Yeah I saw that. Heard he hit 90 to 91 on the gun. He says he's ready but I have a feeling the Sox FO would like him to make another start or 2. Hopefully he's is ready to go the Sox make the right decision and send Wakefield to the pen. By the way I looked at some minor league stats and so far both Anthony Rizzo and Lars Anderson are doing pretty well, granted they haven't even played a full week yet but it's at least encouraging that Anderson is at least starting strong. I'm hoping to go see a Sea Dog game or 2 this spring/summer when they come to CT to play the Rock Cats (Twins). Baseball America ranked them having the 2nd best line up in all of baseball prospect wise with Iglesias, Anderson and Kalish leading the way, of course they have Casey Kelly there as well. EDIT: I read a scouting report on Matsuzaka and it said he was 88 to 90 mph, pitched to a lot of contact, only K'ed 2 batters and gave up I believe 15 fly ball outs. His slider was pretty good but the rest of his breaking stuff needed work.
Haha seriously. Good for him though, people (including myself) forget how important he's been for the franchise. There's no doubt this is probably his last year with the Sox so it's good to see him doing well right now.
Theo please get us bullpen help soon!!!! Us not scoring in the bottom of the 11th with bases loaded and no one out was hard to watch.
Yeah our pen just sucks I have no faith in anyone but I put this game on the hitters. How do you have the bases loaded and not score a single run in that spot? That was the game right there. I don't care if Pedro Martinez circa 1997-2000 coming out of that pen there was no way the Sox were going to win it. I didn't see the 2nd game, just the box score, looks like Buchholz did a poor job in the 1st inning but after that he was much better. We need to have him start to step up now.
We need alot of ppl to step up right now. Should we be worried by the way Victor Martinez is handling the pitchers? They seem to perform better with Varitek calling the game. Maybe thats just me overreacting tho.
No pitch calling is extremely overrated. Varitek has only had Beckett pitch to him, and Beckett doing better with Varitek just seems to be more of a mental thing (kind of like how Maddux would never pitch well with Javy Lopez back in the day). I think we should be worried about how anyone with speed gets on base they easily turn end up on 2nd and sometimes 3rd base since neither Martinez or Varitek can throw anyone out.
Yeah thanks. I don't understand why we would start Varitek againist one of the better baserunning teams in the league.
Well it's not like Martinez is that much better with the arm. But it's a major problem with this team that I'm sure the FO will address. Mark Wagner is their best defensive catcher in the minors but he's not a very good hitter and the line up can't give up another bat in the line up right now. However it wouldn't shock me that if Ortiz continues to struggle that the Sox straight up release him, make Martinez the full time DH and bring up Wagner or trade for a better defensive catcher.
Yikes. Well, it seems like they're just horrible with RISP. They can't possibly be that bad all season long. The Rays are also a very good team.
The Rays are a very good team but the Sox really haven't played solid baseball all year. Even opening night they seemed flat. But I'm not worried (yet). Lester has been bad all year but historically he's been bad in April and then turns into a top 10 pitcher. Beckett and Lackey (except for today) have been good all year. The problem is their hitting (besides Pedroia and sometimes Scutaro no one is hitter) and their pen (they all suck except for Okajima, Bard and Papelbon). Again I'm not worried it's a long season, if this was happening in June, July or August we'd just chalk it up to 2 bad weeks but because it's happening at the start of the season people think the sky is falling. I will say that this is definitely unRed Sox like, since they're usually one of the best teams in baseball (record wise at least) at the start of the season while the Yankees usually start off weak and the opposite is happening right now. The Sox have the starters to go on a run and turn things around in 2 weeks. The only thing that bugs me is both the Yankees and Rays have started off hot.
Too early, they are good though, they just do not have that power guy, ever since Manny left, hasnt been the same, and the Rays have owned them since the playoff series...
Francona isn't going anywhere and anyone who even brings that up just isn't paying attention to the team everyday. This isn't Francona's fault, the team is just having a bad start to the season. On the list of problems with this team Francona is on the very bottom of it all.
Francona is on the hot seat: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...rs-who-could-be-on-the-chopping-block#page/11
Outside of Tony LaRussa, Mike Scioscia and Bobby Cox, Terry Francona probably has the most job security in baseball as a manager. Anyone saying or reporting differently just doesn't have a clue. That link is just silly suggesting both Francona and Scioscia could be on the hot seat, plus the link is pure speculation it's not a news report. Teams haven't even played a month of the season yet, let's relax a little.
Looks like Mike Cameron is headed to the DL. I wonder if the Sox will call up Josh Reddick to play CF since Ellsbury is still hurting. Although that would put a lot of LHH in the line up.
Yeah, I don't buy Francona on the hot seat either. You win 2 World Series rings, you get excellent job security. It's a perk. Francona is not to blame for the Sox struggles.
Not only that but the guy has been in the playoffs in 5 out of the last 6 years and his teams have averaged I believe 93 wins each year. It's not his fault that hitters have been 0 for their last 32 with RISP or he's gotten 1 quality start from a pitcher in over a week. It's 13 games out of 162. And again let's just say the Sox finish 3rd in the AL East (which was possible even if they got off to a hot start), it won't be because of Francona's managing it will be because the Yankees and Rays were simply better teams. The Red Sox are 4-9 because they haven't gotten their starting pitchers to put together a nice run and their offense hasn't gotten going yet. Of course they've run into a little bit of bad luck too. It happens every year to every team no matter if it's in April, May, June, July, August, September or October. Also let's not forget the Red Sox have played the Yankees, Twins and Rays so far this year. Not exactly the easiest of schedules.
New line up tonight as Terry Francona is in panic mode right now as fights to keep his job: Scutaro- SS Drew- RF Pedroia- 2B Youkilis- 1B Martinez- C Ortiz- DH Beltre- 3B Hermida- LF Reddick- CF Obviously you can't drop Ortiz any futher since you don't want three LHH in a row but I kind of like this line up. And actually when Ellsbury is back I wouldn't mind seeing Scutaro stay up in the order with Pedroia/Youkilis/Martinez hitting 3/4/5.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2...-and-is-heading-to-the-disabled-list.html.php UPDATE: Gordon Edes of ESPN is reporting that Cameron's strain is actually a tear -- akin to a sports hernia, he says -- and that it may require surgery. If so, he'd miss a good month and as much as six weeks. Edes reminds us that both Ian Kinsler and Josh Hamilton suffered similar injuries last year and missed 42 and 30 games, respectively.
Big fan of this lineup. Obviously I love the idea of moving Drew up in the order (even though he's been atrocious to start the season, like everyone else) and Ortiz down a spot. Interesting little stat: Youkilis has already walked 8 times, which works out to approximately 120+ walks on the year. The struggles of Ortiz were clearly affecting how opposing pitchers were working Youkilis. Glad to see Tito realize this and provide him with some proper protection in Martinez. I know the national media is ready to bury this team, but its really early and the starting pitching is very, very good. That said, they could easily be the 3rd best team in the AL East, considering the top 2 are the best in baseball.
I just ordered my Darnell McDonald jersey. Seriously to say this team needed that win badly is an understatement. They looked flat and bad from the very start, hopefully this wakes the team up a bit. I think tonight is the beginning of the end of the Big Papi era. I won't be shocked if Ortiz gets released and the Sox make Martinez their everyday DH and either call up Mark Wagner (who is an excellent defensive catcher with a good arm but no bat) or they make a trade for one since 9 SBs is beyond pathetic. The key is for the Sox to win tomorrow and go on a run here. They can't back off now. Baby steps.
Totally agree on Ortiz, it's hard to watch his AB's.. I know Wake was pitching but 9 steals is awful, something has to be done in this respect, and Ortiz struggling is going to make the move Ray suggested that much easier when it happens.. Glad to Reddick come through also, I really like his game..
It's really sad to see Ortiz like this, especially since he was so important to this franchise since 2003. But I guess that's the price you pay with this big sluggers like Ortiz, Mo Vaughn etc they just seemingly lose it out of nowhere, although I still think that his wrist injury has been a bigger factor in his fall than he's letting on. Hopefully this makes the Sox scared of even going anywhere near Prince Fielder in the future. I do wonder however if we could possibly see Adam Dunn as our DH this year, as the guy has a ton of power and gets on base a lot, he won't hit for a high average and will K a lot but we probably wouldn't have to give up much for him. This could be a very long season as this team looks old and obviously can't match the Rays in terms of speed and youth or the Yankees in terms of power. This team is going to be very very different in 2 years with guys like Iglesias, Kalish, Anderson (who's hitting .298/.370/.585/.955 with 3 HR in 41 at bats) and Casey Kelly. The future still looks good but this could be a tough 2 years as older guys like Ortiz, Lowell, Varitek, Drew and Wakefield start to be phased out.
The best line I read was..... "the Rangers stole nine bases off the Boston Red Sox last night. Nine. As in, the most any team has stolen in a game in eight years. Even Vlad Guerrero -- who walks around like Fred Sanford half the time -- swiped two." [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnfflRNpwKA"]Fred Sanford[/ame]
Nice win tonight, that could have turned into a disaster but hey a win is a win. We need them anyway we can get them. Hopefully these walk off wins helps the team get a little tough and builds character.
Lowell is getting another start tonight over Ortiz against LHP C.J. Wilson. It looks as though they're in the very least going to platoon. However if Lowell continues to hit, I can't honestly see a reason why Ortiz should be on the team. It was very telling last night that Francona had Hermida pinch hit instead of Ortiz in extra innings (it was the right move but it must have been tough for him to bypass Ortiz for Hermida in that spot). Since Ortiz can't play the field and the Sox aren't crazy about having him pinch hit, because let's face it, you have guys pinch hitting in big spots late in the game usually against set up men or closers who will just blow fastballs by Ortiz, it looks as though he'll be released. It wouldn't surprise me if he was once Ellsbury comes back and the Sox would then send down Reddick/McDonald and call up a back up INF like Tug Huglet, although the Sox might just want to give Ortiz until the end of May to snap out of it. Of course it all depends on if the Sox are winning or losing. For whatever it's worth Gammons has said that the Red Sox wouldn't keep Ortiz just to keep him since he's strictly a DH and they feel he could turn into a problem if he's not playing.
News: The Boston Globe reports that a CT scan revealed Thursday that Red Sox OF Jacoby Ellsbury has four ribs with hairline fractures. There has been no update on any adjustment to his timetable for a return. He is eligible to be activated on April 27. This story continues to get worse and worse for Ellsbury, who was initially only supposed to be out for a couple of days. How did they not do a XRAY immediately to know this???
Weird.....swelling trick the machine? Its a Xray, how would 4 fractures not appear..hairline or not??
No idea, I'm obviously no doctor. I don't know how X-rays really work, so maybe the swelling hid the fractures like you suggested.
