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Pedro seems partial to a RLRLRL lineup. I don't think you can have TA and Benitendi getting the most PA when neither one has a HR. Plus TA is obviously not 100% so maybe lessen his responsibilities and take some pressure off him and his knee. The problem I see now is who the heck do u lead off ? It should be a LH vs a RHP and the lineup should be LRL not RLR. They didn't listen to me in the off season to get younger faster and more LH and instead opted to chase their hearts desire in Benitendi. Now this teams plods along with Vaughn, Sheets, Grandal I agree that Burger should be higher when he still might be the most likely player on the team to hit a HR next to the scalding Robert. But do you start the games against a RHP with Moncada, Burger, Robert then who ? Grandal ? Sheets ? Or do you maintain LRL and put Grandal or Sheets 3rd and Robert 4th ? But somewhere you're putting Tim and Benintendi 6th and 7th , Grandal 8th because of his own health issues and age. Imagine the s%*# storm in here seeing Sheets hitting 3rd or 4th. But most of the time he does have decent ABs .

There is a decent amount of talent on the team it's just always injured. We've seen enough flashes from guys like Eloy and Moncada to know they are very talented. Same goes for Tim , probably Cola and Sosa too. But what we haven't seen is the ability to stay on the field and see enough pitching to develop a level of consistency that will allow you to make minor adjustments along the way. In the rookies cases it just has to be a constant reinforcement that YOU have to control the strike zone. YOU cannot hit everything a pitchers throws in the strike zone hard so how do you expect to hit the balls out of the strike zone hard ? You must cut down your Chase % and swing %. All these organiztions we see being patient against the Sox pitcher they all know this. It's what makes them MLB players. Early in the season Robert was very bad. Why ? Mainly because he got into some bad habits last year because he was injured and basically you forget and have to rediscover what made you good when you were healthy and hot. If you are not ever healthy, which we can say for most of his career, his development will be slower.

I think a lot of what is driving his improvement is something that they should be teaching every player but especially Colas now. The ability is there but what wasn't there is the ability to control the strike zone. You have to improve your Swing %, Chase % and K %. If you improve the 1st 2 your K % will follow and you'll get better pitches to hit. Keep your weight back and be balanced. Get into hitters counts.The best hitters don't have to lunge and reach an outside pitch to hit a HR to RF. They let their bat take it's natural swing path and know they can still barrel it up. Just compare how often he was lunging at outside pitches when he was 3 for 50 or w/e it was. Now he's very quiet in the box , balanced , seeing the ball better, swinging less, chasing less. Check out Burger's HR to RF from yesterday. He was behind in the count but on a hanger on the outside corner but up he waited on that pitch . He didn't go out after it and try to hook it to LF. A lot of HR hitters just don't feel they have much power to RF for whatever reason. That's why hitters make a concerted effort to pull so much. A guy like Arenado feels he has to pull it. The majority of HR hitters pull the ball. Judge has a cozy RF so even though he does less power going that way he can still muscle them out that way. Plus you are never a finished product. Muncy made adjustments this off season. Probably took thousands of swings. Then the season started and whoops he sucked. However he made some adjustments on the fly and now he's got 14 HR's. Most hitters tinker and try to improve . You can't give up on guys too early. Sosa might look like crap at the MLB level now but that doesn't mean he always will. You hope he finds what he's looking for. Beckham never could make the adjustment and he started off hot. I'd almost rather see a rookie struggle and he might think he's got it all figured out and then bam ,these coaches and pitchers are too smart and will find your tiniest weakness to exploit it. It's the ongoing game within a game to which we are often not privy.

Robert continues his torrid streak. Burger and Sheets combined for the Shurger Burger Bombs. Lance Lynn looked like he turned back the clock. 8-3 final score.

Beat on the Bieber . Usually I don't think the Sox hit him well. STats may not support that but that's how it seems.

AL leader in HRs now. HR 4th game in a row. Arenado hit hit for his 5th game in a row tonight.

That was an oppo taco-burger !

Shurger !!! That's Sheet and Burger together , that's they call themselves for those who don't know.

Especially the Earl Weaver Special

That a boy Gavin !

How are you supposed to drive the ball on a pitcher pitch ? The very definition of a pitchers pitch is one that's designed to not allow you to drive it. It's usually on the black.

He would have been gunned down if he attempted to get to 2nd and he also wouldn't have scored on the following single even if he had been on 2nd.

I sure hope that this isn't one of those 10+ hits 1 run games for the Sox.

If you're going to be as open as some of our guys you might as well get on top of the plate.

Sheets hits a lot of shots foul. I wonder if he can just re position his feet to a slightly more closed stance so he can get them fair.

That 0-1 cutter to Arias had a lot of movement.

If the game is close late. I'd avoid Naylor . He was smokin hot in late innings against the ANgels and he's a huge Sox killer.

For those who wanted Robert 3rd you got your wish. There is however the fact that his most productive spot in the order has been 5th this season. But he's been pretty good hitting 3rd too. Batting 3rd : 5 for 16 .313 BA 1 HR, 1 2B , 1 RBI . 476 OBP, .563 Slugging Batting 5th : 10 for 26 , 3 2B , 4 HR , 9 RBI, .448 OBP .962 Slugging

Because when all players suck it has to be the manager and coaches fault because of well just because ! And when players are good it's the player's natural ability. Sometimes the player won't listen to coaching or the player listens but the changes won't work/takes too long or a player doesn't feel comfortable after making the changes. Or the player will just never take the next step because of injuries piling up or the natural progression from thrower to pitcher or AAA star to MLB player takes longer or never happens. A coach can suggest try choking up a 1/2inch or try a short/longer/lighter/heavier bat and a player could look at them like they are crazy and say cmon now that's little league advice.

Maybe it was a rhetorical question but it was actually the last game that he had a hit to the left side. He put one in the hole between 3rd and SS .

Thanks for changing the title. As usual all the wild hot takes come early and the more reasonable ones come later. I did come back to thank you and to say just how strange the internet is to have someone start a controversy just by suggesting that if TA said he hated this place ,they wouldn't blame him. I don't know if that's the tweet that started it. It seemed like the tweeter knew that's not what he said but only suggested that if he said it he would be right. How that got turned into he actually said he hated this place, I have absolutely no idea. But then to see people arguing that it made more sense that he said " place" rather than " pitch clock" based on the game situation blows my mind. Dudes you're arguing that something made sense to be true from a starting point of something wasn't even true to start with just to pile more controversy onto a player who really doesn't need falsities created to his already controversial persona. We get it. The Sox are in a very bad place and TA hasn't been the TA of 20??- 2021 for a while, but really ? This never should have become a thing. It's literally putting words in someone's mouth and attempting to argue that it could be true because of how you think that person must be thinking because you'd be thinking that way if ,instead of being a fat slob on the couch watching sports and fantasizing of being him, that's exactly what you would say, instead of pass me the cheese dip. SMH.

When he hit his 9th HR a few days ago I incorrectly called it his 10th. 1/2 hr. later when I realized it, I re-entered the game thread to correct myself. When I saw that someone had already corrected me. I responded that I was getting ahead of myself and that he would hit another one later in the game. That prediction failed but he did hit another one the next day for his 10th and the day after that for his 11th.

I hadn't heard that . I know I read that Burger really liked whatever it's called and brought up that it wasn't available for road games. I wondered if that's been resolved ?

Thank you kindly although I was tempted to say he'll get injured some time around the time Eloy is due back, either slightly before or slightly after. But at least that would give us another 3 or 4 weeks of Robert. Maybe Eloy can come back sooner. Was good to see him in the dugout yesterday.

I was perusing the fWar leaders and it seemed only a week ago that Robert was at 1.1. Now he's at 1.7 after a scalding last 2 weeks. That's 14th in all of baseball. The only thing preventing him from winning AL player of the Week award 2 weeks in a row was Anthony Rizzo. Marcus Semien is 4th with 2.1 Surprises: Yandy Diaz 5th 2.0 Emerging as a big talent the last couple of years with the Rays since they acquired him from Cleveland in December 2018. He's now 31 years old. Jonah Heim 7th SH Catcher TX. 1.9 . Could be 1st half flash in the pan or just another late blooming catcher. I once suggested that the Sox trade Zach Collins for Heim before the trade deadline in 2021 when they both sucked. James Outman Dodgers unranked LH Rookie OF 17th 1.6 NL Rookie of the Month for April . Most of you know how much I wanted him on the Sox from the 100 times I mentioned him the past off season.