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Good enough Leury !

There we go . Works like a charm !

Good start !

Let's go boys !!

Ha fuck u ump ! love 2 out rallies, 4 in row on and 2 runs.

Can't throw a strike to 2nd base either.

Dylan lucky to go 6 innings now.

OK didn't see that, so V V will be off the IL then tomorrow and maybe Martin in long relief of him since he's not getting any rehab assignment if Martin doesn't pitch tonight.

It's possible he starts tomorrow since it's listed as TBD last time I looked.

Speculating, that's why I asked if anyone agreed with it. Lynn is back . I know Kopech is injured but hasn't been IL'd yet and Cueto pitched early after Kopech's injury .But with the Hendriks and Bummer IL'd and Graveman moving into the closer role, Kelly takes over the 8th in Graveman's role and the general overuse of the pen, maybe he is needed more in the BP than as a starter now. In my head it's a tossup leaning towards BP.

The hits just keep on coming . You're listening to WSOX FM where every hit is bigger than the last one !

Looks like Davis is up to pitch strictly in relief for however long he's up . Anyone agree with this ?

Fathom was feeling optimistically after they put him on the 15 day IL. Not sure if you noticed that.

Moncada is great at racking up WAR but his slugging percentage has been trending down when it was under.400 for most of last year until a late season surge finally got it above .400. Grandal is old and gets injured far too often now so yes his downfall ,though not to the degree it has come ,has been in the cards for at least a season. Eloy is never on the field because of injuries and quite a few people think he'll always be injury prone. So that's been easily predictable. People on this site want to believe in these guys but they can't because of age, constant injuries and whatever has been making Moncada look like baseball is a new sport to him. You're just making excuses for those guys. Eloy and Moncada haven't been around enough to say how they've done historically. I'll reserve that for guys who have a lot more AB's than they do.

I know Robert cannot produce for his career like he did in August and September last year but something where he could still demolish mistakes in the zone and get that slugging percent back to where it belongs at .500 rather than .400 would be a huge step. Now he's starting to remind me of Eloy with that crazy stance that's forcing more oppo hitting , increasing GB rate and zapping pull power. Cutting down on K's isn't the answer if your OPS is .700 and your slugging is .400. Right now Robert is so open that when he takes his practice swings in the box his barrel barely reaches the inner half of the plate and he's late on way too many fastballs. it's almost like he has to lunge to reach anything on the outer half when he used to be able to drive those pitches and smash them to CF. I just looked on Baseball Savant and his chase rate is near the worst in the majors , in the 1st percentile, so he does seem to be way too aggressive and impatient. His Launch angle is down to 8.1 which is way below the 13.8 from last year after the injury. His sweet spot % is down 7.6%

I know he was scorching hot when he 1st came back from injury in August and September 2021 and his stance wasn't nearly as exaggerated as it is now but it was getting there around the middle of Sept when you look at the pictures in the Fangraphs article. He wasn't taking many walks in August and Sept. so perhaps he was taking more pitches per plate appearance than he is now ? Or maybe just got a lot more pitches in the zone to swing at? I think i like the stances from August 14 and 27th best. I really have no idea why it continued to get more open to the exaggerated way he looks now. He does have that leg kick as a timing mechanism and that gets pointed out when guys with leg kicks are slumping like Trout that their timing is messed up. With the legs so far apart he's making his timing mechanism bigger/longer which could explain why he's so bad on fastballs now. Get back to that mid/late August stance, make the timing mechanism a little shorter. That could solve the fastball coverage you brought up.

Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for. So if he closed his stance a little more and perhaps he should put a little more effort into laying off the outside pitches and frankly off the plate inside too. He just has to start taking more walks. If Abreu could learn to do it at 35 perhaps he could get through to Robert and teach him how to be more of a zone hitter. It's all between the ears now for Robert to curb his aggressiveness and really concentrate on pitch recognition. I know I make it sound simple when it isn't but would you agree in general ?

Did you even read the article ? Frankly it's disturbing when someone comments when they don't educate themselves 1st. Plus I told you he worked with Menechino on that stance.

Thank you Rick Hahn. That's been his prevalent attitude and look at what it's done to the offense. You cannot win a championship with your LHH hitting like minor leaguers playing in the big leagues. It's been beyond abysmal, last in baseball with a huge gap between worst and the next worst team. Championship teams are never the worst in any kind of offensive , pitching or defensive categories.

Ok but how do you explain how much better he was after his injury with the new stance. I know the article said he was pitched league average in zone so when that was happening he was a monster with the new stance. It's also hard to say since he kept opening his stance more and more which stance was the best, slightly open, a little more open or what it was at the end of last year and into this year. If the pitcher have adjusted then it seems to me it's his aggressiveness causing the problem. But again maybe @Balta1701 or some of our experts can take a look and actually not just guess .

Frankly Lillian is right . It's a huge problem when your LHH are the worst in MLB and it's not even close . You can throw me in that group too because it's amazing in a terrible way that it keeps being ignored by Hahn and company.

My problem when trying to tackle this dilemma has always been it's impossible to find stats for just left handed hitters. Everywhere I turn for stats you can break hitters down by position but I have never been able to find stats for LHH only. If anyone know a place that does that I would appreciate knowing where it is.

First I thought I would throw a couple of things out there to look at. 1st is 2021 highlights of Luis . For fun you could look at his batting stance at the beginning of the video and then skip to the last minute and look at it. Vast difference and at various points you can see his stance opening up little by little. There's also this Fangraph's article after the season last year breaking down his stances and results: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/a-closer-look-at-luis-roberts-post-injury-breakout/ Clearly his work with Menechino during his injury paid off, but Symborski brought up an interesting point: "Robert’s O-Swing% showed minor improvement but was still too high and could hold him back if pitchers tease him out of the strike zone more than they do now. He actually saw more pitches in the zone (Zone%) as the season went on (and saw a roughly league-average Zone% last season), which seems like a mistake the league won’t make next season. What will happen when pitchers start treating him closer to the likes of Javier Báez and he starts seeing a Zone% more befitting his aggressiveness? That’s where he needs to continue to grow and adjust, and I imagine pitchers will force the issue on him next season. " Maybe Robert went a little overboard when he just kept opening his stance more and more but the fundamental problem is that he still isn't selective on what to swing at. I'm no expert on how to analyze his swing rates from this year so I'm asking for some help. Have the pitchers adjusted and is he getting more pitches out of the zone ? Have pitchers forced the issue on him taking advantage of Robert aggressiveness like Symborski said they would ? I know none of us would like to see him end up like Baez.

Burger , Robert and Vaughn could get close to that. Abreu 9, HR just passed Burger yesterday for the team HR lead and only has 5 more RBI despite 106 more PA. Of course Burger was never consider part of the core but hey we'll take a late addition. Vaughn, 6 HR, would have to pick up his HR pace a bit, but is tied with Abreu in the team RBI lead and 77 less PA. Robert, 6 HR, 22 RBI would also have to pick up the pace in both categories and is 50 PA behind Abreu. The Sox need some kind of combination of the old and new Robert. The new Robert hits for a high BA , K's less . The old Robert slugged better, I miss that guy who could pull the ball 490 ft. Most blame the new stance . He does seem to have much weaker contact with it. It's a shame his OPS is only .715 and slugging in last year Moncada territory at .400. Hell, the decline of Robert and Moncada is reason alone to fire Menechino. Throw in the terribly high GB rate for Eloy when he actually plays and that's a lot of firepower from core pieces MIA.

Damn straight !