Chimpton

At least if he does this it keeps him away from motor vehicles.

Maybe TLR plans on him pitching !

Have they got the wages money and trade pieces to achieve that?

I think most of us would like to be positive but as you have said so many times this season they have been borderline unwatchable, some of the performances in the losing streak were simply embarrassing, But as you also say if they can get the offense working anywhere near its potential with the pitching they have they could be a good team, but unfortunately they could just as easily drift along around the .500 mark flattering to deceive.

I admire your optimism ?

I forgot about the squandered draft picks. That should definitely have been on the list.

They weren't in a specific order, just the order they sprang to mind.

As it is increasingly looking like the 'rebuild for many seasons of success' has petered out, I was just thinking where it began to go wrong, because initially the acquisition of young talent seemed to be going well. Was it the young players that we got in trades not fulfilling potential? Thinking Moncada and Jimenez in particular. Was it poor trades/contracts for supposedly big impact veteran players? Grandal and Kimbrel spring to mind. Failure to spend big in the FA market when holes in the roster needed filling? RF and 2B this off season. Management and coaching. Bad luck? Are the numerous injuries to players just bad luck or poor conditioning? An addition here. Poor drafting. Basically was there a point where this rebuild went off course or was it flawed from the beginning?

Nowhere to go from within the organisation because of the lack of depth and it is unlikely they will trade for one.

Not by this team.

I'm surprised he didn't bring him on to pitch earlier in the game!

They could maybe try scouting players.

Better to be winning them than losing them! But you are right about the offense, to say it is inconsistent would be wrong, they are consistently underperforming!

A pity the season started in April.

You are not wrong there!

TLR may cost them 2-3 games due to in game decisions, as most managers will, but he will cost them more with his lineups.

You are right, the offense is massively underperforming. Apart from TA and Robert none of them can be relied on consistently and with the injuries to Eloy and Moncada I can't see either of them producing good figures this season. As for the pitching Keuchel and Velasquez have been as good/bad as expected and either would be fine as a 5th starter or Cueto if his good start carries on. Unfortunately I think we are expecting too much if we think Lynn will be back and contributing anywhere near his level last season, and at some point they will need to consider the workload on Kopech. But we can hope that the bats wake up consistently and the pitching holds up. If that happens then they should be thereabouts come season end.

So is our glass half full or half empty?

So what you are saying is that the Sox are statistically even worse than we think and have lucked into a few undeserved wins!

What an arsehole, if he took the punishment all this would blow over in a few weeks but instead he has to make it an even bigger issue.

The offense just needs to get up to average for the wins to become more regular.

Yep benching your best hitter always seems a bit strange to me, but keeping TA fit and healthy is vital to this team so maybe TLR is being cautious?

To win so do the bats need to bring their A game and get across more than the 3 -13 RISP they got yesterday.

A better performance from the pen was good to see, but we are still reliant on Anderson and Robert for run production. But I must admit at 4-1 down I wasn't very hopeful of a win!

Thanks for the detailed response. My big problem is that the Sox attempted a rebuild and this is where they are at now, and the only way of 'retooling' now would be giving up a piece that a challenging team wouldn't really want to give up, unless it is just a case of swapping like for like and hoping a change of scenery works. I guess I am just depressed that the 'challenging for a number of season' rebuild appears to have ground to a halt after 2 playoff appearances.