Chisoxfn

What does this mean? Is the league really going to go on without 2 of the top teams?

Might be a groin injury - hopefully not as severe as originally reported. Sounds like it wasn't quite a non-contact injury in the sense that he slipped on the field (vs. just had something give).

Unfortunately confirmed - he was carted off the field with a non-contact injury. Very rarely is that anything other than very serious and potentially season ending. Hope the Bears and Montgomery get good news. They had very little to any depth at RB (at least in terms of someone who can carry the load - so this lost is pretty costly even if there ground game was mediocre to bad last year). And they don't have a QB who can just throw the rock 50 times (where you could leverage Cohen on a lot of just quick pass plays, etc).

Unverified rumors that Montgomery might have had a pretty serious knee injury during practice today. If true would hurt a ton as he had supposedly looked really good this training camp (better shape, faster, etc).

Boom!!!! This is fun!

Or one showed more remorse than the other - has responded better since the criticism? Who knows.

I wonder if the Sixers end up making a move from one of Embid / Simmons. I know they have publicly stated they won't, but I wonder if pressures would emerge. I think if I were the Bulls - If Simmons were to be on the block - I would pretty aggressively move to acquire him. He has some warts but he's still extremely young and has all of the elite skillsets that are out there. I'm sure other teams probably have more assets to give, but it would be an interesting area for the Bulls to look (as they absolutely need to find ways to acquire difference makers or guys who can become difference makers).

This - and his stuff sucked every since he made his adjustments or he had something else happen between being drafted and getting to the Sox org. Just watch his college highlights and pitches and let me know when he ever threw anything with that type of stuff with the Sox.

I think he found his form and perfected it. I said it years ago - he is a total stiff. People talk about his stuff but he never showed anything but pure crap stuff at the major league level. People can say it was his command and yes that was bad but so was his stuff. If it weren’t for the fact he was an Uber high draft pick he would never get the run he had. Whatever he had in college hasn’t exsisted in years. If he is going to do anything, he needs to forget whatever adjustments Sox made and go back to his college form and rebuild what he used to do (even if it increases his injury risk) and see if he can find his old stuff. Without that he is a guy with an A+ attitude and D stuff and command.

They are pretty good - pitching has been strong (even though it didn't hold up in 2 games against the Sox) and the offense is solid. They are kind of like a poor man version of the Indians. Rotation not quite as good as Cleveland's (but still been producing), however, the offense is better (not great - but solid). Offense misses Kris Bryant though and Rizzo hasn't gotten on track yet.

To me - fact that he was asymptomatic during the 2nd infection is huge. If you can catch it again, isn't a surprise, the key to me is how the body responds on a 2nd or 3rd infection. If at that point it turns into the equivalent of a common cold - than long term that is a good thing, imo. The bad part is - obviously, that it means this thing is going to be here a long time and obviously stresses the importance of a vaccine, which at the very least can help minimize the more serious effects of the virus. Note: I should make it very clear - none of this proves anything regarding what the effect of a re-infection as it is just one case and I think I've read other stories stating the opposite. Lets hope we never get enough data because we either beat this thing to pulp or it just randomly dissapears (don't ask me how).

Oh and Don Cooper - Danny Mendicks expressions as classic. Cooper's got some moves!!!

The game threads are hilarious - everyone sucks most of the time haha. But that is Soxtalk! I just know one thing - this team is FUN. Perfect, no - but fun and they are going to be good for a LONG TIME.

It really has boggled my mind how negative so many were about mgr decisions and just generally on players given what had been such small sample sizes. Even Mazara - guy has a lot of good at bats. You can see he's a tick slow but I'm not ready to give up and if he's your worse player, that's still pretty good. If there is anything that worries me about this team - it is the team defense and additional of another front line pitcher (hoping Gio is one of them, Keuchel is pretty good, but one more would be stellar (maybe one of our guys develops into it or better yet two or three of our young guys turn into total studs But those are things that could get in the way of winning a World Series - not things that make this team unbearable to watch. They are the opposite - a total freaking joy to watch. This team has made me like baseball again after what was just a miserable freaking decade (2010-2019).

Levine is the only guy on the entire roster I wouldn't move. He is literally the only guy who has true superstar skills - not saying he will be, but he has all the tools and has gotten better every year. Flawed - absolutely. Oh and he's signed to a pretty damn reasonable deal. If the Bulls like Ball, you draft Ball and than package the other guys Laurie or maybe others) to try and grab a better piece or land someone looking to move elsewhere.

I was thinking 4 YR 32M, but I certainly think he would take a 3yr 30 M deal (ballpark wise he gets the deal that provides security). He's still on the older side and with COVID the market this offseason will likely be slow. McCann wants to get paid and while I know he might want to start, he can get plenty of at bats and run on this team with Grandal and I'm sure get plenty of moments in the spotlight as this team consistently plays in the postseason! This is one of those moves I think you do in-season vs. waiting until the off-season too.

Awesome

I will pretend I didn’t see this. This is fun but never say never haha. Loving this team though. Still has work to do long term, especially the shaky d, but when they have abs like they did in that first inning, where they just grinder to get their pitches and work the pitchers...just fun. and Lucas...dirty!!!

Were Timmy & Yoan messing around or actually pissed at each other there?

It might just be the Sox don't think Dunning is ready to handle the workload, given his return, so think they can do a better job giving him extended rest and the right workouts in his rehabilitation from injury?

Few more laker losses at the hands of Dame and maybe the Bulls plan to lure AD back to Chicago is on par (of course Lakers losing to Blazers could only happen if AD no-shows the series).

My daughter is happy - which is what matters the most. She would have been fine either way, but more than anything I empathize for everyone I know who teaches (and you especially). I just feel like you the teacher has been put in this really difficult position where so many point the blame squarely on you. All my neighbors (who teach in our local district + two neighboring districts) have all echoed the exact same thing. No training, no awareness, no clue - and they are upset. They said they had been asking for months for clarity and got nothing. A chunk of them didn't get their info to even prep until the weekend before (no idea if that is how things always work - but that just seems crazy to me). Let me ask this question for you - what would your approach have been / what have been your main issues and if you guys do another year virtual do you feel ready? Do you feel the right investments have been made (and I don't know the answer - you can't make investments without having access to funds and /or an ability to deploy funds in different avenues). Whole thing sucks I tell you - why couldn't we have just reacted better as a country and been what as a nation we have largely done through your generation, my generation, and our past generations - which is be a leader and be the very best (and not not at getting the most case counts) in the world! My analogy is you are being asked to do the most difficult thing in your teaching career - which is not only teach a bunch of kids (god bless every teacher out there because the patience you have - amen) but do it in a remote setting where they have way more potential distractions and you the teacher have such a harder way of connecting to them, etc. Harder to tailor and/or customize the experience. Now add that to the fact that you aren't even given the proper tools to at least alleviate some of these challenges....just tough.

Not everyone has this luxury - but I had set-up a plan B over the summer because I just couldn't have the same situation as what happened in the spring occur again. If you have the ability to do so, you can consider private (I Know it isn't a great answer because the public system should have responded faster and whether I want to point the finger at the public system and/or the federal government for the broader issues, the reality is as far as I'm concerned both failed miserably). I'm not blaming individual teachers - I know too many who all do real good work and I recognize the uniqueness of this challenge, but the more macro public teaching body has utterly failed. I said it over the summer and I continue to say it now. After seeing what happened in the spring, we actually signed our daughter up for a virtual summer school program put on by one of the local private schools. Part of it was to give her something educational to do and just allow her to interact with others (it was both education but also had some virtual fun elements to it) and obviously helped us try to manage through the day (especially since my wife has to physically go into work most days which put more pressure on me to be able to juggle both roles). The other reason we did it was I wanted to see how the private schools were pivoting and what the experience looked like, so that if I needed to, I could pull the trigger and make a shift. We have 3 neighbors who all teach in our district and all gave us the same message over past couple weeks - which was, this is going to be ugly. No one is prepared, the online platform is no bueno, etc (no training until the last few days before the school year stared). We than tried the 1st two days in our public this year low and behold they were right, it was more of the same (which to be honest - was even worse since you have had a full summer to prep). We made the decision to pull her and switch her to the private school (our intent is to only have her do it for this year and than have her go back to her public school next year (when hopefully everything is normal and in-person again). She has had her 1st 3 days now in the private school and wow what a difference. It is night and day the difference in the virtual format and the attention to detail. Is it perfect - no, but the amount of time being spent with the kids, the investment in the technology and tools to be used (the school had to make some big investments between spring and now to prepare for this, but also the teachers were embedded in that entire process for the entire summer, working on multiple options, etc and it shows). The teacher is unbelievable and it is awesome how throughout the day she pivots to the various other teachers (i.e., a spanish class, her science class, virtual pE with scavenger hunts and activities that get her away from the screen and the teachers are all 100% owning the students (when they need help they are saints in how they are able to work with the 2nd graders)). I'm literally floored at the difference - part of this is probably just a teacher difference (but her public school teacher was awesome - clearly putting in the time and sending emails all over the place and doing everything she could - but you can just tell was being hindered by some pretty massive failures from the districts and the broader system and the lack of a clear and concise REAL strategy. Helped that with COVID vacations were off the table and we were able to save extra money (minimal gas) plus we didnt pay for daycare costs for either of our kids for a handful of months either (which helped us kind of offset at least some of the difference).

Robert has such quick hands. He is just a spectacularly good hitter. He'll never have the walks or the massive OBP, but the boy can flat out hit. Love watching him play and I still think he ends up becoming a good defensive SS for a good chunk of his career (not elite or great, but good).

Yes please - I enjoy the increased urgency of the regular season.