JUSTgottaBELIEVE

Or put another way, Gravemen and Kelly are almost equal to one Rodon both in annual salary and total salary. A little cheaper for those two per season than Rodon so maybe you add Velazquez to this season as well. Kopech replaced Rodon in the rotation so they had a void in the bullpen since Kopech vacated his spot to join the rotation. Graveman fills that Kopech bullpen role. Only need 4 starters in the playoffs. Are the Sox better off with Lynn, Gio, Cease, Rodon in the rotation and Kopech and ? in the pen like last season come playoff time? Or Lynn, Gio, Cease, Kopech in the rotation and Gravemen and Kelly in the pen? I’m not sure but I’d probably take the latter personally.

For this season, pretty much what Balta said. For next season, who knows. Kelly eats up about $8.5M of the ~$20M it would cost for Rodon next year.

Let’s not forget he had a 0.72 ERA in April for the Sox last season. As I’ve said before with Rodon, it’s not what you do for me in April, it’s what you do for me late in the season and playoffs. Giants not exactly easing him in either. Already 274 pitches in 3 games after a shortened spring training. Let’s see where he’s at in another 5 months.

So much for the Giants not overusing him early in the season like the Sox did last year. Rodon probably leading MLB in pitches thrown thru 3 starts.

Meh

Why does CLE hit poorly in warm weather? I don’t know. Some guys are perennial slow starters like Abreu, Grandal, etc. while others are not.

Don’t win trophies in April. I doubt the Astros are concerned that they’re about to fall into 4th place in the West. Long season. Best teams rise to the top in the end. Sox are still the best team in the AL Central by a lot.

I don’t like sitting the regulars either but people acting like they win this game if they play the regulars is dumb too. It’s not that simple either. This offense has been lackluster all season. The scrubs provided a .759 OPS in game 2. I’m not sure the regulars would have done better considering they haven’t so far this year…

This team doesn’t hit in April. We already know this. It happens every year. Need the pitching to keep them in games and hope to survive April with a record above .500 and then let the bats warm up.

See post above. The scrubs didn’t cost the Sox this game as much as we’d like to pin it on them. The regulars need to do better. It’s that simple.

Not automatically, no, but like I said the regulars in game two were terrible. If those guys hit better, they win this game. The scrubs Haseley, McGuire, Garcia, and Medick reached base 6 out of 14 plate appearances.

Nah, not worried about Cleveland. They started well last year as well. Their lineup stinks and their rotation won’t stay healthy all season either.

My point is, how do you know the regulars would have done any better? They sucked in game 1 and the ones that played in game 2 sucked as well.

The “normal starters” of Harrison, Grandal, Vaughn, and Sheets combined for 0-14 in game 2. Can’t pin it just on the subs. They actually outproduced the starters today.

And this was from a bunch of guys that most don’t want on the roster too. They did their job. Offense, even with the second game AAA lineup, needs to do better than 2 runs in 18 innings..

Actually, the pitching outside of Keuchel was great today.

I mean, 4 high end starters is more than any other team in baseball. Hopefully Cueto provides some depth starting in a week. I’d like to see Lopez get a shot at starting over lambert.

Bullpen has been lights out today and they haven’t even used their top guys.

I’ll take the over on that!

I’m perfectly fine with someone else taking out the Astros.

Kopech about to join this list too. This rotation is scary good when healthy. Now let’s hope they don’t get the Astros in the playoffs again!

Slowly getting the band back together. And we’re 6-3 without em!

I’m confident the Sox finish top 2 in the AL this regular season. Doesn’t mean anything, though, if they do nothing in the playoffs again. The playoffs are everything at this point in the rebuild.

I’d really like the Sox chances if they played Houston without McCullers like the Braves did in the WS…

We split in Chicago 2-2 regular season, 1-1 postseason. Hard to win a series if you’re splitting your home games but can’t win any of the road games…