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I hope TLR has a wonderful night of sleep and wakes up alive

So bored of Spring Training. When does the season start?

I still hate Tony

NBCSports making it sound like Robert could be back today. Negative COVID tests are complete.

@Jack ParkmanI got to say that you were one of the only people who didn't give up on Giolito and repeatedly said the ace was still in there. The guy proves you right over an extended period of time and becomes a top tier pitcher, and then after two not great starts you have jumped off the wagon and put him fourth in the rotation. It's one of my favorite things about you and also one of the funniest. It ranks up there with Fathom having a database of negative stats on every player in all types of situations.

I don't see how this is the lineup of a team with World Series aspirations.

I swear people who do things like this in hopes of getting an internet high five from someone like Steve stone are a whole other level of weird. "Did you see what this stranger said on the internet!?!?!" You literally don't need to venture much further than the response to any highly active tweet chain to see way more vile comments. I love that stone would be more appalled by a tweet like that than he, and many fans apparently, are by Tony larussa repeatedly driving drunk and risking actual lives. Weird stuff all around.

Glad Parkman is ruining a perfectly good night. Nobody cares.

Wohooo

What is your full address? Trying to compare the weather by you to here in the city.

...

I hope TLR shits his pants in his sleep

This lineup is somehow WORSE than the original lineup last night.

Well, you can't accuse him of playing his bench players too much...when he plays them so much that they're starters

I'm done with TLR. I apologize for even advocating for him as mildly as I did.

Mendick just needs to stay, period.

i'm just still pissed we had to go in this direction with this effing guy. this should be a great time to be a sox fan. most compelling team we've had in quite some time. young talent all over the place. instead, they had to introduce this variable to ruin it. it's cast a pall over everything and just didn't have to be the case. ffs.

"Moron" and "idiot" are different than "I hope your kid gets run over by a wheat thresher."

Just had to represent.

I am hoping Fields is literally the non-off field issue version of Deshaun Watson. People over thunk it and he turned into a stud. So fired up....love it. Curious to see what they do in 2nd - if they try and get an extra pick or two or if they stay where they are at. Need to still address CB plus Oline & wideout. Man - Just love this.

cough Eloy cough

Not a 1st round pick? There was a better chance that I was picked in the 1st round than Fields wouldnt be. Seriously if you cant legitimately talk about the sport, dont bother getting upset and just enjoy watching.

Somewhere, Coop is shaking his head and wondering why the hell Cease is using that curveball instead of a cutter

I still think they’re going to regret giving up next years’ pick, but yeah if they just get decent QB play it’s worth it and yeah, I think a lot of people were overthinking it with Fields.

We scored 3 runs but Tony still made the absolute wrong decisions there and I am kind of mad he was rewarded for it. Garcia will start next game and probably against Bieber tomorrow because TLR is too afraid to put Vaughn in there against him

Always so negative

The only positive of the TLR hire was that I feel like it collectively brought Soxtalk together with their hatred for the signing.

That's the thing, the platoon advantage keeps getting referred to as reasons why TLR played Lamb and Williams up in the lineup yet he continues to play Leury vs RHP. He's truly a terrible manager right now.

I am currently on hold with my cable company to see if I can get any refund on my NBS Sports Chicago based on that lineup for Game 1.

Look, it takes a decent amount of courage and integrity to actually step up here and take responsibility for ones actions. So much of Soxtalk has just become doubling down on whatever dumb thing that happened to come out of one's keyboard on a previous post, that it turns entire threads and days into posting trash. There are quite a few people posting in this thread, and especially looking to see how far they can go before crossing a line, who could learn something from understanding what happened here. There is no obligation to follow up one shit post with another. I know the internet is full of oneupsmanship, but Soxtalk doesn't have to be like the rest of the internet. In fact one of the best things about Soxtalk historically has been the fact that people were more decent than 99.9% of the rest of similar boards and pages. Look we get there are reactions in the moment, but there is nothing wrong with taking a moment to reflect and learn. Good for CWS here. Hopefully a few others are taking notes.

We have a serious problem here. If everyone is actually healthy, then there's no reasonable defense for this lineup. None. Which means one of two things -- either LaRussa is suffering from serious cognitive decline (not meant as an insult, but an objective observation), or LaRussa is doing this as a huge F You to the fans/media/Hahn, just to show everyone he can do whatever he wants.

I am convinced Leury is Tony's designated driver.

At this point, Hahn is left with no choice but to DFA Leury and Lamb to end the madness.

Remember when we were all made that Williams was batting 5? .... good times

The bolded below says it all. The amount of cluelessness you see here with regard to Grandal is simply amazing. Grandal deserves to heat for 2021 - injured or not - he's been terrible at the plate and behind it. But the guy was exactly who he has always been last year, and bafoons were mad mouthing him daily.

Game chats now I would imagine would not work out so well 😂

Frankly I have to shake my head at this. We are all human beings and we are all dysfunctional on some level. Every generation struggles with things that are affected by what is going on in that generation. I know plenty of boomers who "lack common sense" about a lot of stuff. Lack of sensibility tends to be selective, and inherent in just about everyone. Every generation has things that are pertinent that makes people of others (younger and older) shake their heads. Usually when I hear someone call another person an "idiot" I can make a solid bet that the one throwing the stone has absolutely at someone point lived in a glass house. Most people just don't have the humility to admit it. Always a way to justify it.

THIS. 100% THIS. I don't think 90% of this board realizes how few good all-around catchers there are. It amazes me every single day. Lost in their own world, I guess. Yasmani is a frustrating player to watch, but he's an elite overall catcher. There are few guys who are good defensive catchers and above average offensive producers in the entire history of the game. if you don't like Grandal's game, there isn't a catcher on the planet outside of maybe Realmuto you're going to be impressed with. And Realmuto and Grandal literally produced shockingly similar numbers in 2020.

I have found gen z lacks critical thinking skills. I blame the Internet and Twitter where being loud and confident pays off more than being humble and reflective. There is a Finnish proverb I think about often as I get older: "life, if nothing else teaches us to walk slowly".

I find this to be an issue with people today in general, especially my 22-27 y/o doctoral students. They have a very difficult time processing the gray areas and want yes/no black/white answers. As you may guess their minds explode when I answer their questions with "depends" In the field of physical therapy there are very few true answers. It always depends on the situation and what happened to the client not to mention that everyone can have anatomic variations to begin with. It's an interesting challenge.

No it was when you posted a dramatic goodbye post and quit because you couldn't take @ron883's joke. I just find it weird how often you lecture people when they respond to critical posts from you for not understanding "jokes" but then you had to write a pity letter and quit due to a poster's actions.

If you don't know the difference between being critical and personally attacking someone, perhaps there's a local college-level Communications course out there that you can take for a Summer credit.

Whether Gio spoke to him or not, it was obvious just watching the game the guy was gassed. After the double to Ramos to tie the game, how can anyone defend leaving him out there? Was there even a mound visit? They might have lost the game anyway, but for a guy with a reputation as being the master at running a bullpen, and supposedly having the best or one of the best bullpens in baseball, the Sox sure have blown a lot of games late this season already. Some by the bullpen, and this one by being afraid to use it. I still think Tony is trying to score points with his players by trying to help them accumulate individual numbers. He clearly has used Hendriks just to pad the save total, I think part of his motivation for not getting Gio once they tied it was for Gio's win column.

Grandal is arguably the worst free agent signing in the history of this franchise. I can’t believe people would take him over James McCann.

lol mccann has such a cult following here its hilarious. Yasmani has been really bad in 21 and definitely 100% deserves some criticism for sure. I've been big supporter of his against the meatball takes, but he's been just flat bad in 21. He was fine last year. I do honestly think part of the problem is Sox fans expected a different hitter than Grandal really is. What he did last year is exactly what he's done his whole career, which has made him widely considered one of the best 2-3 catchers in the game, pretty much unanimously. McCann is a really solid defensive catcher that has has produced about 2-3 months of good offensive in his 7+ year career. Career wRC+ of 85. Rag on Yasmani all you want (and like I said, he deserves some flack so far in 21), but he has a career wRC+ of 117. Offensively, they aren't really comparable at all. Defensively, I would agree that Yaz has been pretty disappointing so far in a Sox uni - I certainly expected more. At the end of the day, McCann is in New York and is looking like the offensive producer he's been for 95% of his career. I like the guy - but he isn't some savior.