oldtimer

Our incredible offense ran into good pitching. Note that Nola didn't throw over 94 mph but had a nice assortment of pitches and kept our hitters off balance all night. Only JBJ did much and that in itself was intereswting.

Lets put it another way. Would I pay 22 Mil for a DH if I had that choice today? The answer is no. JDM has done what was expected of him and more but i aging now and is prone to injury with his back. He is a liability in the outfield defensively, so he has to be looked at as primarily a DH. He probably has helped some of our guys with their hitting, note Devers taking a deep breaath before stepping in for instance. The JDM contract is history and I wouldn't increase it to keep him, but we have to live with it for 2 more years unless he ops out.

We may have better prospects. He hasn't shown the ability to be a starting pitcher for us going forward. Best to cut ties and find better.

Wasn't all bad, Nola went over 100 pitches and just maybe they will take him out in the 8th.

Mokkie did his job. Single and stolen base, but Devers, Bogaerts and JDM were handled by Nola. The good news is that Nola will probably only go one more inning so we will get a shot at their BP with the top of our order. I expected Johnson to be weak, but he got through to the BP only giving up 3, which is a good thing for our starters these day and if our BP can hold, there is a good chance to win this one.

Nola is not invincible!

Of course I root for the team as always but realistically, we are putting Johnson up against Nola tonight. The difference in era is significant. Yes we have good hitting but our pitching staff can hurt us and makes the probability of gaining ground low.

Thanks. With an older person, you never know and his wife is not a lot of help to him at this time due to age. They do have caring friends nearby. Just part of getting old.

I don't know where this entry should be put, but since you bring up the $30 million risk on Sale, it reminds me of a thought about long term planning of the team's finances and how it will work with the long term contracts that we currently have on the books. In general, I foresee: 1. There will be some cap limit on spending going forward applied in an effort to keep a competitive balance between the large and small market teams. How it will be structured and how it may change will depend on player's union input at the next negotiations. The point is that there will be a limitation. 2. The Sox have some fairly near term contracts and some long term contracts that are meaningful. Price is a 2 year one, Price for 5, Bogie for 4 I believe, Pedroia winding down, Eovaldi and JDM. 3 The Sox will have to deal with JBJ, Betts and Porcello and E-Rod near term and have Beni and Devers who will begin to be paid. Devers is superstar material and money needs to be reserved to keep him. 4. We probably need new GM leadership as it appears to me that we have a predicament going forward and our current GM made the decisions to put us into the situation. We need to rebuild our farm system while trying to keep the seats filled until we can restructure our contracts going forward. 5. I would say few fans see how we can trade away the most damaging contracts we currently have, so the emphasis should be on not committing to additional long term ones that will not likely pay dividends for the team. Right now it looks like Porcello, JBJ and in a year, Betts will need to be dealt with. Others we just assume are gone with the exception of Leon and Holt, both of whom are questionable for the longer term. I'd expect Porcello and Jbj to be gone and an at value offer to be made for Betts. We'd be better with him but not at $30 mil for 10 years. It will not be an easy time for the GM going forward. Lets hope we get a smart yet hard headed leader who considers the long term.

Be Smart

I think the caveat is that whatever caused in elbow inflamation will likely return if he doesn't alter his pitching style. In the latter games he was hitting 97 again and maybe that was too much for the elbow. Good news that no Tommy John though

Prayers go with you. I have two older brothers and one goes under the knife tomorrow to solve a problem resulting from a prior poorly done surgery and maybe to do exploratory work on a cyst on a kidney. He is 83+ and still a good softball player who can hit the ball 280, even at that age. We often play together when we are in the same town in the winter. We are crossing our fingers.

We are sending Mr. TBD up against the Phillies Nola tomorrow. Asking a lot to score enough to be competitive tomorrow. That is just our predicament due to starters hurt or not performing.

The Sox are carrying starting pitching salaries of Price 31 M, Sale 15M and Eovaldi 17M and none really are either available to pitch now or are really not pitching well. That $63 M in starting pitching contracts that is probably not worth the paper their written on the remainder of the year. And that doesn't include the cost of benes. If they are either out or further reduced in capability next year the salaries will be 32M Price, 30 M Sale and 17M Eovaldi or $79 M not counting benefits. No team can be competitive with so much dead money in contracts, let alone Pedroias added to that. Lets hope we get a bounce back from a couple of these, but long term it may look extremely bleak. One has to ask why DD put the team in this predicament.

Betts was held out and Owings led off in a game the Sox had to win. Owings went o for 5 with 3 strikeouts. I believe Betts was stuck in late, but too late. To me it was an example of a rest policy gone bonkers.

The Sox Starting pitching is in a shambles with both Sale and Price probably unavailable and Eovaldi looking awful in his start. Our two regulars left arre Porcello and E-Rod with Cashner likely to join them and perhaps the use of an opener concept pitcher. Too bad because we arre scoring enough runs to support even a fair pitching performance. Funny how guys looking hot goes in cycles. Beni has cooled down in the last couple of days while quiite a few others stepped up today. We play the Phillies at home so at least we can use our DH.

This has been a bugaboo for us this year. Starting pitchers giving up 5 in less than 5 innings. What can Cora do? Bring up the youngsters? Could they be much worse?

Both Betts and JDM regressed, which was to be expected as they were having all star/MVP seasons in 2018. Also, both Moreland's injury status and the absence of the good Nunez and Pearce impacted the offense. The real culprit has been the pitching, with our starters getting off badly and staying bad for a good part of the season. Add to that the pen certainly was pushed hard and had a lot of blown saves. So the fact that we had a worse than expected season clearly points to the need for improvements where we have the flexibility to make them and we need a front office that has the right mindset.

Sale is extended and Price is with us for 2 more years. Both could be healthy and pitching at least fairly well next year. Lets wait and hear from the front office before going off into what if territory.

I'm sure he feels terrible about it. Hit the ball to the right side hard or to the outfield and we get a run. a strikeout if preferable.

Betts has a ow strikeout rate (even though it seems he swings at the bad ones and takes the good ones). He also has an equal number of walks to strikeouts. That is a very good trait. I think he tends to hit too many balls to CF where they turn into outs. Maybe more pull would be better. Dever is incredible. He seems to have an inate ability that is lacking in most ML players. I expect him to have a great career.

Seems to me that a day of rest for key players has led to losses on games we well might have won and without a justification that the rest resulted in a player who contributed more for the rest. This is Cora'S style. Like it or leave it, I expect Cora to continue with that style of management.

Cora's moves worked in that inning.

Maybe matt Arnold of the Brewers. Young, good people skills, knows player development and contract negotiations.

The story with Eovaldi is that he wasn't built up enough to start but we had a need in the BP that it looked like he could help with.When the season became a lost cause in all probability, Cora is returning Eovaldi to the role he is slated to be in during 2020 and that is a starter The first was a desparation move due to our starters putting some much pressure on the pen and the second move was to think ahead to 2020.