Balta1701

Foulke hasn't exactly been that dominant as a closer this year. I almost wish we were facing him. I think the reality of this whole season is that if we go .500 against the Twinkies and Indians so that neither team can make up ground by beating us, and we avoid any major losing streaks (> 3 or 4 games in a row), we're far enough ahead that we can afford to lose a few games and even consider giving people extra pre-playoff rest down the stretch.

QUOTE(Punch and Judy Garland @ Jul 12, 2005 -> 12:11 PM) Boone is better than Willie. Come on. Boone "Was" better than Willie. Right now I don't think anyone can even wager a guess as to how good Boone actually is...because we haven't seen how far he's declined from 3 years ago when he was putting up sudden and miraculous numbers.

QUOTE(Middle Buffalo @ Jul 12, 2005 -> 12:11 PM) Agreed. Nothing, to me, is worse than when someone like Mariotti keeps looking for negatives in a story like the Sox this year. Who knows, in the long run, maybe this will be a terrible trade for the Sox. I like the direction they are going (in terms of D, speed, and pitching), though. This may also be a terrible trade in the long run for the Brewers, as they only have Lee under contract (team option) in 2006, and it's hard to believe that if he puts up numbers like this year in 06 as well, the Brew Crew will be able to sign him. Therefore, they'll have exactly 1 year in which to make a run at the playoffs with Lee, and then they'll lose him.

Couple of points Re: Juggs. 1. I'd want Thomas playing every day too if I thought he could. I don't. I don't want to see him play more than 2/3 of our games for at least another month. He's been doing a wonderful job, but he's also aching in the process. He's complained in press accounts of his legs being tired and sore repeatedly, which isn't surprising at all considering how long he was out. If we put him in every single day, there's a real good chance he'll pull a Nomar and snap something. 2. I think you have a bit of a roster spot problem with your players as above. Your suggestion is that we should add in Vizquel and Randa and move Crede/Uribe to part time/backups/platoon roles. You then have Ross Gload coming up to play 1b, with Timo and Harris being removed. This is 3 guys with 2 free roster spots. And I really don't think that we can say "take someone out of the bullpen" because Walker and Jenks will in short order be replaced by El Duque and Marte. This leaves you with 26 players to fill 25 roster spots. So I think the obvious question is; who else do you drop?

QUOTE(quickman @ Jul 12, 2005 -> 10:30 AM) Milkman normally I would agree 100% and I just still might, but the option of moving iguchi down plays to iguchis natural hitting style. This is the very first year he has ever batted second, and he is still adjusting, Doing well I might add. I think this scenerio gives us tremendous flexability. He's still adjusting and doing an incredible job. Why would we want to make him adjust to something else?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jul 12, 2005 -> 09:18 AM) I can't imagine what it has to be like for you guys right now. If you hear anything keep us posted if you can. Stay strong Sorry IIRC means if I recall correctly... I have a lot of trouble understanding this comment... How exactly is it that you can't imagine what it has to be like for Londoners right now? Both nations have suffered their fare share of terrorism. Londoners have probably seen more bombings, while the U.S. has seen more devastating attacks.

Secondly, there's also a really REALLY easy solution to the ol' "Who do I keep as a reserve pitcher in case this game goes to extras" question. I'm surprised no one else has seen it yet. Kenny Rogers. The guy shouldn't be pitching anyway. If he comes out he'll hear as loud a chorus of boos as anyone. People will probably be happier if he doesn't pitch. He's the obvious guy to hold in reserve, IMHO.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jul 12, 2005 -> 08:49 AM) Why 5th or 6th? He should be pitching right after Buehrle and Buehrle supposedly is going 2 innings. They do a lot of this planning based on matchups. Francona may very well think Garland may match up better against some of the NL subs than the starters. He also has Colon to work into the ball game pretty early, and in all honesty I'd rather take Colon up there against Lee and Pujols than even Garland. I just don't want those 2 guys hitting the ball. They make contact...uh-oh.

God I love how the pitching matchup in this game thread looks so...so...normal. I can't wait until the next time we see it.

QUOTE(DABearSoX @ Jul 12, 2005 -> 08:52 AM) Have some of you herd any other baseball annoucers......if you have you would be very thankful we have hawk...... This is really quite true...go pick up the DirecTV Extra Innings package or the MLB.tv package and listen to some of the other announcers. There are a few out there that are really good and give you some interesting chats/conversations/calls (Vin Scully, Tom Brennaman/Mark Grace in Arizona, The Caray kid in Atlanta) but there are a few who are absolutely terrible. I spent a fair amount of time listening to other announcers over the radio during the world series last year, and the Cardinals guys just have no heart or emotion at all. We're spoiled by having guys who are actually quite interesting, knowledgeable, fans of the team, and a joy to listen to. That really is rare in announcers. Most are just basically seat fillers. Trust me, if the Sox ever get one of those guys to replace Hawk, we'll really miss him then.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ Jul 12, 2005 -> 05:56 AM) Oh the strap it on comment was classic. I was dying laughing and my wife, (who was in the other room) couldn't figure out what I thought was so funny during a baseball game. There was like an 15 second awkward silence right after that. Have you noticed how rapidly that moved into my sig?

QUOTE(Sox Hustler @ Jul 11, 2005 -> 08:34 PM) I do hate it when he says "he JUST JUST missed that one" and its a shallow fly to CF. If you barely get underneath a ball, that's all it takes. When I don't get the Sox announcers, I do all of Hawk's home run calls myself. Including the "stretch". Freaks out my fiance sometimes. That ought to tell you something about how much this Sox fan adores the Hawk.

I think the other side of the Garland coin is that it's hard to believe a guy can go from being a 12 win pitcher to a 12 win A HALF pitcher so fast, unless you've actually seen what he's been doing. We've watched Jon out there just flat out beat people. We've seen him throw out quality start after quality start. We saw him ace Tejada when he needed to. We've seen him go out and just beat people using sinkers and ground balls. Unless you've watched what Jon has done this year, it's hard to believe. The numbers wouldn't seem to add up, unless you know what kind of pitcher he has been.

Rodriguez could potentially hit 1/2 as many home runs as Abreu and still win this.

El Caballo wraps up round 2 with 4...gives both Irod and Ortiz a decent shot.

Abreu wraps up the 2nd round with 6.

Hell, I'm not all that sure I'd rather have Boone than Harris, as far back as Boone has slid. Harris at least hit like .260 last year with more playing time than this year. Thankfully, we've got the Tad.

2 HR, 6 outs for Abreu in this round. Grabbing a new, lighter bat.

I think the MLB Radio guys just said they have John Rooney coming up.

Jonespopsitup...Pudge makes the 2nd round.

1 out...Jones needs 3 to advance.

Ortiz has hit his 8th, he's passed Irod...if Andruw passes him, Irod will be out.

6 hr for Ortiz w/ 4 outs left. He's passed Choi.

You know...for a while I thought there could never be a worse internet broadcast program than MLB's usual gameday...in terms of freezing, etc. But this ESPN home run tracker is just absolutely awful. I've never seen anything like it. It actually will add outs and then subtract them as it refreshes. It's just insane.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jul 11, 2005 -> 06:33 PM) Oh, good call. I keep forgetting about Jones. I've honestly forgotten he's in the thing about 10 times. Going through the countries in my head, always forgetting Curacao. The nation of Curacao will never forgive this insult! Where is Curacao again?