35thstreetswarm

I like this.

Watching the mindlessly negative, smarmy off-season posters flail and backpedal may not be as fun as watching the Sox, but it’s at least the 20th best thing about this season.

5/6 to bury the Twinkies. Return to form for Gio and Hendriks. A bit of JuJuJiuJitsu on the negative energy that was building around TLR's latest. What a gratifying way to stomp out -- respectfully of course -- our brethren from the North. Soary!

How's 5/6 and 11.5 back taste, Twinkies? Next time we might not even gift you a mercy victory out of "respect."

Maybe the most gratifying win of the season so far. Hendriks needs regular work -- he looks like a different pitcher than when he's on long rest. Way to take the series, and 5/6, to really bury the Twinkies. Hopefully this latest unforced TLR drama blows over quickly so we can get back to business.

It’s funny, usually the “unwritten rules” are meatballish and macho to a fault. Here Tony pulled off the rare feat of adhering to them while also looking like a complete pussy.

My god, I was actually going to make a smart-ass joke suggesting he should just send them a written apology. But he really did. In real life.

Agreed. This is all getting way too cloak-and-dagger. Not to mention the fact that if he goes out there and beans him right off the bat immediately after being called up that would just be waaayyyy too obvious.

You haven't refuted what I said at all. The point is you haven't spent this offseason and season cautiously avoiding "conclusions" because it's too early to make them. To the contrary. You have stated conclusions galore -- that this was going to be a lost "developmental" season, that you believed a team other than the Sox should be favored to win the division, etc. You are only now trying to walk them back into this wishy-washy, conclusion-free "wait and see" approach to try to save face in case things keep going well for the Sox. It won't work. Anyway, I've already exceeded the recommended number of exchanges with you. See you after the next losing streak or injury breathes life force into you.

...and yet you didn’t wait to come to the conclusion—even earlier in the season—that the Sox should *not* be the favorite to win this division. Bad times call for conclusions. Good times call for “wait and see.” Got it.

Yes. You can contrast this with the Twins who built the ultimate juiced-ball offense that paid dividends in 2019 (sort of), but will never be replicated now.

Or you could say that their eating into our lead so dramatically showed we weren't that good a team. Sweeping them at the end of the season, and winning the division, didn't prove anything either because the Indians weren't that good to begin with. I mean, they didn't even make the playoffs. And we *should* have swept them. ... 2006 showed who we really were as a team. This is easy!

2005 is definitely my favorite cautionary tale.

Any updates? Now that we know Minnesota is not a good team (since we beat them and all.)

Always like T-Flo. Met him at Spring Training and he was a really nice, and really large dude. If I had to sum him up with the first phrase that comes to mind I'd say "larger than expected."

I'm excited for Engel to return and think we need him, but I am worried that folks are building him up a little too much in their minds. He doesn't exactly have a long track record of being a better-than-bench level player, and will be returning from a long absence. It wouldn't shock me if he comes back and is basically Leury.

All jokes are funnier when converted to list form

WILL be. ?

I can’t stand this type of BS meatball armchair psychology. Stone should stick to sparring with 14-year-olds on Twitter.

Love it—let’s create some more distance between us and those pesky fuckers this weekend

*which are many

This is going to be a rough season for you.

Finally -- Kenny's time to shine! He was gunning for this title his entire tenure as GM.

Sorry, but this is just nonsensical. I'm overjoyed about the Sox, I predicted that they'd be good and they are, and I roll my eyes at most of the reflexive negativity on this board. But to suggest that you can't criticize a *single* aspect of the team just because they're winning is crazy. I was overjoyed when the Sox were cruising after smoking Minny at the end of last season, but I had no illusions that Ricky was a great manager and remained worried that his in-game strategy would cost us games. I was right. I have the same worries about TLR even while my overall positivity rating is sky-high.

If I were you I would aim this sentiment at the contingent of posters who are indiscriminately negative about *everything* (and there are plenty—remember, wins don’t count if we just won them, and losses are the only games on which we can draw conclusions), rather than critics of TLR. The latter is a much more focused and reasonable group. There’s really nothing inconsistent or unreasonable about believing a team is winning despite their manager rather than because of him.