4-19 GT: Sox @ Boston (10:10am)

[turnin' two]

Too bad the Sox didn't have a game today.  It would have been a nice midday distraction.

[fathom]

10 minutes ago, ShoeLessRob said:

Mark Wahlberg even thought this was a shit show. 

And he’s had a bad day

[35thstreetswarm]

17 minutes ago, ShoeLessRob said:

Mark Wahlberg even thought this was a shit show. 

[RagahRagah]

1 hour ago, Jack Parkman said:

Yes. He was up in the count and threw them in the zone and they got destroyed. They were watching fastballs high in the zone. How did they tell the difference? Nobody has before. 

If I'm understanding you correctly it would be pretty easy to know when a change is coming if they always come on 0-2 and 1-2 counts. How consistent was that? Why keep throwing them on those counts then? And wasn't Grandal smart enough to pick up on that and throw more sliders/curves?

[Jack Parkman]

2 minutes ago, RagahRagah said:

If I'm understanding you correctly it would be pretty easy to know when a change is coming if they always come on 0-2 and 1-2 counts. How consistent was that? Why keep throwing them on those counts then? And wasn't Grandal smart enough to pick up on that and throw more sliders/curves?

Because Gio's change is usually so good that it doesn't matter. Hitters see fastball. They just can't pick it up. 

That's why this start is so confusing. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Jack Parkman

[SCCWS]

31 minutes ago, Squirmin' for Yermin said:

I am going to guess pitching at 10 am.

He was pitching like it was 10:00am but the game was at 11:00am

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

1 hour ago, Greg Hibbard said:

I guess the thing that makes me mad about this is we have Rodon going tomorrow coming off of pitching a nearly perfect game, Cleveland’s offense is scuffling this season and yet we are treating this bullpen with kid gloves. Why? Rodon can go deep tomorrow. All of our starters can go deep. 

It's not the nature of baseball anymore to expect deep starts. I'd guess half the games so far the starters have gone 5 or less. That means a lot of BP usage. Long season after a short season already lost Fry and Cordero , Lynn on the IL . I prefer the kid glove treatment, there's a long way to go.

Edited April 19, 2021 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside

[The Grinder]

I think I'm the only one who didnt pitch today, my feelings are hurt

[Greg Hibbard]

1 hour ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

It's not the nature of baseball anymore to expect deep starts. I'd guess half the games so far the starters have gone 5 or less. That means a lot of BP usage. Long season after a short season already lost Fry and Cordero , Lynn on the IL . I prefer the kid glove treatment, there's a long way to go.

In the 15 games prior to Kopech’s planned short start, by my math White Sox starters have thrown 84 1/3 innings, an average of 5 2/3rds per start. In 4 of those games pitched, there were only 8 innings of Sox pitching during road losses, so the total number of innings was only 131, so Sox starters had thrown 64% of the innings pitched this season. Yes the last couple days have taken a toll on that. However, overall that feels fine and I would bet a high percentage compared to other teams, but I haven’t researched further. This whole thing today felt like another excuse for TLR to go recklessly old school/gimmicky on us. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by Greg Hibbard

[Dominikk85]

3 hours ago, ChiSox59 said:

Seemed a tad early for the position player pitching IMO.  6 runs isn't impossible with 6 outs.  Oh well.  Was entertaining at least.  

I think from a pure winning standpoint position player pitching is not used enough. 

With a 6 run deficit in the 8th your win probability in an even match up is about 0.5%.

 

Such a comeback does happen but basically it means you Win less than 1 in 100 of such games and saving the pen 99 times is probably worth more. 

There are other reasons to not do it like paying people in the stadium and people watching on TV, basically the quality of your product brand, but from a pure winning perspective teams are probably not tanking enough. 

I wonder if a team like the Rays which has no fans anyway will do that one day and radically tank games with big deficits using position players. That would probably cost you 2 wins over the course of a season but it would allow you to use your pen much more aggressively in the remaining games which would create extra wins. 

[Dominikk85]

2 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

look I get the intention to concede the game and not tax the pen, but why risk injury? These guys don’t know how to field the position and pitching is unnatural to them at this stage of their career. I know it’s “part of the game” or whatever but I don’t think pitching should be something that you just throw a position player into on a whim. Heuer last pitched Friday, why not throw him 1 inning? Bummer threw 1 inning this series, why not throw him? 

That's why you usually use utility infielders and 4th outfielders to pitch and not highly paid stars or young top prospects. 

[soxrwhite]

Boston clearly knew what pitch was coming. They had the signs. Cora has a history.

[Soxfest]

Team has no interest in being over .500

[soxrwhite]

2 hours ago, Jack Parkman said:

Because Gio's change is usually so good that it doesn't matter. Hitters see fastball. They just can't pick it up. 

That's why this start is so confusing. 

Not confusing. They are back to sign stealing.

[pcq]

Can't wait for the replay of this game. Might sell copies on eBay. 

[fathom]

23 minutes ago, soxrwhite said:

Boston clearly knew what pitch was coming. They had the signs. Cora has a history.

And those damn cheaters made Lucas lose a significant amount of spin/drop on his change up 

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, Dominikk85 said:

I think from a pure winning standpoint position player pitching is not used enough. 

With a 6 run deficit in the 8th your win probability in an even match up is about 0.5%.

 

Such a comeback does happen but basically it means you Win less than 1 in 100 of such games and saving the pen 99 times is probably worth more. 

There are other reasons to not do it like paying people in the stadium and people watching on TV, basically the quality of your product brand, but from a pure winning perspective teams are probably not tanking enough. 

I wonder if a team like the Rays which has no fans anyway will do that one day and radically tank games with big deficits using position players. That would probably cost you 2 wins over the course of a season but it would allow you to use your pen much more aggressively in the remaining games which would create extra wins. 

They already have McKay with that in mind...partially. Saving money, too, over the longer term.  But he got hurt just like Ohtani. 

Edited April 19, 2021 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, Dominikk85 said:

That's why you usually use utility infielders and 4th outfielders to pitch and not highly paid stars or young top prospects. 

Plus Yermin wasn't throwing all out...77~78 isn't close to his throws from the catcher's spot or were he positioned in the outfield.  Now if he got hurt, though, everyone would look like complete dumbasses. 

[lostfan]

Me: The Sox had an unusual start time today. Given it's over already let's check the box score, see how they did

Me: oh dear

[napa_soxfan]

Just gotta say I hate the familiarity of seeing them get some mojo back, and then just sh*t the bed. They lose 6-2, or some such and it’s a relatively close game save for 1-2 innings of good opposing offense, not a big deal. But to lose in embarrassing fashion and take seemingly more than one step back just feels like crap. They need to string more than 2 wins together and exorcise some bad frickin juju.

[poppysox]

This is not a game that "hurts".  Those would be the 1-0 or 2-1 blown saves, etc.  This was just one of those days.

[Chick Mercedes]

4 hours ago, Soxfest said:

Team has no interest in being over .500

I’ll just say, splitting series’, and occasionally winning them is ok for now. At least they aren’t beating themselves and are obtaining outcomes fair and square lately.