chw42

Yoan is infuriating

Elvis has actually never played 2B in his MLB career. He might actually put up a 3 WAR season this year so you'd think he might get better offers to play SS this off-season. At the very least he'd get a deal like Simmons got this past off-season.

He definitely wasn't his usual self until maybe July-ish? His velocity sucked when he first came back. Constantly in the low 90s. He's been much better velocity-wise in his recent starts to where he's hitting mid 90s. But his recent success is partially due to his revamped curveball. I thought Sox Machine did a good job talking about it in their article today: https://soxmachine.com/analysis/lance-lynn-returns-to-old-form-with-a-new-look-curveball/ Two things that I thought were real interesting: he's using the curve heavily to combat lefties' effectiveness against him this year. They've only hit .170 against him since he's deployed the new-look curve. His release point on the curve is distinguishable from his other pitches. It's definitely a lower release point. I wouldn't say that it's in "he's tipping his pitches" territory, but a team like the Astros would probably be able to pick up on the release point difference after they see him a few times. If teams don't pick up on the release point difference, his new curveball would be extremely helpful against teams like the Astros who cover the fastball extremely well. It also gives Lance more of a speed differential between his main pitches, which I think is what he was sorely missing last year. Lance's fastballs-only approach worked well with no sticky stuff enforcement. He got elite spin rates on his 4 seamer with it and it helped with his pinpoint control on his cutter and sinker. Without the sticky stuff, his control was no longer pinpoint and the fastball spin, while really good, was no longer 99 percentile elite. He's now more prone to mistakes on those pitches and fastballs right down the pipe that got popped up last year are now homers. He really had to re-invent his repertoire a bit to get back to being a respectable starter again and it looks like the new curveball has done just that.

His streak seems too good to be true. He was absolutely awful in the first half. Then he wins a round in the HR derby against Schwarber who seemed to be mailing it in for his round. Then we got the story about how Kirk was signaling pitchers to throw Pujols fastballs right down the middle during the ASG. Pujols is also homering against lots of teams who have no chance of making the postseason. It sure seems like everyone involved wants him to break the record.

His FIP is now below 4. He's starting to come around at the perfect time. Now I feel pretty confident about Cease, Lynn, and Cueto starts.

That was huge. Bullpen is gonna be short handed tomorrow, so who knows what's gonna happen the next 2 days. We had to get this one.

Tony yelling at his TV right now.

Liam is just not real good right now.

Holy s%*# I thought that was gone for sure.

Elvis to the rescue!

This AB won't end well...

I don't get taking Lynn out at less than 90 pitches. He was cruising.

Well that was probably the best case scenario for the Sox. Guardians lose and the Mariners used their whole bullpen plus they'll fly back super late.

Mariners choking hard

The Guardians are so annoying cause they'll dink hits all over the place and beat out grounders on the infield. Rosario gets so many undeserved hits.

Worst case scenario, the Mariners waste their entire bullpen and fly in at 3 in the morning for an afternoon game tomorrow.

Not sure what Servais was doing taking Swanson out and bringing in Sewald.

They had a great chance to take a lead in the 7th, but bad coaching and execution cost them. Haseley should have either been waved home on Pollock's double or he should have been off with the pitch on the squeeze. I just looked at the the replay of Pollock's double and the throw completely missed the cut-off man and bounced slowly to home plate. Haseley was basically around third and stopping as the throw missed the cut-off man. He could have scored on that.

The humidor cursed this team again. Eloy and Pollock's hits in the 7th are probably both homers without the humidor.

Cleveland gets KC while we get Seattle. The Twins get the Yankees. Hopefully we can take at least one game in Seattle and beat up on Oakland while the Yankees beat the Twins and the Twins and Guardians beat up on each other.

Pollock actually looks pretty good out in CF.

Another waste of $3 million. Davis Martin's done a way better job than VV has this year. And he was an absolute nobody before the season.

Well that's ball game.

I don't think they should be using Liam in this situation, they would rather save him for tomorrow when they might be up late in the game. But I think there might be better options than VV for the 9th when you're only down 2.

Did we really expect anything different from Tony's protégé?