Jake

Yeah I closed the book on him a night or two ago. I just don't see anything there. Not sure if it's his injuries, his head, or some combination, but he doesn't look like he has any of the pieces of his game that are needed anymore.

I think it's a good philosophy as a manger to err on the side of under-managing and he failed in that regard. Also, I think I'm ready to close the book on the Trayce Thompson era.

Leury is fine in the outfield but does make mistakes that you'd expect from an infielder playing the outfield. He generally makes up for it in my view by making some exceptional plays and using his speed to make some tough plays look easy. I think it balances out to about an average defender. I mentioned this in the game thread that it seems like he's been making many more mistakes in LF than CF this year, but I don't know what good reason there would be for that and it may just be coincidence.

Hawk brought up an interesting comparison for Lopez today: Bartolo Colon. He definitely pitched like Bartolo today, throwing 75 fastballs out of 107 pitches. I think Reynaldo can become a more well-round pitcher than Bartolo (no fat joke intended), but I wonder if he can use this fastball heavy approach to his advantage while he polishes the secondary stuff.

It's funny because I don't even see Cease as a "main guy" for the rebuild. That's not meant as a knock on him at all but more of a statement about how deep our system. Plausibly could be the case that by the time Cease should be ready, we won't need him (but I suspect we'll be very glad to have him).

Love him big dogging it off the mound there.

This is really impressive to me — look where the swinging strikes are. He has been able to pound the zone and still get guys to whiff. This is what good stuff can get you.

Superb outing for Reynaldo. I hope we can get him some cushion to let him push deeper into the game if he lets a guy or two on.

Can't believe a team with a guy like Rougned Odor would have a bad attitude

Umpire has been giving Minor that high and outside pitch. Very tough to hit.

Well that strike 3 was something.

One thing I like about this team is that it is fast.

Hit and run is a smart call with how Tim has been hitting.

Two old men talking about the re-runs they've been watching on TV

DeShields has not had a good look at Lopez today.

"How do you solve problems? With solutions!" sounds like the beginning of a bad sales pitch

Interesting to me that virtually all of Leury's bad defensive plays have come in LF

6 swings and misses in 29 pitches for Lopez. That might be more swings and misses than he generated in his entire previous start.

Might be breaking out of that weird pattern

I think there's an analogy to pitchers who can throw strikes and not hit spots. Tim is getting better at identifying strikes from non-strikes, I think, but he's not doing a good job identifying good pitches to hit from non-good pitches to hit. Hopefully he's just in a bit of a funk where his decision-making is a little out of whack.

Minor really moving the ball around effectively. Nobody has been able to get a very clean swing on him.

We'll have a good idea of what Palka is by then, that's for sure.

I know exactly which pitch you're talking about and I thought the same thing.

Hard-throwing Reynaldo today.

I'll take this opportunity to re-post this: Sox pitching staff MLB rank by WAR and RA9-WAR: 2002: 16 / 15 2003: 5 / 5 2004: 18 / 15 2005: 1 / 1 2006: 4 / 8 2007: 9 / 18 2008: 1 / 6 2009: 4 / 7 2010: 1 / 10 2011: 2 / 8 2012: 12 / 6 2013: 16 / 18 2014: 25 / 25 2015: 9 / 16 2016: 13 / 11 2017: 29 / 23 There certainly isn't much *under*achievement in there. Combined, the Sox are 3rd in MLB in fWAR (7th in RA9-WAR) since Coop took over. While maybe the bit about free agent acquisitions doesn't tell the whole story, I don't think the Sox have had anything like the 3rd most talent over that time.