5GoldGlovesOF,75

Batters should always look for the fastball, especially from a guy who throws hard. But when I face a pitcher who just bounced a curve, I'm expecting heat the rest of the at bat; especially, with men on base, and particularly, on third.

Technically summer is officially June 20 until September 22, so Barnes has only been lousy in part of this summer -- the part that matters most so far, namely when the first-place Red Sox blew the division lead. iortiz astutely cites, "command and control" as the issue, and from my observation, Barnes has lost his curve when it matters. More are bouncing, less are snapping in the zone, and batters have been sitting on his fastball. And I'm not talking about Semien hacking first pitch, but Springer swinging from the heels on 3-2 because he knows dead red is coming. In reverse, this is why Eovaldi continues to improve. In the past it seemed a mystery how a guy who throws 100 mph could get hit so much, but Eck and co. now rave about the mix of Nate's "five-pitch repertoire".

Three Red Sox players on MLB's Prospect Team of the Week: Yorke, Murphy and Hernandez: Prospect Team of the Week August 23 2021 WWW.MLB.COM MLB Pipeline's Prospect Team of the Week honors the best performances from the previous seven days. Any Minor Leaguer currently on an organization Top 30 Prospects list in our Prospect Rankings is eligible. It was far from a banner week for the Red Sox at the Major League level. However,

I was at yesterday's game. The bright spot on defense was when Schwarber rushed in from left field to tag out the final baserunner when the Rangers ran themselves out of a rally. Forget the excuses of the D not supporting Barnes -- it's not going to improve, and no team meeting is going to change bad hands or arms or lack of range. The reason Barnes is lousy this summer is because he can no longer put batters away. Ottavino was always inconsistent at this... but Whitlock still can do it -- for the most part. The key to the last month just may be if Cora can find another strikeout reliever, whether it's Houck with his righty Sale stuff, or Robles' 98 mph brushbacks... yes, it is that desperate. Texas deserved to lose because its closer threw an 0-2 pitch in the air to Devers. I said he'd swing at anything near his bat and all the pitcher had to do was roll the ball to home to end the game. Watching the replay from the centerfield camera angle, however, the pitch wasn't that bad -- slider on the outside corner -- but still Santana's fault because Rafie could reach it.

All the preseason pundits are finally feeling justified right about now. They just knew NY would acquire two big lefty sticks at the deadline to anchor the heart of the order, and get hot with Odor hitting .213 and playing third, a rookie playing shortstop, and their top two relievers unreliable due to injuries and rule changes. There's no stopping those pinstripes.

Interleague play and the imbalanced schedule used to irk me, even though Boston always seemed to fare well vs. the NL. But "traditional" match-ups always favored the Yankees, because the Mets sucked for so long. Meanwhile, the Sox always get the Braves, who maybe somewhere in the nation still have a couple fans whose ancient ancestors once lived in the Comm Ave area near Boston University and rooted for the Senior Circuit Nine.

White Sox lead their division by nine games; Kimbrel can blow a game per week and they'll still dance. Houston only has two more wins than Boston. Any team in the AL East advancing to the postseason has a legit shot at winning the pennant... maybe even a ring. Atlanta has been one of the hottest teams in the NL the past month, leads the NL East by 4.5 games, and the Red Sox' record is still 2 1/2 games better.

At peace with WAR: JD 2.9, Hunter 1.9. Martinez leads in most batting averages, but traditional stats are nearly identical; each with 23 HRs, 70-something RBIs. On defense, both are negative dWARs, even though Renfroe leads the big leagues in assists. Ok, Sox fans: who do you think has been a better player at the plate and in the outfield combined?

Not coincidentally, after our posts about the porous D, Speier sums it up in today's Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/08/22/sports/saturdays-debacle-flashpoint-glaring-red-sox-issue-defense/ Like I said yesterday, it's too late to make any major improvements now (except take the glove away from JD). They may still eek out a WC slot, but expect huge changes over the winter. Posters get down on Beni, JBJ and even Mookie (for his "greed"), but their D was such an underrated part of the best Sox team ever, on a staff of fly ball pitchers. And this season's outfield, as bad as it is, has been the bright area on the field...

Good comparison, but fans forget how bad the collapse of 1974 really was: 70-54 on August 23 -- egads, almost identical to today -- except that record in '74 had Boston in first, seven games ahead... then the Red Flops only won 14 more and finished third, seven games back. In '74 Rice and Lynn were September call-ups and not part of the problem. Their best player, Fisk, broke his arm in Spring Training and only played in 52 games; I remember going back to school and one of my friends commenting how the Sox couldn't have had a better summer even with Fisk (his back-up was Bob Montgomery). Suddenly, Boston completely stopped hitting, scoring three runs or less in 13 of 18 straight games (predictably, they went 5-13). The whole slump started when All-Star starters Tiant and Lee lost both ends of a double-header to Baltimore, 1-0 and 1-0... back when they played nine innings.

I'm definitely rooting for the Yankees... to show all their true warts after playing over everyone's heads for a month: swing from the heels for the fences, play below-average defense at shortstop and catcher, blow late leads, confuse Boone, and go on a losing streak like they're capable of. I'm not rooting for injuries to any key players, though, because I'm confident that will happen as usual.

In concept, I was surprised Bloom extended Barnes mid-season, but in context for an All-Star closer, it was a team-friendly deal. As for the Tampa MO, I could still see Bloom trading Barnes and not signing a big-money reliever. It's more likely the Sox convert a homegrown prospect in the hopes of finding a Papelbon. The Rays always develop their back-end bullpens by stockpiling young power arms making league minimums. Bloom did acquire the relatively expensive Ottavino, but thought it was worth it to get German. The big expenditures will be for starting pitching or for a star infielder to replace someone traded for a starter... and maybe to sign Schwarber.

The Sox should've known because Pedey was so short!!! If Machado had stabbed a sharp metal implement into 6'4 DJ LeMahieu's knee ligaments, the mad spiker would've bounced all the way back to the dugout. Well... maybe just first base, since Machado is 6'3.

This is the gist of the choke post and how outside and inside pressure builds (cue signs and jeers of "1918!") and can affect performance. Most here must admit the feasibility of this concept vs. say the opposite of the "cool, calm, clutch" guys...

The thing is -- no matter how optimistic we can be about batters breaking out or pitchers hitting spots or baserunners making better decisions -- bad defense is seldom due to "slumps." Bad defenders can improve, if say, Dalbec practices hundreds of scoops per day or JD catches hundreds of flies. But, at this point in a pennant race, the quickest way to improve team defense is to use different players... and we know that's not happening before October.

Rodon will still be a better recruit than Richards ANY DIGIT.O...

Carlos Rodon, 28, would be a good target. Will Bloom outbid Cashman?

Defense. If quality D doesn't always win titles, bad D definitely loses them. Anyone who plays, coaches or watches Little League knows that. We know all players are human and will have bad days. They can also be below-average at their level, but not for very long or they'll be gone. This second fact is what needs to be addressed -- certainly, this offseason -- but it's too late this year for any more fixes. For the rest of '21, we've no choice but to live with the left side of the infield where All-Star hitters are stationed (but does a complete overhaul depend on Bloom trading either Devers or Bogaerts?). JD should never play outfield; his swing and miss bat doesn't make up for weakening an already shaky D. Kike's a better outfielder than second baseman, but at least he hustles. Dalbec isn't good at first, though the front office has made sure there's no one better on this year's roster. Maybe Bloom will splurge on Freeman and trade Casas for a top pitching prospect. ERod never covers first on a grounder to the right side. Vazquez has regressed behind the plate -- catching, throwing, even tagging. There's no reason to expect either to improve as they age. So many holes that need to be filled...

Good point; a lot of people are making last minute hurricane preparation plans today, but rescheduling Sunday to Monday might be even more unlikely for fans to be able attend if they're dealing with clean-up and power outages.

Absolutely. The other consideration is if he wasn't sidelined at the deadline, if other contenders with their wealth of better, more-valued prospects would've outbid us...

Nothing personal, but if Arroyo is playing first base in the minors, it's an organizational move. Cora doesn't manage Wooostah, and he definitely doesn't general manage there, either. He may have a voice, but doubt he has that much influence. The news that Arroyo's there again shows that the desperation comes from an office a little higher than next door to the clubhouse.

It's improbable the '21 collapse was due to players feeling abandoned by their chief baseball officer at the deadline. It's even more unlikely the Sox doubted their own abilities. But it is feasible they looked around at all the big names who joined other contenders and thought: "Rut-roh..."

Yup, Sox have played like crap for so long, it won't matter who they face until they can improve 4 or 5 tools.

2013 Buchholz was better than 2013 Lackey (just not in the postseason). The original premise said "in the year", but was it implied in October? In that case, the '18 Sox had Eovaldi and Price. Hurst was definitely the ace in the '86 postseason, better than Clemens. Hurst was at his best in September and October, but before that was arguably Boston's #3 starter, behind Oil Can Boyd, whose first-half had him in the discussion of making the AL All-Stars (though maybe he was doing most of the discussing).

Or several throws flipped past hot hitters by a pitcher so completely in command that day that he can shut down a club that scored 20 runs just the day before...