Injury updates from the Sun-Times (no word at all on Teel who sat Sunday):

Left-hander Noah Schultz (knee) threw 2 ⅔ scoreless innings for Triple-A Charlotte on his rehab stint, allowing two hits and one walk and striking out four. He threw 57 pitches, 38 for strikes. Schultz might need one more outing before returning to the Sox.

• Outfielder Everson Pereira still has some symptoms from the concussion he suffered crashing into the wall Wednesday in New York, including sensitivity to light — he was wearing shades inside the clubhouse — and is not doing baseball activities

• Venable said that Munetaka Murakami, who’s recovering from a strained right hamstring, has increased the intensity of his running — he said Murakami is up to 80% — and hitting. There’s still no timeline for his return.

8 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Injury updates from the Sun-Times (no word at all on Teel who sat Sunday):

Left-hander Noah Schultz (knee) threw 2 ⅔ scoreless innings for Triple-A Charlotte on his rehab stint, allowing two hits and one walk and striking out four. He threw 57 pitches, 38 for strikes. Schultz might need one more outing before returning to the Sox.

• Outfielder Everson Pereira still has some symptoms from the concussion he suffered crashing into the wall Wednesday in New York, including sensitivity to light — he was wearing shades inside the clubhouse — and is not doing baseball activities

• Venable said that Munetaka Murakami, who’s recovering from a strained right hamstring, has increased the intensity of his running — he said Murakami is up to 80% — and hitting. There’s still no timeline for his return.

Concussions are no joke either. Could affect for him for a few weeks

It's time to make Taylor thecloser and Sir Anthont a set up guy.

23 minutes ago, ChiSoxFanMike said:

Not that I wanted the Sox to lose this series, but it honestly is in their best interests in the long term if the Tigers convince themselves they can compete and don’t trade Skubal. Don’t want them to reload their system.

This crossed my mind today as well.

24 minutes ago, WestEddy said:

Can you show how the stats from April and May are meaningful? Like, does he stand at the plate and decide he needs to balance out this recent hot stretch with strikeouts to match his output from the previous 2 months? If the changes he's made over the winter and spring are finally starting to show results, what would make you think he's going to change back to the way he was swinging the bat previously?

Acuña isn't going to be a batting average or HR leader. But he was hitting worse than his career norms. It is possible that the changes took, and he's now a slightly different hitter than he used to be. Or he's the same hitter he used to be, he's just pulling out of the slump he's been in for 2 months.

He hasn’t proven he can play at this level period. Can he one day? Maybe. He’s arguably the worst player on this roster, it’s laughable to see someone criticizing him get met with a snarky reply. Especially someone who was just bitching about the very thing they did a few posts earlier.

7 minutes ago, Lukakke Appling said:

This crossed my mind today as well.

The Sox are positioned very nicely moving forward and I would argue the Tigers are the biggest threat in the division moving forward. I would prefer for them to not get more McGonigle’s or top pitching prospects. If sweeping this series makes them go for it, that’s a fine trade off for the Sox.

1 hour ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Jeff Agrest covered the game for the Sun-Times, he just got back with me and said he asked Venable about playing Acuna at short instead of Montgomery (he moved him there in the 10th inning).

According to Jeff, Venable told him he feels Acuna and Montgomery are about the same defensively.

Make of that what you will.

Like saying Benetendi and Mune are basically the same hitters. I believe it though based on his dumb ass decision making.

Another issue has been the play of Gonzales at first base trying to learn the position at the MLB level instead of in the minor leagues.

Today in the 10th inning instead of stepping on first, recording an out and throwing home, he just throws home even though the runner wasn't breaking for the plate. Sox probably lose the game anyway but this didn't help.

And remember twice in games he went after balls instead of covering the base so when they were fielded no one was home to take the throw.

Little things add up and he's being put in a bad position by the organization.

Every game is important when you have a division where the winner may have only 83 victories (a la the 73 Mets).

Edited 51 minutes ago51 min by Lip Man 1

54 minutes ago, ChiSoxFanMike said:

The Sox are positioned very nicely moving forward and I would argue the Tigers are the biggest threat in the division moving forward. I would prefer for them to not get more McGonigle’s or top pitching prospects. If sweeping this series makes them go for it, that’s a fine trade off for the Sox.

There are very few teams right now who can say honestly they are out of it. Detroit may not move him but you never know.

But because so many teams may still be in it around the deadline it could be very, very, VERY difficult for the Sox to get pitching help even if they want to.

Right now the only teams I'd say are out of it are the Red Sox, Royals, Angels (Moreno says they aren't selling), Giants and Rockies.

That's not a lot.

1 hour ago, Colome's Hat said:

Concussions are no joke either. Could affect for him for a few weeks

Every day he has symptoms means at least two extra days of recovery.

1 hour ago, WestEddy said:

Can you show how the stats from April and May are meaningful? Like, does he stand at the plate and decide he needs to balance out this recent hot stretch with strikeouts to match his output from the previous 2 months? If the changes he's made over the winter and spring are finally starting to show results, what would make you think he's going to change back to the way he was swinging the bat previously?

Acuña isn't going to be a batting average or HR leader. But he was hitting worse than his career norms. It is possible that the changes took, and he's now a slightly different hitter than he used to be. Or he's the same hitter he used to be, he's just pulling out of the slump he's been in for 2 months.

Can you show his stats from now are relevant as opposed to his other 300 PAs?

1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

It's time to make Taylor thecloser and Sir Anthont a set up guy.

It's long past it.

40 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

There are very few teams right now who can say honestly they are out of it. Detroit may not move him but you never know.

But because so many teams may still be in it around the deadline it could be very, very, VERY difficult for the Sox to get pitching help even if they want to.

Right now the only teams I'd say are out of it are the Red Sox, Royals, Angels (Moreno says they aren't selling), Giants and Rockies.

That's not a lot.

I think it's bad for baseball.

Off season trades are often better.

2 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Hell the Twins are now only 2 1/2 back of the Sox, looks like they won't be 'selling off' either.

What a division! Every team in it has a minus run differential, amazing.

For Cleveland winning is a habit despite any setbacks.

They are underrated in the world of cheap ass organizations.

1 hour ago, T R U said:

Weren’t you just complaining about people ignoring the stats that don’t fit their narrative? Or does Acunas 100 abs prior to June not count?

I think you misunderstood my point? People can use or ignore whatever stats they want, I was only complaining about inconsistency. For example, if someone previously used FIP to support Grant Taylor being great but unlucky, then it would be inconsistent for them to later call a different low FIP pitcher terrible garbage for getting similarly BABIP'd.

I didn't cite Acuna's June OPS here while previously disregarding the relevance of recent performance for a different player elsewhere... I just pointed out that he's been good in June, to the point where his OPS leads the team in this stretch. His season stats being bad don't change that, though I never said they didn't count.

If anything, they make it easier for the hot hitting to go unnoticed, which is why I thought it was relevant context. I assumed most people wouldn't guess he's been the hottest Sox in June. But I didn't use it to make to any larger case for or against anything, so I'm not sure what "narrative" you're reading into it. My apologies that it came across to you as too snarky though.

(And to address your second question anyway...Most surface batting stats don't start to stabilize until a 200+ PA sample, so statistically his first 100 ABs actually aren't particularly likely to be any more predictive. Similar is true for pitchers and rate stats. Everything "counts" but without enough sample size meaning can be limited.)