The 2010 Boston Red Sox Call All Destroyer Tells Us What He Thinks Thread

i know theo/james loves them some midget ass scrapper pedroias but under five foot and 70 pounds as a high school freshman? CMON SON.

I know I'm not the first to say it, but whatever happened to pitching and defense? Our starters suck, our bullpens blow the lead, and we lead the league in runs scored.

starters have been v. good lately haven't they?

buchholz and lester, and pray for a twister

BUCH NO ARGUMENT

CLAY FIRED UP

I know I'm not the first to say it, but whatever happened to pitching and defense? Our starters suck, our bullpens blow the lead, and we lead the league in runs scored.

i think that was mainly an explanation to appease the people who thought that the offense would somehow crater without the TRUE POWER THREAT of jason bay (who currently has 4HR on the season)

also the defense has been quite good according to every defensive metric i can find

mets player in losing power shocka.

but yeah, the offense being good was predicated on ortiz and beltre bouncebacks and everyone else holding steady. luckily, that's exactly what's happened, plus varitek randomly chipping in 7 as a very part-time player.

my doyers got steamrolled so hard against the sox. dodgers are 10-31 or something in interleague games at al parks

Long game in Denver highlighted by Dustin Pedroia..

5-5
3 homers
1 double
1 single
1 walk

DUDE

They seem to be converting injuries into wins.

so, Varitek broke his foot! and no one seems to know how.

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/4031/varitek-to-dl-with-fractured-foot

lucky for them

who catch now, Fisk?

they called the molina hotline it seems

david ortiz intentionally walked to get to "niuman romero" ;_;

don't know if yall have heard, but red sox tv ratings are down 36% this year. it's a shocking number even to someone who thinks "tv ratings of sports stories" are dumb.

simmons has at it today: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100729

for counterpoint, "true fan" hardmanning is here: http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/58817-red-sox-games-no-longer-must-see-tv/

i assume this revive will just result in typical ilbb snark but what the hell right?

i haven't been watching the games as much lately but it's more me being busier than lack of interest

Well the A-team was out for awhile right? I haven't been watching much this year because A) I live on a different continent and B) well, see A.

If NESN launched a game show called "Guess What J.D. Just Did?" in which contestants guessed based off his expressions -- did Drew just hit a game-saving double, take a called third strike, hit into a double play, win the lottery or find out he was going to jail? -- nobody would ever win.

loool

JD is my fav red sox player

hey at least he's been around long enough to have some kind of relationship to him--i'm lollin at these guys who are affronted that i might not give a fuck about adrian beltre's lucky season.

yeah i think a lot of the disinterest is from all the roster turnover from the past couple years due to injuries and aging

also people tend to unfairly compare every red sox season to the 2004 season which was just about the flukiest hollywood-plot-esque baseball team ever and is never gonna happen again. of course every year is gonna seem 'boring' if that's your benchmark

on one hand, i'm not gonna try and pretend like i can understand what it would be like to follow a team giving so much time to bill hall, daniel nava, darnell mcdonald, kevin cash etc

on the other hand, there is some really dumb... and frankly spoiled opinions expressed in this column

WE DON'T HAVE A PITCHER THAT I WANT TO WATCH EVERY FIVE DAYS. YEAH, JON LESTER MIGHT WIN THE AL CY YOUNG WITH ONE OF THE BIGGEST K/9 RATIOS IN BASEBALL, BUT HE'S NO PEDRO!!!!

yeah that part was pretty wtf to me...lester is awesome to watch

the problem here is that there's tooooons of conflation in the column between "what's good for the fan" and "what's good for the team" -- entertainment value vs baseball value etc

like, when he's talking about the red sox not having a ryan howard type player whose at bats you look forward to... it's like simmons is advocating having a home run derby team or something. that's not to pick on ryan howard specifically, who obv has baseball value, but it just seems like he was vacillating a ton between "this is no fun wha!" and "we're not winning wah!" without acknowledging how those things are so interconnected?

can't verbalize exactly what i'm trying to say, but it just struck me as a really naive column (at least parts of it -- there are some things he said about literally attending games vs watching on tv & stuff like that that he was absolutely otm about)

yeah my basic position on the ratings drop is this--the front office, via the media, did an awful job of selling this year's model to average fans, who can still faithfully repeat the phrases "pitching and defense" and "bridge year." so once the bad start confirmed everyone's fears, and the injuries exacerbated them, ppl had questions (some legit, some not) about why exactly they should care about this year.

i do watch less baseball myself these days, in part because i share a tv with my gf, but also because this year's sox have been about as interesting as last year.

lester is indeed really great to watch, don't understand that criticism at all.

i don't think there's anything inherently wrong about being like "this team is boring, and they make me want to watch less" -- i think the same thing about the padres but they're actually winning so it's a bit different

i guess i'm struggling to come up with a team that's particularly interesting?

well i think there's something inherent about baseball teams that's sort of... uninteresting? like, even the yankees are getting contributions from marcus thames as they steamroll everyone in their path

even the rays -- great young staff to watch, longo, crawford etc -- started matt joyce and willie aybar last night

but that's baseball! idk. the game itself it what sells and is what's fun, which is probably why the mlb has the problem that simmons outlines wrt recognizable stars and what not

imagine being Andy K! you get miggy's potentially historic season, but last night you also had to watch ryan rayburn, gerald laird, "w. rhymes" and "d. worth"

so idk. that's how shit goes.

tru

i think having exciting young players to watch really helps tho, which is part of the problem with the red sox in particular

even tho he's hitting like .225, i def feel that "can't go get food" (lol not really because i have tivo) when a mike stanton AB is approaching

yeah young talented position players enhance night-to-night watchability and we have oh let me check--zero of those right now

yeah, identity-wise the red sox' future is kind of cloudy right now, their old franchise players are on the way out and their farm system's taken a step back this year. we've only got pedroia and lester to fill that role right now, maybe buchholz if he's actually figured stuff out.

i guess i'm struggling to come up with a team that's particularly interesting?

The Giants imo

The Sox had a really nice run with their minor leaguers, but after Ellsbury and Pedroia they've struggled to produce a hitting prospect of note. Suddenly they have an offense filled with the sort of old journeymen that are patently boring to root for. Cameron, Beltre, Hall, Martinez, Scutaro ... not like these are bad dudes, but you're really rooting for laundry when you assemble a bunch of dudes like that, or when you bring up a lot of AAAA guys as injury replacements.

I just read that the Sox inquired about Jim Edmonds, on that note.

What does the future hold for Mike LOL?

they'll probably keep trying to flip him for cheap and get anything back

Keeping barking, Youk.

I basically never watch baseball on TV except for highlights or an inning here and there. I only watch 3-4 hours of TV a week - which is barely one average game!

In person I don't mind the length (given good weather - when it's still 105 at the Ballpark at dusk, time matters), but on TV it's a killer.

^ agreed, especially when the games start at 7:35 - it's like goodbye dinner, goodbye sex, goodbye 8 hours sleep

but i guess that's how you tell the men from the boys

they actually played a fast game last night! i watched most of it.

A game tends to be on whenever games are on -- ideal when the kids are either too loud and/or in need of attention and or napping/sleeping.

If I think I hear Rich Waltz yelling or getting belligerent, I run it back and crank the volume to ear-splitting level, no matter what.