CaliSoxFanViaSWside

Nope

But who in their right mind bats perhaps your best HR hitter 8th when you 1 and 2 hitters have 0 HR's. All teams have a better win percentage when they hit 2 or more HR's so our HR hitters need more opportunities and our 0 HR guys need less opportunities. And Gavin despite the hate for him hits RHP pretty well . Grandal should bat 8th because he isn't healthy, fast or young enough to be in the middle of the lineup. Tim and Beni 6th and 7th. Tim for health reasons also.

LOL catchers are slow ,especially old catchers with hammy problem. Be grateful he's hitting decently. He made that Burger HR a 2 run blast.

Burger 3 straight games with a HR !!

But I think it's a fallacy that the Sox starting pitching has short outings. All teams deal with that problem and the Sox did try to remedy it by throwing money at relievers while neglecting the position player depth and player development. Relievers are notoriously inconsistent and old relievers are prone to injury although almost all pitchers are also. Reinsdorf failings are based on how he chooses not to spend money on the development of youth . It's been reflected in how the Sox have operated over the years in the International FA market usually going for older players and ignoring young or Dominican players or trading away money meant for IFA's. Hahn also has traded away youth like Semien , Tatis etc while also not trying to get more youth. And they are always out there. Plenty of young players are blocked or are given up on by their 1st organizations and get traded. Look around at all the good players who started off with other organizations who gave up on them or threw them into trades.

I don't. You said yourself that giving Robert more ABs make sense so having 2 players at the top with no HR moved own allowing guys with more HR more AB also makes sense. Leadoff must be 100% healthy to be who he is. He is not peak TA any more. He needs to get healthy and less responsibilities in the lineup to help him get there.

No doubt. I always bash the owner 1st because the whole direction the franchise takes is based on how he thinks the money is spent best. The problem with that is , he's a baseball fan imposing his lack of knowledge about the sport into his ownership of the team and has learned very little during his tenure. I tend to give the players a lot more rope.

Pedro seems partial to a RLRLRL lineup. I don't think you can have TA and Benitendi getting the most PA when neither one has a HR. Plus TA is obviously not 100% so maybe lessen his responsibilities and take some pressure off him and his knee. The problem I see now is who the heck do u lead off ? It should be a LH vs a RHP and the lineup should be LRL not RLR. They didn't listen to me in the off season to get younger faster and more LH and instead opted to chase their hearts desire in Benitendi. Now this teams plods along with Vaughn, Sheets, Grandal I agree that Burger should be higher when he still might be the most likely player on the team to hit a HR next to the scalding Robert. But do you start the games against a RHP with Moncada, Burger, Robert then who ? Grandal ? Sheets ? Or do you maintain LRL and put Grandal or Sheets 3rd and Robert 4th ? But somewhere you're putting Tim and Benintendi 6th and 7th , Grandal 8th because of his own health issues and age. Imagine the s%*# storm in here seeing Sheets hitting 3rd or 4th. But most of the time he does have decent ABs .

There is a decent amount of talent on the team it's just always injured. We've seen enough flashes from guys like Eloy and Moncada to know they are very talented. Same goes for Tim , probably Cola and Sosa too. But what we haven't seen is the ability to stay on the field and see enough pitching to develop a level of consistency that will allow you to make minor adjustments along the way. In the rookies cases it just has to be a constant reinforcement that YOU have to control the strike zone. YOU cannot hit everything a pitchers throws in the strike zone hard so how do you expect to hit the balls out of the strike zone hard ? You must cut down your Chase % and swing %. All these organiztions we see being patient against the Sox pitcher they all know this. It's what makes them MLB players. Early in the season Robert was very bad. Why ? Mainly because he got into some bad habits last year because he was injured and basically you forget and have to rediscover what made you good when you were healthy and hot. If you are not ever healthy, which we can say for most of his career, his development will be slower.

I think a lot of what is driving his improvement is something that they should be teaching every player but especially Colas now. The ability is there but what wasn't there is the ability to control the strike zone. You have to improve your Swing %, Chase % and K %. If you improve the 1st 2 your K % will follow and you'll get better pitches to hit. Keep your weight back and be balanced. Get into hitters counts.The best hitters don't have to lunge and reach an outside pitch to hit a HR to RF. They let their bat take it's natural swing path and know they can still barrel it up. Just compare how often he was lunging at outside pitches when he was 3 for 50 or w/e it was. Now he's very quiet in the box , balanced , seeing the ball better, swinging less, chasing less. Check out Burger's HR to RF from yesterday. He was behind in the count but on a hanger on the outside corner but up he waited on that pitch . He didn't go out after it and try to hook it to LF. A lot of HR hitters just don't feel they have much power to RF for whatever reason. That's why hitters make a concerted effort to pull so much. A guy like Arenado feels he has to pull it. The majority of HR hitters pull the ball. Judge has a cozy RF so even though he does less power going that way he can still muscle them out that way. Plus you are never a finished product. Muncy made adjustments this off season. Probably took thousands of swings. Then the season started and whoops he sucked. However he made some adjustments on the fly and now he's got 14 HR's. Most hitters tinker and try to improve . You can't give up on guys too early. Sosa might look like crap at the MLB level now but that doesn't mean he always will. You hope he finds what he's looking for. Beckham never could make the adjustment and he started off hot. I'd almost rather see a rookie struggle and he might think he's got it all figured out and then bam ,these coaches and pitchers are too smart and will find your tiniest weakness to exploit it. It's the ongoing game within a game to which we are often not privy.

Robert continues his torrid streak. Burger and Sheets combined for the Shurger Burger Bombs. Lance Lynn looked like he turned back the clock. 8-3 final score.

Beat on the Bieber . Usually I don't think the Sox hit him well. STats may not support that but that's how it seems.

AL leader in HRs now. HR 4th game in a row. Arenado hit hit for his 5th game in a row tonight.

That was an oppo taco-burger !

Shurger !!! That's Sheet and Burger together , that's they call themselves for those who don't know.

Especially the Earl Weaver Special

That a boy Gavin !

How are you supposed to drive the ball on a pitcher pitch ? The very definition of a pitchers pitch is one that's designed to not allow you to drive it. It's usually on the black.

He would have been gunned down if he attempted to get to 2nd and he also wouldn't have scored on the following single even if he had been on 2nd.

I sure hope that this isn't one of those 10+ hits 1 run games for the Sox.

If you're going to be as open as some of our guys you might as well get on top of the plate.

Sheets hits a lot of shots foul. I wonder if he can just re position his feet to a slightly more closed stance so he can get them fair.

That 0-1 cutter to Arias had a lot of movement.

If the game is close late. I'd avoid Naylor . He was smokin hot in late innings against the ANgels and he's a huge Sox killer.

For those who wanted Robert 3rd you got your wish. There is however the fact that his most productive spot in the order has been 5th this season. But he's been pretty good hitting 3rd too. Batting 3rd : 5 for 16 .313 BA 1 HR, 1 2B , 1 RBI . 476 OBP, .563 Slugging Batting 5th : 10 for 26 , 3 2B , 4 HR , 9 RBI, .448 OBP .962 Slugging