Timmy U

For the first half of the season the Southern League used a pre-tacked ball that increased spin rate but which was hard to control. Hard to judge any Southern League stats from the first half.

Those are his splits in Chicago. Last 20 games in Charlotte his OPS is .888.

I wonder if Birmingham's offensive explosion had anything to do with going back to the regular baseball. That team has been horrible, but with Tatum and Ramos and once they get Montgomery back, you could imagine them being decent in the second half.

I love Gio. One of my favorite Sox players of the last 20 years. They absolutely have to trade him.

Mieses, who has been terrible for most of the year with the pre-tacky ball, went 6-6 with 3 HRs.

Sox and Angels have a lot in common -- swing at the first pitch, lotta quick innings, dumb front offices. Having Bachman up to pitch garbage innings in the majors would be stupid even by the handling of Crochet standards.

I would argue they've been pretty consistent. They have score 3 runs or less in over half their games. That's consistency.

Where the hell has this team been all year? They actually look good at the plate.

Another nice start for Shane Murphy. 5IP 1R. May be time to move him up to A+.

Burke singles, the streak continues.

Charlotte against Oriole’s loaded AAA. Grayson Rodriguez goes for the O’s. Sosa popped out on a pitch waaay out of the zone, Colas struck out seeing zero strikes.

There out to be a mercy rule - If Sox are more than 2 runs behind, game over.

Twins lost, Cleveland beat KC. Entire division back under .500. Guards only a half game out.

Why waste Santos now? I would have let Touki finish it off and keep the pen fresh for a game where maybe they score multiple runs.

I don't think Ohtani is injured.

So Anderson has an OPS of .545 cratering fast and Andrus is at .541, how much worse could Sosa and Popeye really be? And after he finishes his rehab in the ACL, does anyone else suspect that Colson Montgomery would be better than either of them? At least he would walk.

Yes! Finally the strategy of swinging at head-high fastballs pays off!

Frazier in to run which means we won't have to watch him hit!

AV looks horrendous right now.

Maybe Cleveland fixed him.

Not defending the signing but this is Rick Hahn we're talking about. I don't know how you can decide what the top 3 worst decisions are. Among my favorites: Trade Marcus Semien and Chris Bassitt for Jeff Samardzija, Trade anything for James Shields let alone Tatis Jr., draft Nicky Madrigal 1-4, trade anything for Craig Kimbrel, trade Kimbrel for the smoking ruins of AJ Pollock, giving up anything for Yonder Alonso thereby cutting the payroll of a division rival so they could reacquire Carlos Santana because you were on the Manny Machado friends and family plan, and signing Yasmani Grandal.

So what was the thought there? Touki is going to give you length regardless. Kopech was at 94 pitches to start the inning. Was he just getting him to his pitch count? Is this a spring training game? Someone tell Grifol these are the ones that count.

Why is Kopech still in this game?

Eloy is starting to look better. I predict he'll get hot for their meaningless second half.

Kopech should exit this game and skip a turn. They need to manage his innings better as he ramps up to full workload after so many injuries.