bubba phillips

The highlight indicates exactly all you need to know about Steverson---Abreu doesn't listen to him. And apparently neither do several other players based on comments by Renteria after several losses that Steverson's game plans were not being executed by the players.

Nice win last night in Game 2. Not so nice for the "I hope the Sox lose but the core players do well" crowd.

Seems like every error that Anderson makes (and he makes a ton of them), results in a run.

Q: What's wrong with this lineup? A: Nobody in it is batting below .200

If he was so good, then why did the Sox release him?

I didn't phrase that right. I didn't mean that the Sox couldn't afford him. I meant that they thought he wasn't worth the salary he was earning, going forward.

The Sox didn't give up on him. I think he just priced himself off the team. In the Sox defense, in the 7 years he was with the team, he gradually raised his BA from the low .200's to .240 his last 2 years. He did have a couple of good years in Atlanta when he hit .270 and .281. But this year, he's at .221 and fans are b****ing on the talk shows that he should be dumped because of the poor hitting and the large number of passed balls and the inability to throw out base runners. While he's always had a PB problem, he is also regarded as one of the best pitch-framers in the game. I wonder if the 2 are related. Is he so concerned with bringing in the borderline pitches to get the strike call, that the ball sometimes goes off the edge of his mitt. Just a thought.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that we won't do as badly against Houston in this series as we did against Oakland (3 runs in 3 games, 2 of them shutouts). Although it is possible. Houston's pitching is so good that Greinke is the "worst" starting pitcher of the 3 that we are scheduled to face in this series (based on ERA). And we don't even have to face Verlander.

Great players making great managers is the exception, rather than the rule. Very few examples exist of great players also being great managers. In fact, you could almost say, the worse the manager was as a player, the better he was as a manager. Student of the game and all that. Like the old bromide goes: them that can, do; them that can't, teach".

Appears to be right up our alley. By all means sign him up and Renteria will immediately put him in the lineup at DH and of course batting 4th.

This will not be fixed next year alone. How can we compete with Cleveland and Minnesota next year? Not only our hitting, but our overall pitching sucks. Our run differential of -117 shows just how far we have to go to catch the teams above us in the division. The run differential between us and Minnesota is currently at 234. It's 203 vs. Cleveland.

True. But his ERA is in the 3's, just like it is for Fiers. Their ERA's were not 0.00 coming in to this series. Obviously somebody scores runs against them.

Except when he makes frequent bad plays. He has 3 errors in only 45 games and several other misplays that were not errors. That's not horrible, but not good for a player whose ONLY contribution to the team (and what's keeping him in the majors) is his supposed elite defense. In comparison, I believe Mike Trout had ONE error all last season.

Ten more wins and we match last year's total.

And now for the weather. Tonight, dark, continued dark for the next several hours, until turning light early in the morning. (Al Sleet, the Hippy Dippy Weather Man---George Carlin)

Actually, Renteria is getting better at that. He's got the requisite .190 hitter in the lineup (Castillo) and he's batting him 8th.

Seems we have zero chance whenever we face even a remotely quality pitcher. The hitters get outsmarted every time.

Ya think? They used 4 pitchers today: all 4 now have an ERA of between 5.02 and 5.63. Edit: the good news---Bummer (who some feel will have his arm fall off from overuse) now has had 3 straight days off.

I wish people would stop b****ing about the umpiring every friggin' game. The umpires are inconsistent towards EVERY TEAM. Ever watch SportsCenter? Not a show goes by that they don't show some player or manager b****in' about balls and strikes---and that includes the best teams, not just the bottom feeders.

Absolutely. Too many people are assuming that the players injured this year will come back good as new (or even better) next year. That's a stretch for the pitchers coming back from TJ surgery. Sure they could be good as new. They could also have a setback in their recovery (some may need a second procedure) or simply not progress from where they were prior to the surgery. Also, injuries will happen again next year. Will they be to the same guys? different core players? Will they be season ending for any key player? Obviously no one knows.

Crazy portion of the schedule. We just played 3 games in 24 hours and won't take the field for 52 hours after the end of today's game. We then play games on 17 consecutive days, which include trips to and from the West Coast. Good thing we're not in a pennant race this year.

I initially thought the same. Then I realized that one of the games yesterday was a makeup of a rainout and today's game was already scheduled as a day game.

Sox are 28th in defense in MLB. Shockingly, the 29th team is----the best team in the NL, the Dodgers. I guess you don't need to catch and throw the ball if you do the other parts of the game really well.

Sox need to go only 12-39 the rest of the way to match last year's record.

And we thought losing 16 out of 20 after the break was bad.