Jake

I propose a ban on splitters

I for one support Mune playing 1B. I don't really think his defense is going to be a big problem over the long run. It's probably true that Lenyn would play 1B better but that's because Lenyn is a second baseman.

Well all you need is a hit here and you get to keep playing

Feels like his cleat might actually get back on the base but it's going to be too hard to see

Chase didn't hit the ball well there but I'm not really seeing an issue with his approach in that AB. Took the two pitches outside the zone and put the only ball off the edges into play with two strikes.

Okamoto really looks like a 1B in the field

Well on ball 4 you can still be thrown at 3B in that spot. Don't think Seranthony holds runners well though.

Newcomb wasn't fooling anybody

From the last angle they showed as the decision was announced, looks like he could have been safe. But you never see it quite clearly enough.

I think he's out but it makes sense to challenge this one

Kirk with a real stinker of a challenge there

Leasure mixed in a sinker there for the first time that I can remember and got a nice result jamming Vlad Jr. badly

Are you telling me that good teams do dumb things sometimes?

Welp

This is more or less a game where the gamble has worked out — so far. When you burn your good reliever early, the downsides are that you don't know whether your offense was ever going to score or if the starter was going to give up a bunch of runs anyway. Today, Burke did his job and the offense has scratched a few across. I'm still not a big fan just because I don't think you want to bet on the Sox offense or Burke that often. I was happier with the strategy last year when they were using lefties to deal with the platoon advantage of opposing lineups that had lefties at the top of the order. Hopefully the final part of the bet, that Leasure and Seranthony will lock it down, works out.

Annoying thing about this opener business is it didn't really buy Burke any platoon advantage and now we don't have our best reliever available to protect this two-run lead late.

Peters is annoying to me

IMO a significant storyline of 2025 was Vargas showing that he was good enough with the glove to play 3B in MLB. Where exactly he'd be on the spectrum from below average to above average, not so clear. But definitely good enough if he had reasonable offense.

Sims is the most generic RHP reliever to exist. Nasty slider, okay fastball, shaky command

Acuna missing the one throw is whatever to me last night. An infielder without many game reps in the outfield is liable to get surprised by how much his outfield throws tail on him. Making the exact same mistake the next batter was the annoying one

I am amenable to basically just trying people out at various spots and seeing how it goes but if you let the defense slip too much it ends up ruining your pitchers

I was going to blame that one on Shane rather than Luisangel but turns out that ball wasn't hit hard either

Think Pereira may have misread that one. Another bloop in the books against Shane

I know this pattern of misses far too well

He was letting it rip in one-inning spring outings last year but he has an upward trajectory in velo in his regular season career [img]