Jose Abreu

Anderson

Was mostly joking. He definitely needs to cut it out with the hard grounders into the shift but he still isn't even top 4 on the team in ground ball rate. For as bad as he looks at the plate, his xwOBA has never been higher and his wOBA has never been lower. His walk rate has never been higher and his strikeout rate has never been lower. His hard-hit rate and xSLG have never been higher. The only concerning batted ball metric is his launch angle being down a few degrees, which I'm sure will get ironed out over time. Way too small of a sample to stress about his results when the underlying metrics are so good, so I'm not worried

Idk man I think Grandal's .108 BABIP is gonna sustain

But it's all ok because he apologized for not pulling Giolito. Apparently making the same mistake over and over is fine as long as you say sorry after the game

At least we know thanks to his track record that when he apologizes, he means it.

It's gross but chances are Robert is back in a couple days

This is what I don't get- you say this as if it's a bad thing? I'd love for the strike zone to actually be 100% consistent. As long as they aren't changing the parameters between games, it doesn't matter whether a ball barely clipping the zone is technically a ball or a strike, as long as it stays that way for both teams. We as fans would get used to the nuance of the borderline calls in time since they wouldn't be changing

It's quite literally the antithesis of instant gratification, it's delayed gratification

I know this isn't what you meant, but I wonder if this gets counteracted later in the season as more pitchers than usual hit the injured list with arm issues as a byproduct of last season

I don't expect it to continue to be *this* bad for us, but yes, it's a very large figure for this point in the season

I've been doing it. Through 21 games we're at -9.91 runs from umpiring. I decided to do this because I've followed these accounts for years and have felt like the Sox frequently are at a disadvantage, but wanted to quantify it so that it didn't seem like whining. I think the 2018 season is what pushed me to wanting robo umps. Watching all those called strike 3s on Moncada conditioned me to just assume that any pitch within 5 inches of the plate would go against us, and it's sad how often that's actually the case

Yup, everything he's doing on offense is pretty expected, save for some of the more extreme naysayers who thought he'd never even hit doubles. I think it's way too soon for victory laps, though, as his defense and baserunning are what will determine if he's just a good starter or a true high-impact weapon, and while they're much better than they were last year and in the first week of the season, we still need to see a lot more

Correct. As awesome as he has pitched, I don't think his performance is that big of a surprise. I still can't see him being a full-time starter for another two months at least (aside from a spot start here and there)

He flipped the ball to the fan after his bullpen session, which every reliever does after every bullpen session

It really is something. Over there, it’s universally understood that the fan was in the wrong, and here, you have all these random narratives that he threw things at a girl? It really isn’t a big deal

If he has a very good season and gets a lucrative contract for it, do you think he'd maintain his new production? If I were a team, I'd be terrified that after paying him he'd revert to his 2020 work ethic/self

Agreed. And while I was disappointed by the lack of mask enforcement during the KC series, it was much better tonight. I've never been within 6 feet of someone for more than ~30 seconds, and even then we were masked and (obviously) outdoors. Overall I'd say it's pretty nice and definitely worth it if you're on the fence

Awesome. I'll take all the anecdotal evidence I can get after reading Greg's post lol

I kind of want Vaughn to get sent down, not necessarily for the year of control but just because of how ridiculous it is to send down a player with a .400 OBP

Getting J&J tomorrow. Has anyone here gotten it? I'm expecting flu-like symptoms for ~24 hours afterwards and hopefully nothing worse

They're even on extended rest since there were 2 days off instead of 1. There's no reason Giolito or even Keuchel should be unable to start tonight