5GoldGlovesOF,75

The Sox should just pick a game this week and each at bat make Rafaela go up to the plate barehanded... but just for the first two pitches each time. Because no Red Sox maybe in my fading brain's history has been 0-and-2 in so many ABs the last two months. It always seems like whenever a guy is slumping, he's always in an 0-and-2 hole (but usually not from swinging at every single ball out of the zone). The first batter I recall noticing this was Carl Crawford in 2011. Since then, there have been plenty of Bradleys, Dalbecs, Durans, Abreus, Storys, Devers, and Casases to go around. But imagine the pressure no bat would put on the pitcher! If Ceddanne can just coax one ball in two pitches, he'll be back in business. Check out his 2024 batting averages -- 0-2 (96 PA): .146; 1-1 (50 PA): .367; 2-0 (SIX PA -- no, really): .200... 1-for-5 with a sac fly; smallest sample size in MLB. Then again, in 1-and-0 counts (26 PA) Rafaela is batting .417 with a 1.275 OPS!!! Here's an idea, Cora -- GIVE HIM A FREAKING TAKE SIGN!!!!

True, but when Minnesota's bus pulled into Fenway, the passengers had to cover their mouths with hankies... ... like in the recovery scene of a disaster movie. Buckle up, fans of whiff: Sox batters have struck out 241 more times than the Twins, whose pitchers lead the league in K per 9 IP... W-L July-August-September: Twins 33-36, Red Faces 32-37.

Simple way to do this and not decrease ticket sales: attach new elevated seats to the tops of all the poles already obstructing fans. Construction needn't be elaborate -- they could just use as many as three pre-fab treestands like outdoor stores sell to deer hunters. Ladder rungs on the poles would also have to be installed, but a selling point could be sobriety requirements. This can even generate more jobs, as Fenway can hire special ushers to monitor each pole and give regular breathalyzer tests during games.

If a DH is slow, the most important averages are his Slug and BA -- because productive hits can move other baserunners multiple bases. The O in OPS doesn't matter as much for a DH if he walks a lot, because he's not a DW. Being on base does means he didn't make an out -- always a good thing -- though being a slowpoke means he's usually station-to-station (and a DP risk if he rolls over to the second baseman a lot -- which is worse than a K). Still, a .290 batting average has more value than you think. This year there are only eight qualified batters in the AL over .290, and only five in the NL. There are also only seven .300 hitters in the majors... total.

They'll use Jansen's desire to play for a contender by offering him less money with the promise of using the difference to invest in more talent to fulfill his wishes...

My Yoshida take: there's always a place on a good team for a .290 contact hitter. But the Red Sox are not a good team, and their overrated offensive stats are diluted by way too many strikeouts. If you're going to whiff 14 times a night, you'd better mix in a few more home runs -- and Masa just doesn't hit enough bombs to bat clean-up, like last night. A full-time DH needs to have a superior slugging percentage than Romy Gonzalez (Yoshida .427, Romy .426).

TWO tools?!? Wait -- and he can run the bases -- without getting picked off every night? Are you sure the Red Sox can afford a THREE-TOOL player?

Last night, even NESN announcers were pushing for the Sox to get a #1 starter for next season... What's more likely this winter, career MLB relievers Brez and Bailey spend big on an ace starter, or instead, spread the money around recruiting authentic big league bullpen help... and promote Fitts and Dobbins to the '25 rotation? Btw: I like the idea of Criswell coming out of the pen (middle relief); he may not have the best stuff, but he's the quickest worker in the game, which can throw off hitters in big moments. I do not like the idea of Crawford, though, because he leads the world in home runs allowed, and there's nothing more deflating than coughing up late-inning HRs. He's probably most effective just being the bulk guy for his own starts...

So Crochet would leave Sox with holes in their toes to play for the bloody Sox -- but for the right price, he'd sell them his sole. Darn. Sounds like a heel.

Slaten could look more like Clase, if he just grows his beard longer. But it may take a few nights.

And even that has been tempered lately -- despite "Paul" being recently knighted. Because with "John" still in rehab and "George" vying for more than one song on an album, now we hear that "Ringo" can't grip his drumsticks... and may miss the rest of their gigs this month.

Stengel was in charge, so it had to be all on him! Never in history was a team so fundamentally poor (I'm just borrowing lines now from the Cora haters). Casey really mismanaged the bullpen. Every time he made a change, he brought in another Met (I made that one up). When a manager reportedly falls asleep in the dugout, his players have no motivation to improve. Ok, maybe he wasn't snoozing on the bench -- just fainting from what he was seeing.

Another point I keep harping on -- maybe more appropriate for the bullpen thread -- is that reliable starting pitching that goes deep in games is vital to the preservation of the relief arms. Instead, we've seen bullpen overuse and subsequent burn-out every season since 2018. Adding an innings-eater like Giolito may have been a plan to save the pen this year, though I questioned that from the beginning because if he continued to suck like he had in '22 and '23, then Cora would have to replace Gio on the mound too often too early... ... that is, if the Sox were really in it to win it, and not just to fill jerseys to field a team so they could play games and sell tickets.

Teams don't need to wait for a window to "go for it" to invest in top level pitching. Nor should they... Good under-30 arms and proven veteran MLB starters are both prerequisites for any contender built to go deep in the postseason. And there's no such thing as "wasting" money or service years by acquiring top-of-the-rotation starters even before the next core of position players become stars -- which, btw, has no scheduled linear timetable (when was the last time every club's top minor leaguers became studs all at once). Spending on good pitching now expedites everyone else's development; it establishes a winning culture with younger hurlers, helps them improve by sharing books on hitters and umps, grips on new pitches, experiences dealing with injuries, ups and downs; and also invigorates position players looking forward to success... and maybe even entices free agents from other clubs to consider Beantown a destination of destiny.

The headline may be deceiving itself... "the Red Sox stars" - as in plural? Atlanta's entire infield is comprised of All-Stars, and they have an MVP rightfielder and a DH who's slugged 77 homers the past two years. A core like that should play as much as possible if you want to win. In contrast, Boston has one rampaging star outfielder, and some others who are pretty good at basically one thing: corner infielders who can go deep when their bodies let them, a decent shortstop glove that's rarely healthy, several all-or-nothing power hitters, a contact bat with little power, a catcher who can hit better than he catches, and some utility men who rake lefties. If the next Sox' core reaches true stardom, please surround them with able bench pieces to give them an occasional rest -- like Cora had in '18, and Francona had in the '00s, and Zimmer didn't (or refused to use) in the '70s.

The most underrated evidence for INVESTING IN PROVEN BIG LEAGUE STARTING PITCHING that fans see -- every single summer in Boston -- ad nauseam? The annual collapse of Red Sox bullpens has been on display since the Matt Barnes Era in the Chaim Bloom Era.

But some guys in the front office don't wear robes like judges who can be bribed for life... From today's Boston Globe: Red Sox will not renew the contracts of a handful of longtime instructors and scouts As part of an overhaul of the team’s pitching development efforts, three longtime pitching coordinators were informed they won’t be back.

Andrew Bailey Son of Sam Horn! How Lowe can they go...

Jose Siri is Rafaela on chiclets.

They're scrambling to keep their jobs, ever since Brez started stalking the halls with a hatchet in his belt.

He's not going to end up there, but since this whole week is do-or-die, Cora has to get all his outfielders in the batting order; they're his most productive players -- and that doesn't include the team's leading hitter Yoshida (OBP right behind Devers), who he must keep out of the outfield.

A good assessment, but let's not pretend Brez did all those moves on his own -- the front office lifers still outnumber him, so signing rehabbing comebackers like Hendriks and Fulmer merely continued the pattern of the Bloom Era. For all we know, picking up Criswell, a Bloom-like bargain bin move, was the culmination of some Asst. VP's Google search... And I don't know about the rest of the board, but I'm still waiting to hear about the changes brought about by the independent audit on the front office.

Gerrit Cole is flaccid -- and that's how Yankee fans have viewed him since he choked in the Wild Card Game at Fenway Park in 2021. That's the year a 10-year old neighbor burned his Cole t-shirt, the one his NY diehard dad bought him (and also stoked the fire in their backyard barbecue).

I get it, but you do realize a cutter is still a fastball... (which from a righty breaks in on a LHH, making it even easier to plunk him). The Red Sox' point is that in the very next at bat, Cole refused to even throw a pitch to Devers -- who could only swing with two bad shoulders and no one on base -- which makes it even less feasible that the first AB was a mistake.

Kenley, your teammates thought they were a contender at the All-Star Break, until you returned to LA and gave up that bomb to Kike... ... and then another one to Heyward the next night... after Bernardino gave one up to Freeman, after Weisert let in the losing run -- twice -- and Horn, and Kelley, and eegaads. Foegedaboudit.