Soxbadger

The Sox have a plan today on how to beat Kazmir, and they are actually executing that plan.

BA's at bat was fine he went 3-2 after being down in the count. OC was just stupid, Kazmir has had control problems and he swings early in the count. Swisher trying to earn his way back in the starting line up.

I disagree with that completely. No one else in the Rays line up scares me at all, the only player I refuse to let beat the Sox is Longoria.

Theres a difference between going after a player and making sure that your careful and dont make bad pitches. With Mark on the mound you can easily try and pitch around Longoria to get to the next player because Mark has that type of control.

Mark makes Longoria look silly reaching and weakly hitting to 2b. End of 1 Sox 2 Rays 0

If they give Longoria a chance to tie this game they are idiots.

Upton looks at one right down the middle. Mark only hitting 87 on the gun.

Wise is horrible after watching Swisher easily get to the ball. How was Wise not even close to a ball that was fair and deeper.

Uribe did okay, got a 2-1 count and looked fastball and got burnt. Fought off a few pitches and made Kazmir work. Bottom line up 2 having 8 batters bat in the first inning is something that you take every single day of the week. Not to mention Kazmir almost at 40 pitches. In reality AJ had the crappiest hit ever, all those pitches to Juan were just gravy.

2-1 he was looking entirely fastball.

32 pitches from Kazmir. He has a problem going 5 usually, he may not get through 4 if the Sox stay patient.

LOL First curveball that Kazmir has thrown and it was a hanger bad.

Kazmir hasnt thrown 1 slider/curveball. Fastball and change up exclusively. Regardless of the out come of this inning, Sox have seen a ton of pitches. And YES Ramirez gets the job done, 2-0 Sox.

Swish had a chance to score there with such a horrible throw. BUt with 1 out gotta hope Alexei can get the job done.

Swung at ball 4 but hes fighting back and seeing the ball well. Come on Paulie

And 0 outs with Kazmir struggling. Cant get thrown out at the plate and then make it so a dp ends the inning.

Cant worka nymore, going to try and see if I can make it home before first pitch. Go SOX

Im actually going to get to be there Sunday due to the awesomeness of one of my fellow workers.

Starting to feel a little edge now. Yesterdays game was the Sox's punishment for not putting the season away when the had a myriad of chances. Now lets see how good they really are with Mark and Danks going the next 2.

True we may have been able to get Harden, but likely the Cubs would have been able to beat whatever offer we made. Im sure the A's wanted Poreda from us, and after that point the Sox just really dont have a lot of depth to trade in the minors.

Not supportive, just if Javy is below average with a sub 5 era, then what are Broadway and Richard with eras over 6 and 7? Everyone who posts here wishes that the Sox could have started Sandy Koufax (luckily our game wasnt on a high holiday), but the facts are the Sox had no Sandy Koufax available. Given the other options, Vazquez had what would seem like the best chances. I just dont understand how you couldnt hope a guy would win who had a sub 4 era against TB... He didnt win, but there was definitely reason to hope.

Im not saying what Ozzie did was wrong, Im saying those are the only things you can even question him on and they arent really clear cut (well pinch hitting for Uribe wasnt clear cut, I think pitch selection was once again horrendous but that has been a problem for the Sox all year.) In the game thread I said that you couldnt pinch hit for Uribe cause of Fields defense, but the more I think about it the more I feel that the Sox should have first worried about tying the game, and then secondly worry about then keeping that tie or lead. But as I said, it really wasnt a game decided by the manager, I just was pointing out the only situations that I saw that potentially could be blamed on Ozzie.

I think if the Sox still had Chris Young they would not have Carlos. So no, I think Kenny is happy to have Carlos and probably could care less about Chris Young. Well I think obviously Kenny says that, because if Kenny could have found cheaper better options he would have. The reason Vazquez is on the Sox is because prior to this year he had a 3.74 era and it looked like he had settled down and gotten in rhythm. There were not very many sub 4 era pitchers available on the market, so Kenny probably could not find a better option at that point. The Sox did not have the bullets to get Harden or CC, and seeing as they did not even get 1 SP the entire season, I really doubt there were any other legitimate options (its pretty telling the Sox werent even willing to take a flier on Garcia). From that I have to assume that Kenny could not do better than what he had, without giving up significant young talent and hurting this team for the future. Thus some times its better to eat a salary in Javy, than it is to rape your farm system. You can always increase your payroll, its not so easy to replace your minor leagues (although for the Sox it is cause few seem to pan out.)

Well if you seriously think Broadway was a better option than Javy yesterday I really dont even know what to say at this point. For all the hate lets look at the facts: 4.67 4.57 The left number is Javy's era, the right number is the league average era. Richards era was 6.04 Broadways era was 7.07 Last I checked 4.67 Was it Richards 2-5 record before yesterday (if you extrapolate that its the equivalent of going 12-30, Javy was 12-16). How could you not have hope when the Rays hit .208 versus Javy? Who cares whether hes a big game pitcher or not, you still had to have hope that based on his performance versus the Rays this season that Javy may be able to get it done. I guess I had more hope in a player who had been able to pitch well against Tampa than pitchers who really havent done anything at all.

The only thing that you could get on Ozzie for is if he calls pitch selection and/or not pinch hitting Swisher for Uribe. It really wasnt a game where managers decided it, more was decided by the players on the field, and in this case the Sox being unable to score runs with 2 outs versus the Rays being able to.