caulfield12

More mental errors by DeAza. You can't get thrown out with Dunn at the plate and down by 3 in that situation. I don't care what Harrelson just said.

Lillibridge looking more like the 2009 and 2010 version. Needs to shorten than swing if he wants to actually make decent contact against a fastball.

Jones would be the 2nd best bullpen option right now in Boston.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 02:18 PM) Very well said...all of Kenny's horrible trades/lack of MLB caliber players in return have really drained this organization. Let's just hope Molina and Castro can build on their recent outings. Be careful, Marty or Cowley will quote that back at you at some point.

Viciedo and Beckham are definitely TALENTED guys. Whether they fulfill that potential, who knows. Same thing with Dunn and Rios, Alexei, Paulie....AJ has always been a good hitter. Morel and DeAza, they're much bigger question marks. AAA players or major league back-ups or starters for bad teams.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 02:13 PM) Just seems like no matter how Ventura configures the lineup, there are 3 guys in it you just know have no chance to contribute that day. Lillibridge should never start against RHP, and still not sure why Escobar is in the majors. Oh well, maybe we can get two guys on and let our best hitter PH today (and no, I don't mean Morel). Too bad we didn't have him in that first inning to blow the game wide open...but at 35 he can't play everyday, clearly. Amazing how the fortunes of the Dodgers have turned so much in the last 18-24 months. Let's hope that we can somehow replicate that turnaround. Andino, Red Sox killer, strikes again.

The most exciting thing about the remainder of this game is seeing if we can manage 10,000 in attendance when they announce it. Chavez is still a VERY good outfielder. Great recovery there.

Harrelson more and more annoyed with our offense and Gavin. On the plus side, a double play removes 2 possibilities of striking out.

Ramirez has been looking pretty hitterish for April play. About as good as he has in his Sox career.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 02:01 PM) Of all things, the pitching staff is the least of out concerns. Not concerned. What I mean is the opposite. If we throw a bunch of shutouts or dominate from a pitching standpoint, it will be 50% because of those stadiums, the woeful line-ups and the cold April weather. Somebody better not serve up a cookie to Cespedes, but Gavin will probably manage it next week.

QUOTE (jeffro2525 @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 02:00 PM) In fairness, the Sox were pretty good vs. the Tigers. The Baltimore series has been a grind though. Even when the O's don't score they put some fear into us with baserunners and hard outs. Those two games we won, almost every possible break went our way. Just the opposite for three of these games. Baseball always tends to even out, especially when you're just an average team. DeAza's been the equivalent of Juan Pierre in CF, to the point where anything we've gotten offensively has been offset by mistakes defensively. That and the fact we were fortunate to face them without Verlander and Fister, too.

Theo Epstein has ruined (or is in the process) of ruining 2 organizations (Cubs swept by Marlins). He might go down as the Alan Greenspan of GM's. From almost mythic hero status to dastardly villain and symbolic of excess. Floyd hanging more and more pitches, Zach Stewart massacre coming soon.

QUOTE (jeffro2525 @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 01:55 PM) It's really gonna be a real relief to see the Mariner and A's order coming up after dealing with Baltimore and Detroit...this has been an unfun series. Baltimore's line-up is annoying. And then we'll all be overconfident about how good our pitching staff is until we face another real major league line-up, like the Red Sox (despite no Ellsbury and Crawford).

97 K's in 11.5 games. 8.43 per game. Unbelieveable. I'm not sure what is more amazing...the fact that we're a 6-6 team or that we could easily be 8-4 or at least 7-5.

No Harrelson, not when the temperature has gone from nearly 70 in the morning to below 50. Floyd got lucky, actually, because he had another ball that should have gone out, forgot who hit it.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 01:49 PM) Can't believe you gave such a hot hitter a good pitch to hit when there's an open base and NICK JOHNSON is up next. Sox doing a lot of really bad things today that help lose a ball game. Harrelson's right about the approach of our hitters, too. Beckham, Morel, Dunn and now Viciedo are completely in between. You have to be looking dead red and dare the pitcher to beat you with 3 offspeed pitches in the zone. Gavin's proving how hard that is to do against the Orioles, no matter how good your curveball CAN be (at times). Johnson was 0-20. Mental midgets. It used to be Alexei that we always criticized for this, but Gavin's the worst offender, overall. Not too much better than Javy.

And he's going to destroy our bullpen in the process. Zach Stewart will get his last chance to stay on the big league roster. We still have a chance in this game, but we had 3 winnable games in this series and lost all three of them, in all likelihood.

We just have to live with the fact that Floyd will never, ever pitch as well on a consistent basis as he did in 2008. He is what he is....but he's not a building block for the future. Challenging their best hitter when Nick Johnson's coming after him is just idiotic.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 01:42 PM) You wonder if Sox are better with Rios in CF and De Aza in LF with Viciedo in RF? De Aza is a triples machine at the plate and in the field. Rios seems to be hitting about as well as he has been in a long time, you have to be scared that moving him back to CF could mess that up. He does seem really comfortable in RF, out of the limelight a little bit. But he did play CF very well in 2010. That was an almost impossible ball to catch, and the runner wasn't even that far off the base. Typical Floyd outing, exasperating, taxes the bullpen, so much ability, but doesn't get Daryll Kyle results.

Good point by Stone, the 5/6 CS numbers for our catchers and pitchers is a huge change from previous seasons. Some of the credit has to go to Ventura there.

DeAza plays that first ball properly, it's 1st and 2nd and Gavin's a double play ball from leaving the inning with the game tied. Little things again.

DeAza with more defensive problems. Really should have been a double. Always happens when you have a chance to blow the game open...the other team has life breathed right back into them. Floyd falling apart. Let's try to limit the damage to 1 instead of 3 this inning, Gavin.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 19, 2012 -> 01:30 PM) Anyone notice how terrible our bench players have been this year? We knew Escobar had no bat. Flowers at least hit a homer, but that bases loaded situation sucked. Fukudome sneaks that liner through the left side two nights ago and we're probably feeling better about the bench. Lillibridge, in all fairness, it's hard to get any kind of offensive rhythm when you only bat once over 5 games, basically. With his type of swing, he has to play a bit more regularly to get dialed in.

Oh, great, another Ted Williams story. Thankfully the Eddie Brinkman one got cut off. I think we are probably leading the AL in K's if you factor in games played/per game average. Will check. Yep, BALT, Oak, and TB are ahead of us (4 or less coming into the game) but they've all played 12-13 games already. So per game, we still lead the AL and will continue to after today sure with 7 already. Last year, as Stone said, we were among the hardest teams in the AL to strike out, and that was with Dunn on the team. This year, the easiest. Greg Walker supporters must love that stat.

Viciedo really seems like he's lost some of his aggressiveness at the plate. Has let a lot of pitches go by this year in the early going. Crap. Struck out the side. At least there are some positives to build on with Dunn and Rios. Now we have to worry about Dayan, unfortunately.