SoxBlanco

This is the biggest mystery to me. It's so obvious that the team has been playing with more intensity and fire, and has been having much more fun since TLR left. No rational person can possibly want TLR back. But what I don't understand is the home run boost. Why are we all of a sudden lifting the ball and hitting it out of the park more frequently now? Does playing loose somehow correlate to getting lift? I can't figure that one out. EDIT: I should add that I know people are saying the contact approach was TLR, but that still doesn't make sense. What was going to happen if they tried to hit more home runs? Would they be benched for not following the orders of hitting for contact? No chance. If they were capable of hitting the ball out of the park, why didn't they try it sooner?

Just tuning in now. How did Kopech look, stuff wise? I like that he had no BBs.

If they don’t want Cease getting too much rest and throwing off his routine, I would just flip-flop Giolito and Lynn. Let Lynn face Cleveland on Thursday, and then have Lucas open up the series against Detroit. There is no scenario where I’m pitching Giolito in the biggest game of the year.

F*ck you, Twins. Runners at the corners with no outs and can’t score.

Yep. With all the injury concerns, you’d be selling low every time. I really want to see the numbers he would put up if he played 140/150 games in a season.

I’m not talking about how many runs he gave up. I was simply referring to watching him pitch. His stuff is just bad right now. When your fastball is a straight-as-an-arrow 4-seamer, and you can’t even command it very well, you aren’t going to fool anyone. The change-up isn’t as effective because of that, and the slider isn’t very good. He just doesn’t look good. I think a good offense would light him up at this point.

While that is definitely true, if you also look at his stuff, he doesn’t have much of anything. A good offense would pound him right now with that stuff.

I don’t think there’s any question that the team is better now. Just look at the starting rotation. It’s not even comparable.

Which team do you think has more talent? 2020 or 2022?

He pitched a scoreless, 3 up/3 down inning. What do you mean by “what happened to him”?

Thanks for the jinx! Sox have finally done the job today.

Bet you wouldn’t have made this post if he was safe.

This was exactly my plan when I figured it all out throughout the rest of the season. We have off-days to make it work. I think you need to fix it so Cease pitches two of the four Cleveland games.

Not anymore! Big out there!

Many disagree, but I still think taking a walk is worse than swinging 3-0 in that situation. Taking a walk is like kicking a field goal when you’re up 55-0. But to be clear, I’m ok with both (walking and swinging). As I mentioned above, anything should be acceptable when one team chooses to pitch a position player.

I’m 100% ok with smashing a grand slam there. It’s laughable that that even needs to be asked (not directing that at you, greg). If a team wants to throw a position player, they need to be ok with the other team scoring 20 runs and swinging 3-0. Anything goes.

There was no chance. At 7-0 with Cease throwing the way he was, there was literally no chance the Twins were winning that game. I have no problem with them throwing a position player there and playing for Sunday’s game.

Or he just wants to ease him back into the lineup with minimal pressure. It’s not uncommon for guys to struggle after missing time. And considering lineup construction doesn’t mean much anyway, I don’t mind it.

That’s good because now you can root for Seattle while I root for the Sox. Otherwise, we’d be stuck at 3 games back after today.

These types of comments make me laugh. How is it "obvious" that the Sox don't want to play? Can you specifically list which players look like they don't want to be out there?

Hilarious that Lambert gave up 0 runs that inning.

Of course it was intentional. Cease balked on purpose to move a guy to third earlier in the series for the same reason.

The ump changed the entire at bat with the first pitch strike call.

I actually like the aggression there from Grandal. Unfortunate that the ball was out of the zone, but I like that he’s trying to do damage there instead of taking a walk. There are situations to be patient and there are situations to be aggressive. I also thought he should have been aggressive in the 4th inning when he took a 2-0 pitch right down the middle. He ended up walking in that at bat, but perhaps we score more runs if he puts a charge into one.