Jake

As a side note, if we end up dumping Narvaez in favor of Smith it will be one the all time low-key stupid decisions we have ever made

The issue with Yoan is that while he has excellent feel for the strike zone, I'm starting to think he has no gameplan whatsoever at the plate. I'm not sure that he really knows what pitches he likes to hit and doesn't like to hit, what pitches he's likely to get in a given situation, things like that. The fault there is of course on our coaching and development, but it's a somewhat fixable problem. It may also be the case that our attempts to get him thinking that way are kind of paralyzing him where he's constantly caught in between.

Engel hit something!

How about that defense!

Love Lopez. I've felt he was the gem in the Eaton trade from the get-go. Going to drive us crazy sometimes with the command but he's got a ton of talent and there's a real pitcher in there.

It became clear last night that Yoan's head was in the wrong place. We've seen him play satisfactorily for long stretches before and he'll get back there.

Everybody off the bandwagon

Everybody get back on the Giolito bandwagon

Let's not undersell just how horrible Dylan Covey was

His motion out of the stretch is all over the place

Looking like this season is going to be a hell of a grind for Giolito

Almost literally tripping over our own dicks out there

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 12, 2018 -> 08:59 PM) Doesn't show his velocity in Charlotte There was a lot of doom and gloom about his velocity in Charlotte early last season, but no we don't have hard measurements. I don't know how you could look at that and not be really concerned about it. It's not 100% evidence of something that can't be flukey, but it's certainly much more probable than not that his "true" velocity irrespective of time of season/weather is on a downward trend.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 12, 2018 -> 08:51 PM) Was his velocity better to start last year? Don't think so

Hard to understand Giolito's dropping velocity. Have to wonder if this ends with a surgery for him.

I sure don't get this one. It's like a reward just for pitching all those miserable mop-up end of game innings in spring training.

Out of curiosity, do the Sox have long-ish term control over Bruce Rondon or is he treated like a typical MLB free agent on a 1-year deal?

Well folks I think people may have been a little quick to anoint Renteria as an amazing manager.

I'm honestly not overly alarmed by this kind of outing from Fulmer. It's obviously not good but I knew he was going to fight his command a lot and that's what this was. I'm encouraged because his stuff looked good and they struggled to square him up. I'm prepared for much of his season to be filled with this kind of inconsistency.

There's really very little doubt that he's going to be a competent hitter. The real question is how good will it get? His propensity to strike out means there's some risk he's going to be more of a .750-.800 OPS type, but I don't see much downside below that.

Really excited about Lopez. I'm not going to lose sleep over the offense at this point given there aren't specific guys who really worry me as of yet.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Apr 7, 2018 -> 04:20 PM) Honestly, Fulmer didn't look good either. Sox just couldn't capitalize on his mistakes. We had a chance to get to him, but his stuff looked great. Right when you start to think you can hit that running heater at 95, he mixes in a changeup or cutter to throw you off.

QUOTE (Scoots @ Apr 7, 2018 -> 04:12 PM) I disagree. Let him work through the jam. He makes the double play earlier, the inning is over. He almost threw more balls than strikes, never had any rhythm, and hit the first two batters of the inning. The best thing we could do is have the start end without him giving up any more runs than he had to. There was no value in having him continue to pitch the way he did today.

Shouldn't have had him in there with a rested bullpen

QUOTE (soxfan49 @ Apr 7, 2018 -> 03:47 PM) He’s throwing 91 mph You say that, but it's not like the Tigers hitting him has really been the problem in this game at all. It's his command and to a lesser extent the defense. Hard to blame the stuff for the runs in this outing