The MLB Thread

[RedKnight]

John f'kin' Lackey!!!

[RedKnight]

His stats make me a sad panda; all Boston starts ERA: 5.03. WHIP: 1.47.

[Trumo]

Finished 11-4 to Texas. 7 runs given up by the Red Sox in the 6th! Basically, apart from one dreadful inning yesterday, Texas have been way better in this series. I don't know that much about baseball (I'm learning, mind), but could it be that winning against the Yankees earlier in the week took a lot more out of the Red Sox than if it were a less esteemed opponent?

[RedKnight]

No, it's that John Lackey is shit and so is Andrew Miller, and Texas are an excellent team.

[RedKnight]

Bedard is defintely the 3rd starter now. In fact, in the inevitable series against Texas I'd be tempted to push up Beckett's starts and go to a four man rotation. Lackey being the fourth because you can't cut the useless, overpaid douche. Miller and Wakefield cannot be your playoff starters. The Yankees rode Sabathia like that in '09.

[Trumo]

Toronto Blue Jays 0-14 Boston Red Sox

 

Saying that, the Red Sox have been so inconsistent in offence recently that things could so easily go the opposite way in the next game. They lost to the Blue Jays the day before 1-0 in a game that was scoreless until the 11th inning, and were kept scoreless by Texas last week.

 

When did the change the name of that stadium to Rogers Center? It was still called Skydome last time I was out there! Still a landmark venue though, with CN Tower next door.

[RedKnight]

I just feel really sorry for Wake now. It's actually painful waiting for number 200.

[Trumo]

Fucking hell, have the Red Sox completely forgotten how to pitch? Bottom of the 2nd inning, Boston are already 3-0 down to the Tampa Bay Rays, and the pitcher Lester has thrown 64 already! And they've only got one man out so far!

 

Incidentally, I'm following it here.

[RedKnight]

Tailspin. Possibly the bandwagon's been weighed down by all the LFC fans suddenly realising they like baseball.

[RedKnight]

Or it could be that injuries have smacked the team upside the head for the second year running, the starting rotation has been destroyed by injuries and John Lackey, the bullpen doesn't have enough options and injury running through it too. Plus Youk needs a hernia op, Tito's constantly having to shuffle the rotation, Crawford is playing like a bum and the offense cannot afford to have one off night because of the paucity of pitching talent.

 

The Rays sweep here and the momentum is all with them, but it's not even the Rays that the Red Sox have to worry about. It's the Angels too, who are picking up their shit in the AL West. Makes me sick all this. I liked July a lot better.

[Trumo]

Or it could be that injuries have smacked the team upside the head for the second year running, the starting rotation has been destroyed by injuries and John Lackey, the bullpen doesn't have enough options and injury running through it too. Plus Youk needs a hernia op, Tito's constantly having to shuffle the rotation, Crawford is playing like a bum and the offense cannot afford to have one off night because of the paucity of pitching talent.

 

The Rays sweep here and the momentum is all with them, but it's not even the Rays that the Red Sox have to worry about. It's the Angels too, who are picking up their shit in the AL West. Makes me sick all this. I liked July a lot better.

 

You REALLY can't stand the guy, can you?

[RedKnight]

$82.5 million contract over 5 years. That's the 9th highest pitching contract in the Majors, the highest on the Red Sox and for what? A 4.40 ERA last year and an ERA of 6.30 this year, the highest for a 12 win pitcher in God knows how long. His FIP is 4.89 and his WAR is 0.9, I'm surprised it isn't a minus. I wanted him to do well last year but it's clear he wasn't going to improve, I know his wife has the cancer and that's gotta be tough but I'd rather he take time off if it was affecting him that bad. He also seems like kind of a dick although I've read that he's a great clubhouse guy but it doesn't seem like that when he's giving Scutaro the eyes because he mishandled a ground ball.

 

He's paid too much and sucking too hard. Carl Crawford's next in the queue for awful Red Sox contracts too.

[RedKnight]

Sooooooo 8-1 down in the 5th. I never liked October 'ball anyway.

[Allan]

You REALLY can't stand the guy, can you?

 

Justifiably so, Lackey is an awful pitcher.

 

$82.5 million contract over 5 years. That's the 9th highest pitching contract in the Majors, the highest on the Red Sox and for what? A 4.40 ERA last year and an ERA of 6.30 this year, the highest for a 12 win pitcher in God knows how long. His FIP is 4.89 and his WAR is 0.9, I'm surprised it isn't a minus. I wanted him to do well last year but it's clear he wasn't going to improve, I know his wife has the cancer and that's gotta be tough but I'd rather he take time off if it was affecting him that bad. He also seems like kind of a dick although I've read that he's a great clubhouse guy but it doesn't seem like that when he's giving Scutaro the eyes because he mishandled a ground ball.

 

He's paid too much and sucking too hard. Carl Crawford's next in the queue for awful Red Sox contracts too.

 

Crawford will bounce back, I have no doubts about that.

 

Both Wild Card races are starting to become interesting, though I do believe the teams that currently occupy the Wild Card slots, will prevail.

 

Looking at the remaining schedule for the Rays and the Angels, they both have huge road trips coming up, playing 3 tricky opponents.

 

The Angels have a 10 game away stand after tonight, stopping in Oakland, Baltimore and Toronto, before finishing at home to the A's and Rangers.

 

The Rays have an even tougher away stand, playing 3 in Baltimore, 4 in Boston and 3 against the Yankees in New York, before the finish their season with home series against the Blue Jays and Yankees.

 

In a strange round-a-bout sort of way, being swept by a close challenger can work as a catalyst for a team to kick on for the remainder of the season.

 

The Braves are in a similar position in the National League. Before heading to St. Louis for a 3 game stand against the Cards, the Braves were 7.5 games clear in the NL Wild Card race, but now after losing the first 2 games, and seemingly going to lose again tonight, that lead will be trimmed to 4.5 games.

 

The Cards do have to travel to Philly for a 4 games series after they've gone to Pittsburgh to face the Pirates, while the Braves have two 3 game home series' against the Marlins and Mets after tonight.

 

The races will be close, but I just can't see either the Red Sox or the Braves being overturned with less than 20 games left to play in the regular season.

[Guest ShoePiss]

Only in the 2nd inning of Gaints Dodgers and it looks like they're going to extend their streak to 4 games....losing that is.

[Allan]

Only in the 2nd inning of Gaints Dodgers and it looks like they're going to extend their streak to 4 games....losing that is.

 

The Giants are done for the season mate, they've not been the same since losing Posey to injury. The pitching is good in general, but apart from the Panda (Pedro Sandoval), there's no one in the lineup that's done anything with the bat all year.

[Guest ShoePiss]

Yeah losing posey has been a huge loss, said that right when it happened. Huff just had a home run ruled out, it bounced off a chain link fence behind the pad/wall back onto the field but even after replays they ruled it out. They got it wrong. We got a run just after that, 1-1 top 3rd.

 

We don't have much chance of catching the dbacks, they're in form and we've been hot and cold all season.

[RedKnight]

Justifiably so, Lackey is an awful pitcher.

 

 

 

Crawford will bounce back, I have no doubts about that.

 

Both Wild Card races are starting to become interesting, though I do believe the teams that currently occupy the Wild Card slots, will prevail.

 

Looking at the remaining schedule for the Rays and the Angels, they both have huge road trips coming up, playing 3 tricky opponents.

 

The Angels have a 10 game away stand after tonight, stopping in Oakland, Baltimore and Toronto, before finishing at home to the A's and Rangers.

 

The Rays have an even tougher away stand, playing 3 in Baltimore, 4 in Boston and 3 against the Yankees in New York, before the finish their season with home series against the Blue Jays and Yankees.

 

In a strange round-a-bout sort of way, being swept by a close challenger can work as a catalyst for a team to kick on for the remainder of the season.

 

The Braves are in a similar position in the National League. Before heading to St. Louis for a 3 game stand against the Cards, the Braves were 7.5 games clear in the NL Wild Card race, but now after losing the first 2 games, and seemingly going to lose again tonight, that lead will be trimmed to 4.5 games.

 

The Cards do have to travel to Philly for a 4 games series after they've gone to Pittsburgh to face the Pirates, while the Braves have two 3 game home series' against the Marlins and Mets after tonight.

 

The races will be close, but I just can't see either the Red Sox or the Braves being overturned with less than 20 games left to play in the regular season.

 

I can't see the Braves missing out either, although I did see one of the games they got swept in against the Phillies last week. i think the NL wildcard picture is a lot weaker than the AL. I would add that at the beginning of last week I thought the AL wildcard had flatlined but it turns out it's just the Red Sox that have flatlined. My natural pessimism is telling me the Sox will mess this up, that's how I knew the Sox were the team for me back in the day, no other fanbase other than maybe the Cubs, were as naturally pessimistic as the Sox.

 

I'm not sold on Crawford, his contract might end up costing us Ellsbury in the long term and whilst that wasn't a huge problem last year, Ellsbury's comeback this year has gummed up the works. My main problem with Crawford is no matter how good he might be, he'll never ever be as good as that contract warrants. Because that contracts is nuts.

[Trumo]

$82.5 million contract over 5 years. That's the 9th highest pitching contract in the Majors, the highest on the Red Sox and for what? A 4.40 ERA last year and an ERA of 6.30 this year, the highest for a 12 win pitcher in God knows how long. His FIP is 4.89 and his WAR is 0.9, I'm surprised it isn't a minus. I wanted him to do well last year but it's clear he wasn't going to improve, I know his wife has the cancer and that's gotta be tough but I'd rather he take time off if it was affecting him that bad. He also seems like kind of a dick although I've read that he's a great clubhouse guy but it doesn't seem like that when he's giving Scutaro the eyes because he mishandled a ground ball.

 

He's paid too much and sucking too hard. Carl Crawford's next in the queue for awful Red Sox contracts too.

 

Yeah man! Totally agree he sucks!

 

*goes off to check what the hell all that means*

 

The amount of money in American sport is eye-watering. That somebody earning the equivalent of well over £10m a year from his club is only the 9th highest paid player IN HIS POSITION (never mind the rest of MLB or even in US sport in general!) is staggering.

 

I know cricket FAR better than I know baseball, and if I was to use an analogy for the Red Sox at present, I would say they are a cricket team where the batsmen - although reputed to be some of the finest around - are under huge pressure to rack up big scores because the bowling attack is too weak to bowl the opposition out. When the batting line-up is misfiring, things unravel very quickly.

[RedKnight]

This wasn't the case at the start. The Sox had Beckett on fire, Lester backing him up, Bucholz providing very solid support, Lackey being up and down but okay and DiceK stinking the place out but no worries as Miller, Wake and even Aceves could help out there.

 

Now we have Lester, Lackey and err... that's it. Bucholz has something weird going on with his back, no one knows when/if he'll be back. Beckett hurt his ankle and should return shortly. Miller is so erratic that he makes Lackey look solid and Wake is just plain old. Kyle Weiland pitched last night and he did okay after a very shaky 1st inning but at the moment it's find a body, throw them in at the moment.

 

The Red Sox training staff have a reputation for mishandling injuries and this isn't doing anything to dispell that.

 

EDIT: I forgot all about Bedard too. Who was always injured for Seattle and is, you guessed it, currently injured.

Edited September 11, 2011 by RedKnight

[Guest ShoePiss]

Pablo and huff weighing in with runs. Sandoval is looking so much better with all that weight he lost in the off season.

[Guest ShoePiss]

Giants show some offence, 8-1 and the first 5 run inning of the season

[Delmar]

The main thing the Sox got going for them is one of the great songwriters ever, my all time favorite, Jonathan Richman. He made a song about the Fenway. Cool stuff.

[Guest ShoePiss]

Moneyball (2011) - IMDb

 

Comes out here 23rd sept

[OmarVizquel]

Lots of hand-wringing about Boston. Boo hoo....they'll make the playoffs I'm sure, win the division series, and no doubt meet the Yankees in the ALCS, where of course anything can happen. I wouldn't worry too much.

 

Meanwhile, I wish my own hometown team had the finances to win 90-95 games every single f-ing season, but so it is with baseball. Well, except the hapless Mets and Cubs.