oldtimer

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.

This was one of these bad news, good news, bad news , good news nights at Fenway. The bad news struck almost immediately with e-Rod seemingly not up to the moment of being in such a big game at Fenway. His location was bad from the outset forcing JF to pull him early. JF clearly wanted to save his better BP pieces for a more likely win scenario so went first with Hembree, who has decent stuff but also issued a walk, couldn't hold a man on so quickly got stole on, cross-up the catcher with a very high fastball and then gave up a run without a hit on a sac fly. Oddly enough, the good news was the second tier relief was unique enough to hold the Yankees off the board the rest of the way, but not without scary moments. The second set of bad news was the lethargy of our dugout and hitters. JF tends to show no emotion (fire) and Tanaka can be tough but big Papi doubled and was stranded, we loaded the bases with one out and the 3 ,4 hitters could manage just a sac fly for a run, Beni doubled to lead off an inning and the top of the order couldn't bring him in, Leon got up with 2 on and took a called 3rd strike on a pitch that clearly got the plate (he has done that before). Otherwise nothing positive with the exception of Bib Papi's home run. Hoped that would energize the team. Then came the good news. After Hill, pinch hitting for JBJ looked bad leading off the ninth, Young hitting for Beni was hit by a Yankee pitcher. They went to their closer and Pedey, bless his heart, came through and the atmosphere changed. Bogaerts didn't get it done, but big Papi got his third hit and an RBI setting it up for Betts. Nothing big there but he kept it going to Hanley, who did the improbable by hitting a homer to win the game. Wow, what a crazy night and with Baltimore losing put the Red Sox back in a good position. Now Buchholz needs to show his experience tonight.

As we start the Yankee series tonight it occurs to me that all the major clubs are in transition year to year. Even if we can end the Yankees thoughts about making the playoffs this year, it is clear that we will be competing with them for FA's and trades going into 2017. The Yankees will be losing Teixeria and possibly Headley with $36,000,000 coming off the payroll and really only have two high cost pitchers on the roster today in Sabathia and Tanaka. I assume they will keep MaCanns to go along with Sanchez. As a minimum they will be going after another SP , RP's a 1st and possibly a 3rd baseman. The point being it will be a very competitive market for us out there for SP and even our FA relief pitchers will be in demand. Best to fill in from within wherever possible.

If the cause of Bett's slump is physical then some kind of rest might help. If it's instead some kind of emotional funk, then rest may also help as just a change of scene or doing things could impact outlook. Another possible way of achieving the same kind of result would be to revise the batting order again. MOve Bett's to 3rd and Ortiz to 4th. Really, Bogaerts, Betts and Ortiz have gone through or are in slumps so it might do them all some good.

It does look like our outfield next year is going to be Bradley, Betts and Benintendi although Beni still has to show he can be solid over a longer period of time. That leaves a very good player in Young in a utility role. Since he has a very good bat, the thought of him sharing the DH with Hanley and or Swihart makes some sense. While Hanley is not the best fielding 1st baseman in the league, he certainly is acceptable so I can see him there when not DH. If the top two assumptions of lineup are true then that only leaves 3rd base and part of the reps at 1st base to cover. Shaw certainly has to be high up in the consideration for either 1st or 3rd. I really wonder whether Moncada will make the transition to ML early in the year, later or not at all next season. He has the athletic ability but has the most to prove. Holt is valuable enough to be kept but it is possible that if we keep Swihart and Rutledge in utility roles, Holt might be gone. I am not at all on board with Sandoval for any role next year.

It was hard to tell from watching live update how well Gausman was pitching. You could tell he was throwing a lot of first pitch strikes and many of those fast balls down in the center area of the plate from the live update box they show. Lots of swing and miss, lots of popups and lots of weak ground balls. Gausman had mid nineties velocity and at the end showed 98 mph getting Bogaerts out and that was after close to 120 pitches. He must either have a deceptive deliver or a lot of life on his pitches to make us look that bad. The first 4 batters got 0 hits while we didn't get a single extra base hit and only one walk. The Sox don't really go in for small ball so they can only string hits together or get extra base hits to score their runs. I guess we have to chalk it up to facing superior pitching, but it sure is hard to lose when your starter pitches very well and your relief is solid.

The Sox have their best hitting lineup in the game but seem unable to hit Gausman. I have been following on live update and know he has good velocity and doesn't walk many (1) and he also appears to be deceptive as there have been so many pop ups, weak ground balls and strike outs. The last batter he faced in the 8th were reaching up to 98,8 MPH on the gun. With 4 singles and 1 walk, the Sox can't even advance players to scoring position. Just once all night. I have to cut away from the game now, but hope they can do something in the 9th, as it would be a shame to lose when your starter puts up a 4 hit 1 run game.

We were having issues at 3rd base and he was the #1 rated rookie so we brought him up. When he was brought up we thought he might be green defensively and might show some immaturity, but we thought he could hit, along with the coaches and other so called rating experts. What has happened is that he has seemed to lack focus and he definitely has not been able to hit major league pitching. The verdict is out on his ability to adapt, but clearly he is not going to help in this pennant race. I sincerely hope that he can adapt to the pitching and make a step forward net season. Even that is in question at this date.

I agree that we are very strong in the area of positional players, with no change needed in either the outfield or catcher. We are excellent at both second and short so the three lineup positions we need to consider are 3rd, 1st and DH. There is no revelation in that and we have Hanley for either 1st or DH or some combination of those two. Shaw is still young and is likely to make at least a modest improvement so he is another 3rd or 1st guy. Moncada may well need extra time in the minors, so I wouldn't expect him to be on the roster early in the season. I am skeptical of Panda making the grade. Swihart is flexible, but he might best learn 1st base as the outfield will be tough to crack. Devers is sitting in the minors with some possibility of advancement. Holt certainly is a strong utility player with great flexibility. I do admit that the addition of a masher at DH would be icing on the cake but hate to offer a large multiyear contract to get that kind of talent. We could stand pat and be excellent. The pitching staff is another story and should be covered separately.

Last night JF gave Tazawa a chance to get some in game pitching. He did get the side out but I had to wonder with a 10 run lead, why he walked the guy in front of the best Oriole hitter. Was he trying to nibble? Didn't make sense and he walked him with a fast ball so he wasn't trying to try his other out pitches.

A year away from playing. Recovering from surgery and also in decline prior to all of his issues with weight. I don't expect him to recover to the point he could help us and if his salary wasn't the gorilla in the room, he would have been gone by now. His status is a problem for DD and his signing didn't turn out positively at all.

Thats a good problem to have. A young talent coming up but no place to play. I also think it is hard to see Young coming out when he is so hot. That leaves Beni as a utility outfielder (perhaps a sub to rest players) and/or a pinch hitter.

With a win against the Orioles and what looks like a Yankee loss and a Blue Jay win we move a little closer to the playoffs. One game at a time of course. Boston Blue Jays -2 Orioles -3 Yankees -? Go Sox

Other than having to pay his very large salary, what reason would we have for bringing him back. His fielding is not as good as others we could play at 3rd or first and his bat hasn't shown much so DH seems like a long shot.