Roster Thoughts

After a highly successful road trip the Red Sox return to finish the season at home over the next week.  Having clinched at least a playoff berth the Sox will at least have an opportunity to play in a divsion series and it is time for John Farrell and Company to start reaching conclusions about the way a DS roster would look.  Even if the Sox don’t win the division (knock on wood, turn around, spit) a Wild Card game gives them enough of a chance that I think it is worth considering.

For now ...

Step One Complete

The goal for this team remains winning the division but with their win last night and the Angels loss the Sox have officially qualified for the playoffs for the second consecutive season.  This is the first time since 2007-2009 that they have had consecutive postseason experiences so this is something to be celebrated.  Maybe not champagne but a little cold duck could do the trick.

More importantly the Sox have taken a big step toward winning the division.  I will freely admit having been ...

The 2011 Mirror

September 10, 2011

As day turned into night turned into morning I found myself thinking of that night in Tampa six years ago.  A dramatic comeback had seemingly set up an absolutely vital victory.  Instead the Sox could not close the deal and the Rays swept and we all know what came next.

On Friday the extra inning warriors did it again.  Running their record to an amazing 13-3 in extra inning games by exploding for seven runs aided by another key Tampa error to bail out the 0 for 9 Dustin ...

Grind On

It wasn’t pretty but the Sox picked up consecutive series victories by surviving a fairly harrowing afternoon tilt on Thursday to push the lead back to 3 1/2 games.  The 6-2 score is a bit flattering as this one was tight until the 7th and even in the ninth Kimbrel was less than impressive.

I will freely admit I’m in total pants pissing mode right now but this game is an example of why the logical portion of my brain (which is very very very tiny, about 1/100th of a Pedroia) is confident in ...

The Schedule Is Not In Our Favor

Not this year, silly. The 2018 Red Sox schedule is out. And it’s a mess.

So Here We Are

After 137 games despite a disappointing weekend in the Bronx the Red Sox are in pretty good shape.  With just 25 games left the Sox hold a 3 1/2 game lead in the division and have a decent if not fully comfortable lead in the division.  They weathered The Gauntlet¶ at 14-11 rather than vi’s hoped for 15-10 but a lead that was 3 games at the start is now ever so slightly better.

Now comes the opportunity to take the division home.  The Sox final 25 games feature just seven against teams over ...

Punto Change Mucho

Today is the 5th anniversary of the Punto trade.

I’m linking the old thread, which was started the night before as rumors started swirling. Nice trip down memory lane.

Just Keep Going

As we all expected the Sox bounced back from Monday’s disappointing loss by trouncing the Indians behind Doug Fister’s complete game one hitter.  In a lot of ways the last five days have been a microcosm for what has made this team successful through their first 125 games.  On Friday they won an absolute grinder that went back and forth, Saturday they lost a disappointing well pitched affair, then they bounced back Sunday behind a strong performance from Rick Porcello, lost Monday’s tough one ...

The Gauntlet

This month is the gauntlet for Boston. They need to do more than just endure it.

Turn The Page

The Sox picked up a helpful victory on Monday night behind the outstanding pitching of Doug Fister and a 4 hit day from the new third baseman whose name I am not worthy to repeat.  The four hits by [redacted for unworthiness] makes him the first 20 year old to have a four hit game for the club since Tony Conigliaro (thanks Baseball-Reference Play Index!!!).  The win also allows the Sox to keep pace with the Yankees just half a game out of first and gives them a four game lead in the Wild Card ...

What Do We Think?

So what do we think?  The first 3 1/2 months of the baseball season went pretty well for the local nine.  The usual ups and downs but a 3 game lead at the break, a favorable schedule, generally good health and it was looking good for a first ever repeat division title.

Instead things have gotten away from the Sox a bit.  A few losses in winnable games, injuries particularly to Bogaerts and now David Price have made things dicey and the Yankees are hot.  Suddenly the Sox are in a “4 teams for 3 ...

What Can We Expect?

The Red Sox have made the highly anticipated and hoped for move of calling up hot prospect Rafael Devers to try and address the issues at third base.  The good news is that Devers is almost certainly going to be an upgrade over the .228/.280/.320 line our third basemen have mustered in 2017.  According to FanGraphs his rest of season forecast is .270/.310/.436.  By way of comparison Brock Holt projects as .269/.332/.367 and the two players both are roughly the same in terms of WAR (0.0 for ...

That’ll Do I Guess

It wasn’t exactly a dominating performance but the Sox picked up a split with the third place Yankees and lead the AL East by 3 games with 70 to play.  A few thoughts on an entertaining weekend of baseball;

- One thing that struck me this weekend is how well played these games were.  This was four solid baseball games, good pitching, some great defense (more on that in a moment), clutch hitting and pitching at various moments and all close games.  When these teams ruled the AL roost in the ...

Halfway* Home

* OK, 54.938% of the way home.

The Sox reached the unofficial midway point of the season with a disappointing loss to Tampa.  The Sox seemed to take off for the Break a bit early dropping 3 out of 4 in fairly sluggish fashion and leaving Tampa tied for second just 3 1/2 games off the pace.  Despite that the Sox sit with the second best record in the AL and on pace for 91 wins.

To give that some perspective last year at the Break they were in second place, 2 games behind Baltimore, tied with ...

Minor Moves

With the draft over the Sox are in the business of shuttling their various draftees to new locales while at the same time putting some players already in the system in motion.  One thing the Sox did during the Cherington era is generally leave players at one level throughout the season.  It didn’t appear to be a hard and fast rule but there wasn’t the internal movement we often saw during the Epstein era.  Let’s just take a quick gander at a few notable moves (and one particularly notable ...

Red Sox Retire Rich Garces’ Number

He was a large man, with a larger persona and a nickname to match. When watching him work, one couldn’t help but be amazed at his accomplishments. He wasn’t appreciated enough in his time with the Twins, but after moving to the Red Sox he found his groove and won the enduring love of the Boston faithful. He was legendary.

Tonight, Boston retires his number 34. Thanks for many years of excellence, El Guapo.

Media Notes

It’s the subject on the lips of every Red Sox fan out there.  The issue raging across Red Sox Nation from Caribou, Maine to Sonny McLean’s in Los Angeles…what does Jose think about the way the Sox are being covered this year?  Well, wonder no more, Jose is here to lay it on you!

NESN - NESN has done some nifty things this year.  The recent change where they show highlights of a player while he’s at bat in a small window at the bottom of the screen is a neat little way to give quick highlights ...

Just Keep It Rolling

The Sox picked up a second straight walk off victory on Tuesday night.  By just about whatever measure you want to use the Sox are winning regularly; 4 out of 5, 7 out of 10 and 15 out of 22 since losing three in a row in Oakland.

What is great about this is that the whole team is contributing.  Of all the contributors though you cannot say enough about the bullpen.  I have to admit, I still feel wary of this group but they are pitching well entering the game on Tuesday they were third in ...

Feeling A Draft - Part II

I was hoping to dig into this a bit more than I did over the weekend but if the weather is going to be that nice damn you all, I’m sitting my butt on the patio with the grill going.  Anyway, here is a short look at some names that might be relevant to the Sox tonight;

David Peterson - LHP - Oregon - #17 Baseball America - Peterson was a 28th round pick by the Sox coming out of high school so he’s been on the club’s radar for awhile (though that was a previous administration).  The penultimate ...

Feeling A Draft - Part I

One week from today the Red Sox (and 29 teams no one cares about) will be making their selections in the annual draft.  Thanks to last year’s division title the Sox do not have an early pick (which is how I like it!) and will make their first three picks at 24th, 63rd and 101st.  Thanks to Baseball-Reference I thought it would be useful to look at what these picks have yielded in the past.

Pick 24:

Top 5 WAR (29 of 52 made MLB)
Alex Fernandez - 28.9 - 1988
Rondell White - 28.1 - 1990
Chad ...

Three Questions: June 2017

1. Can Boston win the division if they continue getting so little out of 3B?

2. What additive moves should Boston make?

3. Wasn’t this supposed to be a great defensive team?

Just A Short Update

With summer officially* upon us I wanted to take note of where the Sox stand and offer up some random observations.

* officially = not officially

1. David Price looked good in my opinion.  It wasn’t a gem of a performance but for a first start after missing time he looked more than good enough.  His command was a bit off but that is to be expected and save for the one pitch to Melky it is hard to be disappointed in that outing.  At the very least that start is an awfully big upgrade over most ...

Is That The Trigger?

It was just one win to extend a winning streak to a mammoth two games but it is a win that felt very good indeed.  A team that has almost been what MCoA might have called the platonic ideal of a .500 team winning one, losing one, and having just one winning streak of more than two games on the young season the Sox picked up a thrilling come from behind win against the first place Cardinals to take a two game sweep of the Redbirds.

There was a lot to like in this game, most of which I watched ...

A Nice Weekend John

After a frustrating loss Friday night John Farrell went to the well and shook up the lineup for Saturday.  As Jerry Remy noted in the broadcast that kind of shake up on a day when Nick Tepesch is the opposing starter is stacking the deck a bit but they came back the next day and against the one guy who has actually been better than Chris Sale continued to swing the bats well.  Things looked even rosier after a big ninth inning broke the game open earning Craig Kimbrel his second career hold ...

Opportunity Knocks

After an eventful home stand the Sox hit the road for a six game trip that is part of a 12 road games out of 15 stretch.  Despite that travel schedule the Sox may view this as a bit of an opportunity to start making hay.  On top of the injuries, illnesses and family situations that have arisen the Sox have opened the year playing 15 of their first 28 games against teams that made the playoffs in 2016 going 8-7 against those clubs.  They now have reached a portion of the schedule that may ...

That Was Fun

The Sox finished off an entertaining weekend set with the Cubs (see y’all in October!) ((I hope!))(((Knock on wood))) with a nice 6-2 victory that had a little bit of everything.  All in all it was a fun series.  While the Yankee series, and likely the upcoming Baltimore series, come with intense rivalry feelings this series had the feel of my buddies and I playing shuffleboard at the local bar.  Just two good teams and their fan bases joshing back and forth and enjoying the respective changes ...

A Short Observation

The Sox played game number 20 last night falling to the Yankees to drop their record to 11-9.  My general feeling given the injuries and illnesses is that this about where you’d want this team to be right now.  But one thing I was thinking about was the general idea that the Sox acquired Chris Sale to replace David Ortiz.  It is no secret that the offense has struggled at times in the early going and that was one of the big concerns coming in.  I decided to just do a quick check versus where ...

Witty Minor League Thread Title Here

After a busy weekend in Baltimore and then a couple of off days (thanks rain!) I figured today might be a good time to throw up a minor league thread.  The Red Sox minor league system is probably as uninteresting as it has been in several years with graduations and trades emptying things out.  That does not mean there is not anything to talk about.  Without further ado…

1B - Josh Ockimey - Salem (Hi A) -  The big 21 year old lefty swinger has come out of the blocks quickly.  He earned Player ...

Chris Sale Is A Terrible Person

I mean it’s the only excuse right?  The four runs they got on Thursday is the highest total they’ve gotten in one of his starts.  He is probably lucky to be 1-1 despite a 0.91 ERA with that kind of run “support.”  In games he has started the Sox have actually scored more runs in extra innings (6) than they have in innings 1-9 (4).  The only explanation is that he is a terrible person and everyone on the team hates him.  With that out of the way I figured I’d throw up a few random thoughts as ...

Feeling Groovy

After a pretty nice win on Thursday the Sox sit at a neat and tidy 5-4 after a week and a half.  Small sample sizes and all but wins is wins and that’s a start.  Thinking of it this way, a 5-4 start in 2011 and the Sox would have clinched a playoff spot before going to Baltimore.

This is encouraging because after a season when the Sox were absurdly healthy they have played only two games with a full team.  According to NESN in 2016 none of the quartet of Xander Bogaerts, Hanley Ramirez, Jackie ...