ground-ball pitchers, pandas, victorino's rickety spine and the hope of mookie betts: your 2015 Boston Red Sox

ended up having a solid night, which robbie ross immediately ruined

the changeup was as advertised i thought.

I'd agree. his command and alarming tendency to pitch high are sus but those things can prob be worked on, seeing as he's 23

braig creslow

daniel nava has been claimed by the rays

:[ as an inveterate nava defender that has me like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dHaMV_eXko

steven wright > luis severino

who'd have thought?

I know napoli going was best for all involved, but it still kinda hurts

8 remaining players from the '13 title team now - workman (TJ), buchholz (collapsing body), koji (old), tazawa (declining), breslow (hot garbage), pedroia (injured, prob shut down for the season soon) ortiz (old, declining, still kinda mashing tho), bogaerts (being of pure goodness and light and extra-base hits)

i don't want to alarm you, but pedroia turns 32 next week

32 isn't that bad, I'm concerned about what he's like when he's 36 and still has 2 more years on a contract that iirc includes an almost ironclad no-trade

not that they'd ever put him out to pasture, the front office is already thinking about how they're gonna market his twilight years/retirement

i don't think taz is declining (he's never seemed as good to me as his numbers suggest but that's not new), i think he's just overused b/c the bullpen is awful.

If you mean, pitching staff I agree with you. Woof.

aaaaand koji's out for the season.

i understand justin masterson is available

that's legitimately cruel

fwiw i'm actually happy that vance worley accepted an outright assignment to triple-a, so

oh I mean, I got nothing against masterson, he's just past his prime and if another team claims him and he can help as a bullpen guy, that's good, his all star status was legitimate not so long ago

not to mention, sox are obviously cooked for the year and it's their turn to be cooked for a hot minute, cherington's idea that the team could go back to win-now right after a failed season was stupid and obviously stems from the stupid media environment surrounding this team and the meatball portions of the fanbase, which are quite sizable

on phone don't feel like looking for the relevant pic, but STOP, STOP, THEY'RE ALREADY DEAD.

john farrell has lymphoma

stage 1, apparently, announced in the pregame presser

whoa

dombrowski in, cherington out

Here we go!

andy should i be happy about this

that was sudden

some talk that frank wren will be the puppet GM

:/

Yes, you should be happy about Dombrowski (and prepare for Dombpoutski ITT).

i was gonna come up, maybe, for the Saberseminar this weekend, which had both Cherington and Farrell as scheduled speakers

also it's sposed to rain, so i figured i wouldn't even see the Royals win in Fenway

Has any GM ever been fired less than two years after winning the WS? (yeah, Cherington technically resigned after being encouraged to stay on by Dombrowski, but when the team hires a guy like that to oversee you, they're essentially firing you and waiting for you to take the hint)

when they eventually force dombrowski out the next guy will have to be god-emperor of baseball operations

lol

Dan Shaughnessy ‏@Dan_Shaughnessy 10m10 minutes ago
Betting Dombrowski will not be afreaid to part with ever-overrated "untouchable" prospects in Sox always-overrated system.

but will he be afraid? this "afreaid" seems like a radical concept one wouldn't want in the first place

your 2015 red sox motto: "we'll make your no. 4s and 5s look brilliant and beat the shit out of your aces"

two aces down in one week

Hey Andy should we be happy about Dombrowski's likely approach to the Bosox farm system? He appears to have a very different philosophy than the "grow 'em gently (and sometimes forever)" style favored by the Cherington/Lucch mob

travis shaw is still veeery much in #smallsamplesize territory, BUT: .346/.393/.630 w 6 dingers in like 20-25 games

i'm very interested in shaw, he seems to have the classic profile of guy with no hype who gives you 3-4 nice seasons in the majors

yea that sounds about right

weird that his road batting is absolute shit, like .083

yeah that will have to even out somehow

NESN reportedly parting ways with Red Sox announcer Don Orsillo

oh that's not good

waht

anybody who can survive that many days with the rem-dog deserves a fucking medal

Is there any good gossip in this story for the hard-of-googling?

ratings-based, apparently. rumor is remy will be scaled back significantly next year as well.

this sucks

yeah, the people who could step in....do not inspire confidence

we'll always have
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufSQMXLO95w