oldtimer

In summary. Cashner was horrible, 5 walks, lots of hits, loaded the bases 3 times in an innning and a third. Don't use him again. Cora up to his resting players strategy. Rests Betts and puts Owens in. Owen goes o0 for 5 including 3 strikeouts from leadoff. Betts has to come in anyway. Sox BP was pretty good except for Barnes who has his usual problems if asked to pitch under pressure. Walks, gopher ball and general wildness. Tired BP going forward. Sox can't execute the hit and run, baserunning issues and an inability to bunt. Another nail in the coffin that was ready for burial anyway.

Agreed. Bases loaded and instead of Mookie we get Owens. That one is on Cora

I read a number of these responses in the thread that fans think that this team, which was great last year and saw a significant downturn this year will somehow regain their form in 2020 provided JH adds still more dollars to the already bloated budget. I don't see our pitching staff (starters and BP) as improving with age and perhaps we replace a starter and relief pitcher and we can be competitive again. I don't believe it and would prefer a course of action I suggested before. Keep the young core players. That would include Mookie provide he can be signed for a contract in keeping with his value to the team. This is a team and also a business. If Mookie won't accept that kind of offer and goes for a longer contract for more dollars (some team may offer that), then we should not stand in his way but also we should extract the best deal in that process. I would not resign players who are unlikely to help us going forward in 2021 and beyond. That includes Porcello, Cashner, Moreland, Nunez (gone now anyway), Pearce, and possibly Holt. Many of those players are getting older and won't be around when we strengthen in 2021. Since JBJ got a special mention, I would also try to trade him as his value to the team is primarily defensive and at 10 Mil (projected) I think he is more expensive than what we can get at that position. We may even have an up and comer in Duran that can do it. JBJ has been, continues to be and will be in future, a very streaky hitter whose appears to be worse this year. We may have to face the loss of JDM. He is having a solid year and may try to opt out. It seems like he is getting well rewarded as primarily a DH but what do I know about the pay these guys are getting paid. His status is beyond our control. I'm ambivalent about Leon. He is a good enough defensive catcher and gets paid a small enough not to worry about, but I would keep my eyes open for a replacement. The BP also needs a partial overhaul in 2020. Maybe the value of who we get versus who we lose would counterbalance, with the exception of a closer. In summary, I would like to keep this team at least competitive in 2020 but believe it will be the right time to start rebuilding while we wait for the termination of contracts like Pedroia, perhaps Price and others aging performers. I also believe DD is not the right person to start the restructure of the team, including our farm system. He utilized our resources to the fullest to make us competitive and to get us a WS. Now we have to rebuild our resources and get our spending back in line and I doubt he has the nature to achieve that.

The Astros won scoring modestly. Their pitching is that good.

Hard to believe another team would pay him 10.5 Mil and also trade a piece.

I looked over the remaining schedule in August and looked at what I consider a good scenario for the team, winning 11 and dropping 7. If they do that, they will be at 73 and 63. Right now both Cleveland and Minnesota are 10 fames in the loss column better than us and both the TB Rays and Oakland are 5 games better than us. Forget the first pair as too far ahead to catch and you have to hope both Oakland and Tampa Bay stumble to less than 11 and 7 in the month of August to gain ground. Possible but not likelly.

Is there a correlation, as the ones who have done better went to the Yankees.

We still have quality fans who believe we still have a chance at a WC slot in 2019. I believe that position is overly optimistic but am willing to wait until it is obvious to everyone that this team is out of the race. I do agree that Dalbec has possibility of playing 1st n 2020. To do that, he needs to cutdown on his strikeout rate but he is a logical candidate along with Travis for that slot. (Travis can fill in at left field so is more flexible but has less raw power). I believe we will finally look for a change in CF for 2020. JBJ will be expensive and is aq notoriosly streaker hitter. Will Duran be a low cost candidate or will we look in the FA or trade markets. All these things can be discussed in September based on the structural discussions that have already been laid out.

It has been a mystery as to why the entire pitching staff would look so bad and all at the same time. YES, E-Rod has good stuff but has always nibbled on the corners and often would take a fovorable count and take it to 3 and 2. His pitch count has always gone high and no one seems to be able to cure him of that approach. He has been the exception on this staff. The idea that we are tipping pitches doesn't make a lot of sense, since it is so widespread on our staff. Do we have a pattern of pitching that opposing teams decoded? It seemed to get worse when Tampa Bay came in and the Yankees just murdered our staff. Were teams reading our signs? Was it 4 seam FBs over the plate or lack of movement on them caused by the Manfred MIssle (low seamed ball). Whatever it was or continues to be, the Sox need to find the cause and change the pattern. I haven't really found any convincing arguments for any of the ideas put forward.

He will get an opportunity since he can also fill-in at left field. There is a chance Marco will get 2nd and Chavis first in 2020 and we still have Dalbec to look at. We know Pearce and Moreland will be gone.

Would like to see more out of the top of the order. Bogaerts has been very good of late but Devers is going through a rough patch and Betts has been spotty, mostly not putting together solid offensive games. Thankyou Sale for coming through.

I see the Price is temporarily shutdown with a cyst on his wrist. Hey, it rhymes.

Good to see the lower end of the order coming through.

Certainly your not proposing trading Betts to the Yankees!

Others are still hoping that somehow the club will catch fire and go on a run big enough to get us into the WC discussion again. Those with a statisical background have to ignore our predicament and hope we do something we have been unable to do til now. What I wonder is why don't we use some of our top pitching prospects scattered in to start games and take the heat off of starters. We have Byran Mata and DHern was some are calling him. I personally don't see a lot to lose by getting a look at these guys in a starting role. While I'm at it, I would like to get a look at Chatham, Suran and Dalbec as well. Will we have to wait til sept for that to happen.

Changing the subject a little, I have a hypothetical question that illustrates our current state of affairs. If the Astros could come into the Red Sox and take any players from our roster and displace their own players at the same posiition, who would they take, if aanyone? I suppose that the candidates would be Bogaerts, Devers and Betts. Frankly, I don't see where any of those moves would help them. Certainly no red Sox pitcher would help and the only other players of interest might be Beni and JDM. You could ask the same about any of the top teams and might get one or two takers but not many.

I missed the play on Hamilton. Was Bogie slow getting the ball to first or was the play just impossible to make?

Lead off walk and none of our vaunted hitters can even advance the runners. This guy is throwing at least 75% 4 seam fastballs. When our starters throw them, they leavve the park.

The Nibbler

I agree, the starters have been and remain the biggest problem. The BP is not a strength either and perhaps has a partial excus of being overused. Add to that we seem to have a problem scoring with RISP. We do score a lot of runs but they have not been coming when we need them. We started the season with some of us concerned that our offensive production was not good from the catcher position and finally decided to let go of Swihart thinking we could hide poor offensive at catcher since we were so solid up and down the rest of the order. Luckily Vaz has improved a lot and we only have to hide Leon who remains as a weak spot and he is Sales homeboy so plays on those days at a minimum. JBJ was talking up how he had learned a lot last year and gave us hope that his streakiness would be reduced. Instead he had a terrible first couple of months , showed some improvement but is back into a slump again. The hope of having the old Pedroia back went south immediately and we have limped along trying Nunez, some of Holt and finally tried Chavis who had a remarkable start until ML pitching caught up. He at least is showing some life. At first we had Moreland hitting well until injured, Pearce a non-factor all year and now Travis who is a fill in player but not much of an offensive threat. The injury took the starch out of Moreland The point is we were relying on the top of the order for the majority of the production while our bottom 3 or 4 don't scare opposing pitchers. It has to impact ouroffensive production. The best teams have more production up and down the lineup and we should head in that direction in 2020 and beyond. Get rid of the deadwood if at all possible. Clearly the biggest move will still need to involve shoring up both the starters and the pen. It won't be simple to do with massive and unproductive pitching contracts.

There were signs of Sale suffering from a tired arm toward the end of last season and Cora elected to take it easy on he and Price at the start of the season. Saying that, I still expected Sale to be good enough to be a winning if not the dominant pitcher of the past. The money needed to sign a number 1 or 2 starter these days is incredible but it is true for all the top of the line pitchers. It would be terrible for the team if both Price and Sale are on a steep deline at this point in their careers.

It is sad but perhaps the surgery will allow him to live a normal life without pain in his knee. He shouldn't be put through the charade of trying to rehab with a return to the majors expected. We get to pay his contract as more dead money and an additional handicap for the team.

The Sox need to decide on a value for Betts, both in years and $$$. I'm afraid that some GM will wind up offering him more than that and he will accept. The alternatives are overvalue him and overpay and wind up with another bad long term contract or trade him and accept that he won't be back. His current performance doesn't stack up to the $27 mil arb value Moon projects so if that doesn't work out to his advantage it might also give him another reason to leave along with the thought the Sox will be in a rebuilding mode for a period of 1 too 3 years.

That is so correct. We need to reset next year. We also need to find a GM attuned to the rebuild process.

This team has no spark. This will wind up as our 9th loss in the last 10. I thought we were better but you are what your record says you are in the words of the Big Tuna.