chw42

He just threw 35 pitches in one inning. It'd be smart of Venable to at least have someone warming in the pen just in case he continues to look bad in the next inning.

That's because his FIP is like 5, which feels a lot closer to the kind of pitcher he really is.

Finally got him to not foul off that sweeper.

He rarely walks too.

You can't let Kay go much longer than this. Varsho has to be his last hitter if he can't get him out.

He was also so bad to start the year that regression had to pull him closer to the player he was last season eventually. And that's basically what he is now.

Detmers feels like left handed Javy Vazquez. Great peripherals, but always ends up giving up too many runs.

As someone with a bad lower back, playing any defense with a bad back is tough. I've never had issues swinging even with the bad lower back, but defense and base running is always what made it flare up. I think there's less lateral movement needed at 3B so it might be a bit easier on the back than SS, where you have to cover more ground and maybe extend your back a bit more to reach for grounders. I can definitely see Colson's recent bad defensive play on mostly routine grounders as some kind of pain tolerance issue. Where reaching down might bother him and it's causing him to lose focus on routine plays he usually makes.

Mune just one homer short of advancing.

Felt like he should have gotten some more consistent pitches on the inside to pull. Way too many on the outside of the plate.

Don't they keep going if their last swing is a homer?

I know Bauer is pretty washed at this point, but Roch did really well. I was pretty impressed at how quickly he picked up the slider spin. That's something your average MLB hitter struggles at. His improvement over the last time he faced Bauer is pretty drastic too. He went from whiffing on Bauer's slider to hitting it for a homer.

I can see that being the case in any deal where we might take on a longer/bigger contract. Maybe that's not as much of a concern now because the Red Sox won't be trading Gray or Chapman.

With Hicks having 15 Ks with no walks in 8 innings since his return from injury and Shane Smith possibly coming back, I'm afraid Getz might do next to nothing at the deadline. Especially if we tread water after the ASB.

If you told me at the beginning of the year that this team would have 50 wins at the all star break, I would have thought that something catastrophic happened and they moved the all star game to mid August.

Boston is the hottest team in baseball over the last 2 weeks. They've allowed the least amount of runs in the AL and their offense is doing enough for now. It was a combination of their pitching staff matching up well against our hitters and us throwing 2 of our least in form pitchers against them that resulted in the sweep. The A's are probably the worst team in baseball right now. Especially without Kurtz.

They keep wanting to move Colson off SS. His defensive issues as of late might mean they could be kind of right. It's probably Roch's position in a year or 2. I think they took Roch because he's going to be MLB-ready in a year or 2, which matches our timeline much better than someone like Emerson. And he hits right handed which this team and farm system needs more of.

It's why Mune's profile is so much more bearable. He has similar issues to Colson, but he walks at an elite rate.

That's just the kind of hitter he is. It's great when he's hitting homers in low leverage situations, but he's probably one of the last guys you want in a clutch situation because of how bad he can look against well executed pitches.

And we're out of challenges...

The graphic said it was a ball. I don't think the ump messed up, but the system somehow did.

Usually when it has the red trail it's a strike. That had the red trail and they called it a ball.

Nice play by Meidroth

That might be the closest ABS challenge I've ever seen.

With Martin and Schultz struggling, the rest of the rotation has really picked them up. Even Fedde has been pretty good recently.