Jake

It's like he had to leave Reynaldo in for 3 extra batters to prove that he hadn't forgotten to get somebody warmed up

Easily the worst managing decision(s) of Ricky's time here. Reynaldo had backed his way into an acceptable 5 inning start but there were already signs that he was losing it at the end of 5. Nobody getting loose to start the next inning and we let Reynaldo throw more pitches than he has in his career (I presume) to give up 4 more runs for god knows what reason

Surprisingly little discussion of Madrigal's bomb here. I was ready to be disappointed when I saw it on video but I was actually surprised he could hit a low liner out of the park like that.

I mean I get it but to anyone paying attention, Ross Detwiler is going to be a hell of a message too

Robert is basically a big game away from having great-looking numbers in AA. I'm not sweating anything at all with him right now.

Honestly for our current situation I don't know how Hahn can say they can't find anything outside the organization when James Shields is sitting at home. What's the difference between him and Ervin Santana, besides the fact Shields would be way better (not a high bar)?

Some of the beat writers were suggesting on Twitter that Ricky basically told Yoan that if he had a big day he'd get the next day off

I don't hate the idea of taking Abrams. I suspect the big question on the Sox's minds is what the power potential is. This has to be the hardest thing to project with a beanpole 18 year old. Kid has high upside as a defensive player and not a lot of risk — worst case is he's a 2B, CF, or he fills out and plays 3B which hopefully means he's finding more power. Seems like his hit tool is not terribly risky...very unlikely to end up struggling due to contact issues. Needs development, but he's not super raw, just young.

I don't find that analysis to be very compelling. It's clear you shouldn't be bunting every time you get a guy on, yes. But as another poster said, it also doesn't deal with whether bunting increases your chances of scoring *a* run, which sometimes is the more pertinent question (and I don't know, maybe it doesn't increase them!). You also have to consider several other factors: How good the hitter is Qualities of the upcoming hitters Quality of the opposing pitcher What other things might happen besides a sacrifice bunt when you try to sacrifice: The bunt fails and you get the lead runner out, the batter fails and strikes out, the batter walks, the batter gets a hit, the fielders commit an error, etc. Those things may very well generally combine to advise against bunting. But just looking at the aggregate run expectancy statistics is not convincing to me as an overall indictment on bunting.

I've never heard anyone say Burger's re-injury cost him that much time. More like 2 months, I thought

Would like to hear more explanation on this one

Someone should be fired for letting Rondon go out there

I wonder if the swelling has prevented them from getting good images of the elbow and/or good manual tests of the ligaments and muscles involved

Players often need to play in MLB to be ready for it. Let him take his lumps now rather than at a time where the wins are really important.

It will be interesting to see who we turn to for his spot in the rotation, Cease or otherwise. I suppose Covey is the most likely candidate.

Let the record show that Statcast pegs Abreu's xwOBA at the highest of his career so far this year* and the quality of his contact in particular thus far is easily the best he's ever had. *which excludes his rookie season as it was pre-Statcast

I kinda like Rondon but that's not the type of thing I trust him to do

I'm sticking by it as "not dumb," which isn't meant to be a huge compliment. The deal had upside — maybe you get something like the old Ervin Santana for just $4 million — but not a lot of downside since we had the right to cut him loose right away with no strings attached. Considering Santana refused his assignment and the continued pro-rated payments that would go with it, I wonder if his plan now is to retire. I don't see any way he gets another MLB shot without going through the minors first and nobody is going to pay him as much as we were to pitch in AAA.

You say that, and by all accounts you're right, but then we also have Zack Collins so you never know! Similar number of passed balls compared to Collins last year while controlling the running game better. I'd sure hope he's not also super bad at the receiving and game calling aspects of the job because our young pitchers probably deserve to have us preferring glove-first catchers when we use minor league veterans to fill out the rosters.

Like I said we'll never know what would have happened with a normal timeline but you can look at the numbers in the minors and see a guy who kept getting promoted without having justified the promotion. Maybe he'd have been bad no matter where he pitched but if I have a guy with control problems the last thing I want to do is rush him into better and better competition where every mistake gets punished and he can't work on anything.

Welp now it turns out that signing Santana wasn't very dumb at all. Rolled the dice, he didn't work out, hardly any money wasted especially given the potential upside of the deal when it was signed.

What doesn't seem to be well-recognized is the possibility that there was no way to avoid Moncada striking out a bunch in MLB, that he had to do it in order to eventually not do it.

So weird. Reynaldo's main weakness has been inability to get swings and misses with his heater. Today he goes out there and leans on his heater and they whiffed on half they swung at. They only got 3 balls in play out of 34 they swung at.

Reynaldo!!!!!!

52 fastballs out of 80 pitches for Reynaldo.