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

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

(to be fair remy has the best lines but don's reactions are what make it magical)

xxp like, lyons? barf. eck? passable...i guess? wake would be ok maybe but i dont think he'd want to call whole games or travel that much. tom caron? meh.

well i'm thinking the pbp chair, not the color chair. so the two people i know of are the pawsox guy who did a week of games back around the allstar break and dave o'brien who is competent but kind of a drag.

for scaling remy back i think we know a lot more about the options. i like eck a lot but he won't do the majority of the schedule due to travel. i can't stand lyons but apparently the nesn people love him or something.

reckon bad ratings have a lot more to do with finishing in last place three out of four years than orsillo or remdawg

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe5BRcuH41Q

what if they got pedro tho

can't imagine he'd want to do a full schedule but

i like eck, he actually brings some knowledge and appears to be paying attention to the game

but yeah no idea about pbp. orsillo is one of the few guys i actually like. baseball really is a cruel sport.

hanle y is practicing at first

makes sense

ultimately it's a good - even exciting - lineup, sox just need about 4 or 5 pitchers

Cherington did show up at the Saberseminar, post-firing!

In a kinder world, the first question would’ve been a softball about David Ortiz, or a request to explain Alejandro De Aza. Instead, it started with, “So … Hanley Ramirez.” It took several seconds for the resulting laughter to subside.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-hanley-ramirez-left-field-defense-boston-red-sox/

chris sale the latest victim (albeit technically by ND this time rather than allowing 5 runs like the first time) in the continuing saga of "the red sox beating aces despite constantly losing to pitchers of literally any other skill level"

also, porcello last night: 7.0 IP, 5H, 0R/ER, 0BB, 5K.

porcello's last start vs the same team: 2.0 IP, 10H, 6R, 5ER, 1BB, 2K

~what a difference sinkerball pitchers actually throwing sinkers makes~

seeing Owens v Harvey tonight

@pgammo
It's a good mprning when you can look at a 6 4 0 0 3 8 Rich Hill line in Pawtucket

morbs you saw a pretty rad win for the sox!

bullshit

i was doing "Good Night Swihart" jokes all night, and look what happened!

Some "cute" Massholes on the 7 train tho.

we're an adorable people

those of you without joe kelly's mustache, maybe

joe kelly is the first red sox pitcher to win six games in a calendar month since pedro in '99

got that cy young on lock obvs

still zero explanation re: orsillo

highly doubt NESN will ever issue an official one

Jessica Moran @JessMoranCSN
Chili Davis on Jackie Bradley Jr.- "Now he's starting to feel sexy at the plate."

rick porcello in his 12th loss: 8.0 IP, 5H, 3R/1ER, 1BB, 13K.

eat shit, stephen drew

how are porcello and kelly suddenly these amazing pitchers???

porcello is basically being exactly who he always was on the tigers in these past two starts - the two-seamer is sinking at just the right time almost every time and he's minimizing use of the four-seamer that he just wasn't suited to. and when he did deploy the four-seamer last night dudes weren't expecting it, offspeed pitches also looked pretty good

if he can do even 75 percent of what that start was on a regular basis (and maybe not be waylaid by jackassery at 1st and actually receive run support), he'll be fuckin gravy

kelly...that's a bit dicier, bc it's at least part luck. but a fair amount of it is real, he's using the curve and changeup more often and with what seems like better judgment of the situation. the contact his pitches is generating is mostly weak as hell of late

apparently I'm wrong as hell about kelly statswise - his ground ball rate has actually gone down, hard contact rate has gone up - but whatever kelly is doing, it's working for now - no clue whether or not it's sustainable