chw42

I think I'm more excited to see him hit tomorrow than pitch.

We need Lucas to be a stopper today.

Out at least 2-3 weeks depending on the severity. If it requires surgery he'll be out 4 to 6 weeks.

Soria kinda sucks. Should just be a throw in to the deal.

Cleveland's probably had more injuries than we have, although not as serious in extent. They're somehow still only 2.5 back.

For crying out loud, the Cubs can't help us at all against Cleveland.

It'll be interesting to see how much of an effect this crackdown has. Will a 4 ERA be considered good again? How much higher will the league average wOBA be? Either way, I still think this change does not favor us. Yeah our hitters might produce more, but that's really not the strength of the team.

Yeah Rodon is clean. His fastball is as straight as an arrow. He's throwing 98+ and getting 2100 RPM. It's probably why his exit velo and hard hit data doesn't look good this year. Velocity alone is getting him by right now.

I remember Bauer was slightly above average in spin rate before 2018. He was hovering around 2400. Then he jumped to 2700-2800. He's now at 2600 RPMs. Maybe he's found a way to increase his spin rate by 200 RPMs naturally, but he literally said that was impossible before without foreign substances. Lynn's spin rates were never elite. He was at 2400, which is just above average.

Liam Hendriks' spin rate also dropped yesterday by about 170 RPMs on his 4 seamer. His slider dropped 130 RPMs. I didn't watch his inning but it appeared like he did fine despite the RPM loss.

Yeah probably. I think substances give you more break and control on breaking pitches. The fastball is talked about a lot more because it's much harder to add spin to a fastball without foreign substances. You can definitely add spin to breaking pitches with more finger pressure and different grips.

A 200 rpm decrease probably means he was using something like pine tar. Spider Tack can give you 200+ RPMs but the stuff Bauer was using can get you 300+.

I regret giving him the fire power to fuel his Abreu hate.

Could Hahn have picked a worse time to say this? I understand he can't say that we really need help to the media for trade leverage purposes and all, but the timing of this was pretty terrible.

Yermin shouldn't DH against a righty. Maybe you throw him in there against a soft tossing lefty, but he's totally unable to handle ML pitching right now. If you have to, send him down to AAA to figure it out, cause having him hit .150 in the majors isn't helping anyone. Lamb should DH vs. righties as much as possible, but stop putting him in the 2 spot. He's a total liability on defense and really shouldn't be put in OF, especially if you plan on playing Goodwin in CF. The combination of Goodwin, Vaughn, and Lamb might be the worst defensive OF in baseball. Play Engel as much as possible. We need him to anchor the defense in CF and he's hitting well enough against RHP that he shouldn't strictly be a platoon player. Especially when your other options in CF are Goodwin and Leury. Against RHP, I'd go Lamb at DH, Goodwin in LF, Engel in CF, and Leury in RF. You can even give Collins ABs at DH and have Lamb in LF if we don't have a fly ball heavy starter on the mound. Against LHP, Vaughn needs to be in the top 5 of the lineup. I don't care if it's 2, 3, or even 5, he belongs in there against lefties. He's one of our only guys who's had success against high velocity this year.

I think Grandal might have broken the Rays' bullpen. The Mariners had 3 walk off wins.

If you told me 2 weeks ago we'd go 7-6 against Toronto, Detroit, Tampa, and Houston, I would have been perfectly ok with that. As long as this slump doesn't carry over to next week we'll be fine.

Tampa Bay just got swept by Seattle after losing 2 to us. It definitely could be worse.

Might as well have let Keuchel eat a few innings if Foster was going to come in and throw 5 balls anyways.

MLB doing their crackdown mid-season is going to do us no favors. I said this when they announced it. Pitching was carrying the offense for the past month. If we can't dominate on the mound we're maybe a decent team.

Indians about to win, lead down to 2.5. It could have been worse though.

This is about the worst we could have played a series. At least 2 of the 3 games against New York were close. Defense and offense both shit the bed this series.

Yermin really shouldn't be in the lineup against anyone right now.

Toro getting it done against us...again.

Houston's 3B replacements have gone 4 for 10 this series with 7 runs batted in. Toro and Robel Garcia have more runs batted in than the Sox have scored in the past 3 games. That's just unacceptable. Getting beat by Correa, Altuve, Gurriel, and Alvarez is expected, but getting your ass handed to you by 2 AAAA players is embarrassing.