oldtimer

We are now very likely to go into the playoffs so who will be have on the roster. My understanding is that we take 25 players and that we can set that roster before each series using everyone on the 40 man plus any on the various DL's. If we have an injury during the series and replace that player, the injured player is lost for the rest of the playoffs. There may be a couple of other eligibility categories, but that is pretty much how it lines up. Who will we go in with? Clearly Hanley, Pedey, Bogey, Shaw, Ortiz, the 4 outfielders and Leon. I assume Holt and the backup catcher is not clear. That leaves one. Since Holt can back up most positions I would think we would want someone who can play short, second or third. Will it be Hernandez? Do we take 12 pitchers into the playoffs? If so, it is clear that Price, Porcello, E-Rod and Pomeranz will make it as starters and the relievers will be Kimbrel, Uehara, Ziegler, Ross. Beyond them, Kelly and Barnes and Buchholz are very likely. That leaves Tazawa, Abad and the new young lefty whose name escapes me at the moment. Since we need a second lefty at least, pick one or leave some of the very likely off the list. Finally, if Wright can make it back in decent form, he is likely to be in the list of starters, leaving who off, Buchholz? with Pomeranz as a relief option? Any thoughts?

A lot of interesting things to talk about from last night's big win. Baltimore went into last night with a pitching advantage, sending up their ace against our talented but inconsistent starter. To Baltimore, it was also a must win game. Perhaps the pitching matchup that favored the Sox was the fresh bullpen resulting from Porcello's complete game win. It turned out that E-Rod was on his game and went 6 1/3 before several balls were hit hard. JF did the right thing replacing him quickly. Barnes has good stuff, but got unlucky and perhaps can get frazzled and wild. JF again did the right thing putting in the veteran Ziegler to get out of the inning. Uehara was brilliant again and Kimbrel shut them down in the ninth. Both Kimbrel and Barnes walking people when ahead two strikes made no sense. Why nibble or try to get people to chase when up by three and you blew two by the batter already? You could question Showalter's decision to keep Gausman in against Ortiz. Gausman had by then gone well over 100 pitches on a muggy night and Ortiz had seen him 3 other times. Gausman amped up the velocity thinking Ortiz couldn't catch up wasn't quite as sharp and got the ball over the plate, albeit at 99 mph. That was the turning point in the game. Hard to know if it was the right strategy but it didn't work. The lineup looked good with Betts hitting very well in particular and JBJ getting two hits with a homer (another encouraging sign). Pedey was out with a sore knee (hope not too bad) and I thought Hernandez looked good at the plate. There was one play I didn't understand where he didn't cover second base on a throw in from Young on a double. It looked like he had a brain freeze on that one. Leon appears to have gone into a slump and is taking good pitches and swinging at a lot of balls out of the zone. NOt a good time to be slumping and maybe a little reversion to more his norm. Also Shaw didn't look as bad hitting but is slumping again. Need these guys both to offer more offense as we go into the playoffs. Young looked good on the other hand so we have two good outfielders to choose from. Tonight will be a tough one with Buchholz going. Hope he can give us at least 5 good ones.

No to breaking up a solid team to get one guy who may or may not break down the year we get him. Stay young and try to get pitchers with what we can offer without breaking up key elements of the team. I include Beni in that.

Standing pat in the lineup area based on this years team is a reasonable idea. Of course we lose Ortiz whatever else happens, and that is a huge loss. As we have said many times we are good in the outfield with and including Young as our utility guy there Out of our 4 current catchers, we have to be okay. Trade a couple and keep the best. Leon and who? Second and short are set so back to 3rd, 1st and DH and utility infielders. Hanley will be either 1st and/or DH, maybe sharing time between the two, so that leaves us with 4 slots we can fill to make up the 13 lineup players. Shaw is a strong candidate for us since he can play 1st or 3rd and still can be expected to improve as a hitter, perhaps enough to sub at DH. Holt is a major league player and can fill in just about anywhere but as you say, his value might be even greater to another team. Swihart is also a good candidate, since he could sub in the outfield, as a 3rd catcher, possibly 1st and even do some DH work. Moncada has some learning ahead. One hopes he can develop an fulfill his potential. Devers could possibly emerge and one can't forget Panda as his salary may dictate one more look. When all is said and done, we will need a utility infielder who can play short in a pinch. I have wondered about Hernandez for a long while, but the Sox just have not used him which seems like they see that he lacks a key ability, such as hitting. I too agree that we should concentrate on RP help going forward. Deciding who to keep, whether to try to resign some FA's and so on. I would expect a minimum of two new RP's added/changed in the offseason. SP may be impossible to find and almost certainly will be bid up due to the shortages. A FA lineup player is not out of the question, but I hate to see us tie up big money in long term contracts for ageing players.

What works well at leadoff is a guy who makes regular contact and can hit to all fields. That describes Pedey pretty well although he is not the fastest guy on the team, he is not that slow either. Beni is still unproven. I like what I have seen to date as he also extends the count, makes contact and runs well. With Bogaerts capable of 20 HR and a higher average hitter, he is okay batting 3rd and probably Betts 4th with Hanley 5th. An alternative to that would be to put Betts 3rd, Hanley 4th and Bogaerts 5th. My personal preference, assuming Beni can hit for average is as follows: 1 Pedey 2 Beni 3 Betts 4 Hanley 5 Bogaerts Just about any way works but we do have a stacked righty, stacked lefty lineup anyway you cut it unless we can find another power lefty bat like Cano.

Having solid hitting through the 5 hole with each having good years to great years makes this team formidable. After them we aren't bad, although Leon is slumping a little after being red hot earlier. Shaw is probably a 250 hitter, Bradley will get his hits and has given us 25 HRs and now Benintendi who looks very composed batting 9th. With Young and Holt as backups we have tools everywhere. The way the lineup is stacked together now (heavy right handed hitting, followed by heavy left handed hitting, Showalter tried to take advantage of that by bringing in matchup relief a lot tonight. It didn't help him since the damage had alteady been done.

Why advertise your failures? You provide many valuable posts here so trying to be Nostradamus is not your forte. Go Sox!

We won tonight at Camden Yard and I noted, since this is a Benintendi thread, that he looked good even against left handed pitching. NO easy out since he forces the pitch count up and got one long double off the center field wall. The kid has some pop.

Porcello was on tonight and with good hitting, including home runs by both Betts and Ortiz we won and are now up on the Orioles by 4. We need to get at least 1 of the next three games at Camden Yards.

I too have been a Red Sox fan for a very long time and know how easy it is to lose a lead. Still, I'd much rather be in our position than Baltimore, Toronto or New York. Just before the commencement of the last 23 games, I opined that I would be happy if we could either win or at least split every series going forward. We managed 2 for 3 vs Toronto, lost our series 2 to 1 vs Baltimore but bounced back to sweep 4 from the Yankees. Now we take on a 10 game road trip vs Baltimore, Tampa Bay and the Yankees. I would love to take at least 2 from Baltimore, and win both the Tampa Bay and Yankee series, leaving us with probably a first place standing when we return for the final 3 games at home against Toronto. We have been very fortunate to have Hanley get super hot during this period and have Uehara return to his top form. They are both giving us a tremendous lift at this critical time. Be fun to watch them tonight.

We probably will go with Young in the lineup with Sabbathia tonight. With 4 of our first 5 solid hitting righties, Sabbathia will have no cake walk. Young and whoever catches will also be righties. That leaves Shaw (our options at 3rd are not good) and JBJ to try to deal with the big lefty in tougher matchups.

Trumbo is a free agent to be. Why not go for him. He is what, 31 and could be an OF/DH for us for years to come. Getting a 40 HR guy and weakening a major competitor would be good to do. Probably cost a bundle but at the same time we could leave Hanley at 1st.

Price didn't seem to have it last night and was getting hit pretty hard. Good for us and him that the Sox were hitting enough to sink the Yankees again. Price seemed to revert to his performances earlier in the year when his command wasn't sharp.

Beni had good at bats tonight and looks like a major leaguer. The double and the walk were good and the other at bats he hit the ball. Good composure for a kid that young in experience.

They are all but mathematically eliminated from winning the division and very unlikely as a wild card. They still can act as spoilers as they play the Blue Jays 4 and Baltimore 3 and now its down to 4 remaining against us. Will be watching the other contenders tonight.

I get frustrated when hitters don't swing with runners in scoring position and two strike counts. Latest one was Pedey with the bases loaded and two outs taking one. The ball was over the plate and I would think you have a better chance of swinging in that case than standing there. I know with a 98 mph fastball, noting is easy and I know Pedey is a great hitter, but it is still frustrating to watch. Leon has done that twice recently as well. Come on guys, swing!

It does seem that way.

That is a question DD and the staff will need to deal with for next season. If we keep him he won't be expected to be in the rotation but some kind of backup starter and long reliever. Is he worth the money for that purpose?

Again tonight we got by with Buchholz skating on the edge of disaster for 5 innings but our hitting carried us through. The Yankees didn't have enough strength in their BP or SP to hold our scoring at bay. If we get hitting up and down the lineup we are hard to beat. 15 games to go and we have a 2 game lead on Baltimore. The Yankees look as though they will not make it and Detroit looks in a swoon. The Blue Jays and Seattle appear to be the other competition. If and when we get to the playoffs it would be nice to have one more solid starter (other than Price and Porcello). Who will that be? E-Rod or Pomeranz? The BP is fairly solid and we have good subs at all positions. Good position to be in.

Young started tonight against a RH pitcher and generally didn't do much. I thought they would start Beni in those cases so maybe JF is bringing Beni in slowly because Young has looked so good of late (until tonight). Since Sabbathia will start one of the Yankee games, Beni will probably start the other.

Clay went 5 tonight and gave up just 2 but that is only part of the story. The other part is that he skated on the edge of disaster all five of those innings. The Sox offense make the win possible but Clay is not solid as a starter. By the way, even though I have supported Abad as a relief pitcher with good stuff who should help us, tonight he was shaky again and I am wondering why a guy with an excellent curve and a 95 mph fastball can get into so much trouble. He does seem to have command problems at times.

Ortiz had a great night for us. A single, double and homerun plus a sac fly in a very meaningful game. He passed Mantle on the home run list, is leading the league in doubles (a guy who doesn't run that well) and is high on all three triple crown categories. All to that what he adds to the team enthusiasm and you have a truly great player.

Yes, and that is just whats happening with the Yankee faithful. The other thing they are all worked up about is the failure to call a strike on Hanley when he seemed to offer at a pitch just before hitting the home run. I often find fans that do that silly since many prior ball and strike calls are always questionable, as they were in that game. Balls that miss the plate called strikes and balls that hit the plate called balls. Umpires are imperfect and that is just part of the game. Don't mean to bring up the argument for computer driven ball and strike calls, but some one probably will.

Of course this was the right thing for JF to do, especially realizing we have been having difficulty overcoming multirun deficits the last couple of games. We were fortunate to have our second tier relief help hold to give us any shot to win.

One play involving Beni occurred last night that drew comment from the announcer. With Beni on 2nd, the ball was hit in front of him to the SS. The announcer was saying Beni made a mistake by not taking third on the play. I still play softball at my advanced age and my understanding is that a player should not try to advance a base when the ball is hit in front of them, unless when forced to do so. No one was on first on the play, so I believe Beni made the right play by not trying to advance.