vegasbob

Bradley is consistent , however, so you can count on the rollover, interspersed with a few K's

Holy Batman, Pearce got hot.

Walden saves Sale another loss. Come back, little Sandy, Chrissy needs you

If Sale can't get out of this, call it Leon's Baby game. The stats by Moonslav do show remarkably different results from Sale when Leon catches , and Sale never shakes him offf. With Vaz it's a different story. But I put the blame on the pitcher who cannot control his mind or the pitches. Sale needs to win his own games.

There is some complacency on this team . The hardware is in the trophy case and on the finger, and the wallets are full. Let's find another Chavis, although he is really not fully ready for where he is , but still a step up over about 4 other roster spots.

The non hitting CF'er won't give up the body to jump the padding and save a leadoff double ?

Springer's back may be hurting him but I'm not sure JDM's isn't hampering him too. He's a gamer but not making it happen like before. New game, maybe Sale can hold it together for one more then the BP again

There's that, but the Bruins are in the Cup

No Nunez is equally bad and Pearce is worst

One of AC's lineup changes works out. Too bad JBJr could not have found 1B in front of it.

I'm glad you can read my mind. It is truly ridiculous especially since he has not been able to get a win in the last two, and today doesn't look too good yet. I think OB is trying to find something positive to avoid talking about the now ill offense

They are complacent MF'ers

Vague recollection that that LH'er used to play for the Sox. Only matured as a hitter about 5 years later, but we have the best defender.

DD ought to buy the entire organization and team tickets to the Bruins Stanley Cup opener so they all can see what it means to work hard to win.

Nice response by the Sox to being down 3-1. Rollovers and once again cannot hit a roly-poly LH slop server. But the games not over, and neither is the season. Sort of wish it would hurry up though

So what did he do ?

Sale doing the Porcello dance with an elevated pitch count , as usual because of all his brilliant K's, probably going 6 innings , now eligible for a 1-6 record.

It may only be "eye stats" but JDM used to be invincible with men on base but sure am seeing a lot of ground balls and jam shots, plus not catching up to medium fastballs. The 4 recent HR's have been muted by only 7 rbi's. That's more the fault of the guys in front of him

Fully agree , just trying to give Vaz some love for his recent exploits. JDM is a great one

Cora announced this mid-winter and his analysts back up the theory of the best hitter going #2 . Only problem I have is that Betts is not the best hitter on this team. Vaz is.

Yet another cool, wet day for Sale start, backed by a weak lineup (on paper) against a junkball LH'er. What could go wrong ?

Correct again, this lineup sucks in support of Sale. They may score 10 runs because that's baseball, but any lineup featuring Nunez, Pearce and JBJr and Chavis leading off is down 0-2 coming from the on deck circle.

A relievers own ERA is probably as deceptive a stat as the save/hold/W&L record. The real measurement of effectiveness should be "inherited runners who score" , followed by walks and HBP, followed by wild pitches (allows runner advancement)

I come back to this point : How does an FO expect to win 96-100 games with a 3 man bench consisting of Pearce, Nunez and Leon"s bat , with no regular secondbaseman , now relying on a powerful but raw rookie who has no well defined position ? Addressing the BP is a whole other conversation. I imagine DD's answer would include ; Didn't you see the same lineup players win 119 in 2018 ? I didn't know whether Pedey and his contract wouldn't be able to make it back, that Holt would be a dud and then get injured for about 2 months ? A teamwide slump to open the season ? These guys went 17-2 last year ! Alex Cora ? Can't get a better players manager and analyst than that . A soft ST ? Save it for October baseball, not the Grapefruit League . Eovaldi's floating elbow bodies, who knew ? Brewer and Thorny, gotta roll the dice sometimes . New faces ?? Why disturb the clubhouse tightness ? Hangover syndrome ? That's as silly as clutch, momentum, lineup protection and defense wins theories ! I do think that DD and Cora (and most fans) are suffering from a little snakebite after assuming the same guys would play reasonably well and competitively as they did in 2018. Kimbrel and Kelly's moving on is not the core problem. Playing up to their abilities is the challenge. Oh, and a reset next year .

You can afford JBJr's .150/.430 if the rest of the lineup merely hits to their career averages , so that your overall OF defense is optimized (Betts RF ; Beni LF; JBJ CF) . Now that Vazquez seemingly has cured the prior hitting deficiency at Catcher, JBJ is all the more affordable. Cora may be trying to send JBJ a message (no hit--no play= no future contract) Putting any mention of Pearce as an OF plug-in is laughable this year. Just play Jackie and ask the rest of the lineup to do their jobs.