In the town where I was born
Lived a man who sailed to sea
And he told us of his life
In the land of submarines
So we sailed up to the sun
'Til we found a sea of green
And we lived beneath the waves
In our yellow submarine
When you get 5 hits and win, should be 0 complaints. Good win.
Huge win against maybe the best starter in the AL, Verlander. Yes, Price had a quality start, but this one was won by the lineup which is missing Mookie Betts.
Some said--on a game thread I think--that of course the Astros would be tough because we would be missing the best player on the team if not the best player in the history of MLB. But guess what? The Sox are now 7-3 without Mookie in the lineup. This does not mean he isn't enormously valuable to this team, but does mean that one lineup player can only do so much.
I think moonslav pointed out that, should Betts and JDM OPS's come down from their astronomical highs, other players would likely get better, and that is what has happened with Mookie out. Beni is up. JDM has stayed up. JBJ has come alive. Leon/Vazquez have contributed. We won last night mostly on those two dingers (Vazquez to tie, Beni to win the game) and neither was by two of the best dinger-hitters in MLB this year to date.
The downside is that our pitching has not risen to the occasion (defined as this series in Houston so well attended by the estimable moonslav). Pom was to be expected, but not Sale, who moonslave defends but not I. Yes, the first two runs were cheapies, but Sale needed 34 pitches to get thru the 1st, and you can't blame that all on bad luck. Moreover, he gave up 2 more in the 3d for 4 against a team with the best ERA in MLB. Last night Price was decent, granted, but he was going against the best starter in MLB whose ERA is 1.24 (thanks to the 2 runs the Sox scored off him in 6 innings) and left the game behind 3-2.
The lineup won last night's game, pure and simple, with some help from Price and of course Kimbrel who got 2 k's and 3 outs on 11 pitches.
Could we have an encore please for all the Swihart fans who have been enraged at Cora for not playing him more often? Take a bow, guys, because your man is now play more regularly and sinking fast with the team's lowest average and of course OPS. One supposes his mission these days is to make us like the other guys for what they have done.
I would call out the Cora doubters, but suspect they are getting fewer in number although he does regularly get pinged on game threads whenever a player fails to hit or make an error--why is that guy playing?
And I would be remiss if I didn't call out one maxbialystock who originally predicted 2-2 in this series, but early on this thread said basically that all is lost and this Sox ship is going down in Hurricane Astrodome. Good call, Max.
If they split its enormous confidence boost ....I want to apologize for saying there is no grit in this team that they don't match up in crunch time ....Price did exactly what was asked and Vaz And Benny truly looked as confident and ready to destroy what had been an extremely tough pitcher ...The Redsox are in first place and its June 3rd ....I need to come to grips that just maybe my projections are shit ...they win when neededThe game meant Aton to Vaz who I have destroyed and he flipped me off and kicked me in the stones ...Happy for Him most .
Last edited by Natick to NC; 06-03-2018 at 04:26 PM.
Could we have an encore please for all the Swihart fans who have been enraged at Cora for not playing him more often? Take a bow, guys, because your man is now play more regularly and sinking fast with the team's lowest average and of course OPS. One supposes his mission these days is to make us like the other guys for what they have done.
Swihart needs more time before judging him so definitively, but yes, Cora and DD know our players better than we do.
The other side of the argument is that Leon came to life about the time the calls for Swihart became louder. Vaz had a huge hit last night, but has been flat all year.
Trust the scouts and management, until they prove they shouldn't be trusted. IMO, they are far away from that point.
Always will root for Swihart ....he needs to hit better .Swihart has played third ,first ,LF ,RF ,Catcher the guy is talented .But until he hits he won't ever make it .I hope he turns it around here....but he's likely gone in a few weeks if not sooner .
He hit well in 2015. Started slowly but ended up hitting pretty well.
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
You are all fucked in the head.
That is why I am here.
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."
"Hating the Yankees like it's a religion since 94'" RIP Mike.
"It's also a simple and indisputable fact that WAR isn't the be-all end-all in valuations, especially in real life. Wanna know why? Because an ace in run-prevention for 120 innings means more often than not, a sub-standard pitcher covering for the rest of the IP that pitcher fails to provide. You can't see value in a vacuum when a player does not provide full-time production."