designed to hit homers but he has to make contact to do that. His problem is he doesn't put the bat on the ball. Sandoval is a free swinger with some power when he makes contact. Again, he doesn't make enough contact to help the team. Hernandez does have plate discipline and would have a decent average but we wouldn't get the long ball a third baseman should provide. Leon appears to be back to his normal hitting which is not major league quality. Vazquez has been better but you wonder if he could keep it up. What i see so far is a team that is a middle of the pack American League team in the runs scored area. We need to get JBJ going although I don't hold a lot of hope for him since he has not made improvements year to year. We need to decide on 3rd base. Preferably we need a 3rd baseman that can hit with power. We currently don't have one. our DH needs to produce regularly. Maybe bring Ortiz back in some capacity would help Rameriz. Our catchers need to hit their weight going forward. Even with those areas improved, we still do not have a lot of power bats. Right now I see at best a team that is average in the RBI race in the American league. I don't think that is good enough to land us in the playoffs.

We had one inning last night and then couldn't produce another run, eve though we had a ton of base runners. In at least one incident, we had the bases loaded and nobody out with our top hitters up. Had we scored in another inning I would have felt more positive. I agree with those who feel we need another power hitter since the ones we were counting on don't seem to be having a good season.

They come out when we aren't hitting any longballs.

Lots of talk about how we are going to be okay because we have so many good hitters. I hope it is true, but I have observed enough games so far to have draw some conclusions. 1. JBJ said he had done a lot of work in the off season and expected to hit much better. To date it looks like he isn't seeing the ball well and still has that long looping swing that limits his value at the plate. Good thing for him he is an exceptional center fielder. I hope he gets hot again this year but right now he is showing little at the plate and if we are counting on him for serious production, we may be overly optimistic. 2. To date Vasquez is a better hitter than Leon and should be the principle catcher since both are a toss up defensively. When you compare a 180 BA with a 400+ BA and the general appearance in the box I would limit Leon to right hand pitchers who he has hit in the past and hope for the best. Unless he shows more, Leon won't help us as he did last year. 3. Hanley has been and is likely to continue to be erratic at the plate. Without Ortiz to keep him straight he could well have a fall off in homers and RBI's 4. Comparing Pablo to Marco as far as hitting is concerned, Pablo is a free swinger with more power but likely to have a significantly lower BA and on base % than Marco, who is a more disciplined hitter. Marco is also at least Pablo's equal in the field so when Pable gets healthy again, how short a least do we have. Like others, I think Betts, Bogaerts, Beni, Pedey and Moreland are solid hitters but unless Betts can recreate his power of last year we have no big home run threats. JBJ, Leon,Hanley and Pablo were a hope in that area but don't appear to me to be a relaible source.

I voted for coaching which is also along the line of team chemistry. There doesn't seem to be that hate to lose feeling about the team. They just parade up to bat and down they go. Someone needs to create that atmosphere. Of the players, Pedroia is the only one who fits that bill but nothing is happening there as yet. Mookie might but he tends to be the nice guy type. Farrell also shares some of the blame or credit for the atmosphere in the clubhouse. Francona had a knack for keeping the chemistry positive and the old cowboy up types are gone.

I wonder if this is an indication of how we will hold up against good pitching. So far it seems to be and good pitching is what we will face if we are so fortunate to get into the playoffs. Where are the firery players who get angry with losing and show it?

Or Farrell could wind up with his 3rd last place finish. No runs means no wins.

Okay. I hate to watch another Red Sox starter pitch well only to have essentially no support. Sale finally got tired and had to leave in the 9th while the Sox offense garnered only 3 hits. As the old Chinese philosopher observed 'Sum Ting not right". Hard to watch a team, which should be much better underperform as they have. Are they just going through the motions? Where is the fire?

Pedroia is a veteran who has given a great deal of good years to this team. He still will be a good 2nd baseman this year. Lets not throw him under the bus because of his reaction to the error made by his own team mate.

We can run into superior pitching in any one game, the problem is we have scored very few runs in a whole string of games leaving our good pitching performances without much support. The weather will warm up for both teams on the field. Sounds like weather is just an excuse. We aren't going to make many significant lineup changes so what we need is to light a fire under this team and get it playing aggressive ball. There is a lot of talent on this team and it should be doing more now. Who are the team leaders to do that? What is Farrell doing to get this team going?

I'm no stat guy, but there is a stat WGDP which really compares the runs above or below the average that a player has accumulated by his ability to avoid hitting into double plays when he has the opportunity to do so. Have a speedy player who doesn't hit a lot of ground balls when in a double play situation would get a better number. It can be used as a minor adjustment to WAR.

I don't know why you feel a 4 game suspension isn't enough? The league has spoken and I am okay with their decision. Now if he was a repeat offender, perhaps a longer suspension would be justified.

Too bad we didn't trade him when his value was higher.

And yet Mooreland is doing a fine job at 1st, so the pickup was a good one and needed. Playing Pablo at first would be an experiment and he still woulld need to be platooned leaving us needing to fill 1st base. Hanley doesn't really want to move away from DH so he would have been a reluctant platoon candidate.

Moon suggested platooning Pablo as a way to improve the offense. I don't think standing pat with the same offense until sometime in June makes sense. Someone else said it. The definintion of lunacy is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

We play game 19 today. That sounds like 1/10th of the season plus. When will the sample size be large enough for a decision or for some action? I am not ranting that something must be done immediately but this team just doesn't seem to have the fire to generate runs. I look at our field players and see a lot of quality. Defensively, we have a terrific outfield with an excellent defensive sub in Young. Moreland is certainly a good 1st BM, and Pedroia may have lost some range but is still mid quality defensively in the league. Bogaerts is in the same boat. Good but not great defensively. Then we have Panda who has neither range or ball security. Our catchers are very good defensively. All-in-all we have one weak position. Offensively we have Pedroia who is a proven offensive player. Even if he regresses from last year he still is good. Beni is in his first full year. Nice swing, good plate discipline. He is facing lefties regularly now as well. Time will tell how good he can be but certainly adequate for now. Betts is one of the best hitter in the league but so far hasn't shown a lot of pop. I expect he will. Rameiriz is a bit streaky. He has power but seems to need a goad at times. Probably not having Ortiz around to stimulate him is a negative. Moreland has really been a positive surprise. He is up there with league leaders in BA and was leading in doubles. Great start. Panda lacks plate discipline but does make contact sometimes hard even on the balls off the plate. You wonder how he would do if he really developed discipline. Too late for that and at 214 BA, he is not giving us 3rd bm type numbers.Bogaerts is also proven and will hit, including some power. Bradley was unfortunately out for a while and needs to get back into the swing of things. Leon and Vazquez have had their moments. We have two quality subs on the bench in Young and Hernandez, both of whom can hit. So why so few runs? We lack power for certain with the fewest HR total by a lot. We feature a lot of smaller guys with limited pop. We also seem to lack that fire some teams in the past have possessed, where Cowboying Up was the rallying approach. Does the fire come from the players, from the managers, from the front office? Francona seemed to engender more but maybe just because he had Ortiz. In another thread, someone suggested it is time to try doing something else. Bunt, run more, changing the batting order, changing some of the players for bench players. No suggestions to go out and get a basher (for which i am thankful). So if more than 10% of the season goes by and we are not showing life offensively, how long will the team be allowed to continue this funk? Right now we don't look like a playoff team so how do we get there?

An honest try at answering the question raised by this thread. What about the thought the team has been unable to score a run in the regulation 9 innings for the last 3 games. What can be done? Should we be nervous this early in the season? I hope no one is suggesting we go out and pay big money for an extended contract to some has been slugger.

Pablo has tied the major league lead for errors by a 3rd baseman with Escobar with 4 and we are only 15 games in. Add to that a limited range and his defense is an issue. The season is early of course but he is hitting 224 at this juncture. Because of his contract, I believe the Sox will stay with him well into May and hope for improvement. The team has issues with the offense so it is hard to hide a guy like Pablo, meaning we meed him to produce like a player in his prime, otherwise we should investigate good looking options.

Moreland has been a happy surprise so far this season. Good pickup for us when we had a real need.

Nothing against Price, but his contract is an example of how crazy baseball staffing has become. Taking a pitcher based on past performance is one thing but to take a pitcher with a lot of innings on his resume for 7 years has got to be folly. To get an ace is extremely costly on the free agent market. The move for Sale looks like a relative bargain but pitchers are fragile and teams better wake up and keep the years down to three. More than that just winds up being a costly mistake. The same can be said for the Ellsbury FA deal the Yankees got themselves into. He is a good player but going out on a limb on a long term contract hurts the Yankees ability to compete.