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In Progress: Sox-Indians Gamer I
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Well so far Lester hasn’t given up a run. Yay?
One: I do not like Jason Varitek with the bases loaded. I do not like him at all.
Two: Somehow Lester only took ten pitches to get through the bottom of the first, thanks to Asdrubal Cabrera bunting and giving us a free out and Hafner and Martinez failing to realize that Jon Lester does not like to throw strikes.
Now if we could get our Dice-K/Lester walk average down below one per inning, that would make me happy…
no one else sees fit to mention that Papi got a hit??
Good point, let’s hope he gets another one to lead off next inning.
SW – I did send a few IM’s out to my YF friends but there wasn’t a game thread open at the time.
Sorry I am so delinquent with these game threads, work has been brutal…
I will try to do better – thanks to Nick for taking care of this.
And a good start to the second inning, although Garko’s at-bat went six pitches too long according to Gameday (ball 2 was strike 3).
Joe Castiglione, just a moment ago, talking about his days in Cleveland, described old Municipal Stadium as “Carnivorous.”
I don’t care.
I love Joe C.
31 pitches through the second – he looked good that inning. I’d love to see him go six at least, the bullpen could use a break.
Through two innings, Lester 31 pitches, Westbrook 47.
Varitek got a hit!! Can he only do that with no one on?
No-no is lost. Now I can talk again.
Crap. Come on Lester, get through it.
wondering where you were Dio
aaaand the most important victory today is secured. My taxes are now filed.
Its hard for me to post when the game is on ESPN as mlb.tv bloks it out and my computer is in a different room than my tv (wireless isnt up yet).
Combine that with taxes and good pitchign and there ya go.
wats happening game day is stuck on a 1-0 count
Whew. That inning is over. Settler down kid and get them down in the 5th (and hopefully the 6th).
Offense? Support. Now.
arg – taxes. Gotta go home and do my taxes. That and talk to my second grader about the email we just got from his teaches that he was having fun with puns on Vice President Cheney’s name today. The sox better pull this one out – it’s going to be a long evening.
best way to handle that is to teach him some puns on Bush’s name, nothing worse then a small portfolio of jokes :p
RBF, can we get some sample puns?
Papi goes down swinging on three straight 91mph fastballs. Just terrible.
I have a feeling we’re losing this game 2-1 or 3-1. Ugh.
well, he’s in second grade, so I am guessing they weren’t all that clever :) but I’ll have details later…
I blame the ESPN announcers, they opened up the 3d with “Lester still hasn’t given up a hit…”
Jon Lester: should be pitching in AAA right now.
This year is shaping up exactly as I thought it would: too much weight on the relief pitchers because the starters cannot go deep into games, too much pressure on the offense to score a ton of runs to make up for the bottom of the rotation.
Jon Lester just isn’t a major league starter right now, his control is just awful. What pitcher with no control makes it very far in the majors? Who thinks that Lester will suddenly discover control? Not sure what John Farrell sees in this kid, to be honest, small Game Four sample sizes notwithstanding.
Wow, Lester has given up 16 walks in 20.1 innings this year, according to MLB.com. Seems like he should be working out mechanics or other things in the minors, not learning on the job under the intense pressure of Boston. The fans may remember game four, but my guess is if this continues they won’t be so forgiving – better that he works out his problems in Pawtucket.
Yeah, it’s a disaster in the making, SF – thinking about it, until Beckett’s stamina comes all the way back, we don’t have a single starter who can reliably go seven innings. Dice-K has too much of a tendency to lose control, Lester can barely make it through five on a given night, Buchholz looks good but will struggle and is probably 5-6 most times out right now, and we all know how shaky Wake can be if the knuckler’s off.
Papelbon and Okajima won’t be able to salvage that for long, and unless Ortiz snaps out of it in a big way, neither will the offense.
Yeah, I know, it’s April. I think it’s just leftover frustration from yesterday combining with my continued anger at Lester. Every time he pitches it makes me wish we’d somehow managed to get the Twins to take him for Santana – I just don’t see his ceiling as anything above a #4, and he needs more control before he even gets to that point.
Wow, I can’t believe Jools got those two outs without any drama.
(SF – would he be your choice to replace Lester in the rotation?)
Dunno, Jackie, but Lester really appears to be overmatched. There are plenty of examples of good pitchers who had struggles early in their careers; I am not preaching impatience in fact quite the opposite – if Lester is a talent then he should hone his talent where his head isn’t also at risk, which is in the minors. I know he’s been through a ton, and I don’t claim to be a professional shrink, but the fact is that beyond worrying about his confidence Lester simply hasn’t shown in the limited innings that he’s remotely ready to take an every-fifth-day turn in the rotation, and if anything he hurts the team by almost automatically taxing the bullpen whenever he takes the mound. Do the Sox think he has nothing left to learn in the minors, that he has to learn it at the highest level? If that’s the case, then fine, but it’s an odd teaching strategy to me – he doesn’t seem ready, he doesn’t really even seem close to ready.
I am still curious to know what Farrell et al see in this kid – despite his gutty performance last year, coming back from illness and then helping clinch Game 4, I don’t see what they see. I don’t see an out pitch anywhere in his arsenal. With Dice-K it was OBVIOUS that there was tremendous talent, if maddening. I don’t see anything like that with Lester. I honestly don’t know what the highest upside is — right now he really looks like if he could harness his stuff he’d be, at best, a decent pitcher, but nothing special. That’s obviously an amateur view of the world, I am just a longtime fan and no inside expert by any means.
(I’m not SF, but I’ll give my two cents on that as well)
Tavarez doesn’t make me feel any better than Lester. Ideally I’d like it to be Colon – if he’s healthy, he’s our best bet in the #5 spot right now.
I just have this feeling that if this is the real Jon Lester, that with Buck learning on the job and Dice-K continuing to hone his skills in the Majors, we could be in for a long year. Perhaps one that pays off next year, but a long year nonetheless. If the front office thinks that Lester gains nothing by being sent back to AAA (and I doubt they believe this – chances are if Colon gets healthy he’ll take Lester’s spot) and they leave him up in Boston regardless of his performance then that telegraphs their sentiment that the team, as currently made up, may not go very far but that they can live with this since it is their estimation that this will benefit the team longer-term. Many fans won’t be too happy about this, but if that’s what they think then we may see a tough, long year out of our team, where we get to watch young talent learn the hard way, by making mistakes at the highest level.
This scenario would pose difficulties for a great number of fans. I am not sure how I feel about this hypothetical.
Julian, trying to make all of us look like idiots.
My ‘scouting eyes’ are piss poor so I can’t really agree or disagree, but I know I’ve heard a few people compare Lester to Bruce Hurst…? He did seem to be having trouble with anything that wasn’t a fastball tonight.
On the other hand, if you’re the Sox FO, and you feel like he’d learn a lot from a few ML starts, and you don’t really have a better option for the starting rotation, might as well have him with the big club. But I have no idea if he’s got as bright a future as some people are suggesting.
TB has hit 3 HRs in the 7th to tie the Yankees, included in the attack was Evan Longoria’s 1st ML homer
I highly doubt the FO would leave him at the ML level if they felt it would really diminish the team’s chances to win this year. This might be our last year with Manny, Lowell is aging, etc… they have to be thinking WS potential; no way is Lester getting SO much out of ML vs. AAA that it’s worth putting that in jeopardy.
Papi is standing up very tall at the plate, not crouching at all like we are used to. His knee must still be f*cked up, or fixed and painless but with limited flexibility. He looks wrong up there, regardless of what he does this at-bat.
And Papi whiffs. Terrible swing at a fastball well off the plate. Papi is lost, hurt, or both. It’s an awful, unforeseen development of this season.
And Manny goes down looking on a nice pitch from Betancourt. Ugly.
This season has started off in uninspiring fashion, really underwhelming.
Kyle Snyder cleared waivers and accepted an assignment to Pawtucket.
Should someone do a DNA test on that guy pitching?
Youk goes deep to pull the Sox to within one, still six outs left.
Drew battling…
Yoooooook!
I’m also really enjoying the ESPN guys’ accusing Tavarez of doing something to the ball because his movement is too good. (Is that slander? Or libel?)
Drew Ks.
Tek grounds out weakly. This inning has fizzled…
Damn, Casey rips one to the deepest part of the park, but it might as well have been a pop-up. Inning over.
Noooooo Timlin. I don’t quite trust him.
Timlin got an out!!
Okay Timlin, way to make me look like a jackass. :)
I HATE this team: I have a huge presentation due tomorrow, and yet I’m watching this game instead of doing work.
I’m really liking the 2008 version of Lugo. Let’s see if Coco drops down a sac bunt.
He tries, but takes a ball. Then gets one down, and runs it down but is called out at first! Oh well, tying run 90 feet away. Pedroia is the perfect man to be at the plate right now.
If the Red Sox lose this game, or at least don’t tie it, I’m going to lose my mind. Great job by Coco and Lugo there to get to third.
C’Mon Ped
Lugo doubles to lead off the ninth, Crisp bunts him to third and may have even been safe. Too close to call…
TIED
Tie game!
PEDROIA! Crushes a ball to left field to tie it up. Hell yes.
Looks like I’m not getting much work done tonight.
WOOOOOOOOOO PEDROIAAAAA.
Also, Coco was safe.
Wow, Ortiz drops a single in. How did he not get to 2nd on that? We’d better have an Ellsbury pinch runner now!
Hehehe, that’s a slump-buster if I’ve ever seen one. Is it weird that they still have the shift on Papi even though he hasn’t been hitting much?
I wanna see 2nd base stolen here. Worse case scenario: he’s thrown out and Manny leads off the 10th.
OH MY FUCKING GOD MANNY!
MANNYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!
MANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
POSING!!!!
MANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!
He DESERVED to watch that one!
Trade looks good so far (I traded Manny for Maglio today!!!)
That pitch from Borowski was BP. Really, truly a terrible pitch, had nothing on it, just looped over the plate like a grapefruit.
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
MANNNYYYYYY!!!! This game is awesome.
Now I just need a few RBI from Drew for fantasy purposes and the night will be perfecto. :)
How many Poles does it take to record a save against the Red Sox? Obviously more than one!
My apologies if that’s off-color with regards to Borowski’s last name.
(and a save from Huston Street would be nice too but I won’t push it)
Borowski has no business being a major league closer. Proof of why Saves are astupid statistic
Manny + Joe Borowski makes me a happy man.
Hahaha Atheose. Love it!
Massive kudos to Lugo for leading off the inning with a double. Had he not gotten on none of this may have happened.
Papelbon time.
I’m like 1/16th Polish, so I guess I’m allowed to make fun of them a little bit Jackie ;-) I’m also 1/2 Irish, so if I’ve offended anyone I give them full permission to call my people drunken fighters to make up for it.
And there’s the jynx by the announcer: “Papelbon may have a young career, but he’s never given up a run in April”
Holy jesus Papelbon blew that first pitch by Sizemore.
Inhuman.
One.
Dear Gods.
Two!
THREE!!
FILTHY FILTHY FUCKIN’ WATER!
Jon Papelbon: also a bad, bad man.
Great game.
I dunno Micah…
I’m not willing to conceed that Papelbon be a man.
Excuse me, I’m sorry.
Bad, bad robot. Riverdancing robot.
Despite all the ups-and-downs, I’m going to miss Manny Ramirez terribly when he’s gone.
I was going for Godling, but I’ll take robot ;-)
Man, what a way to end a night!
George Kottaras hit 2 HRs tonite.
Atheose: hell, I’m on board for picking up next year’s option right now. Who the hell are we going to get to replace that bat?
Dio: Hee. And yeah, I’m still horribly worried about Lester, but this makes me feel loads better about the day in general – I like comeback wins.
Micah, I think it’s an automatic that we’re picking up both his options, barring an injury or suckiness.
An incredible ninth to tune in for. Not that you don’t hope for that what with, you know, Borowski on the mound. He barely deserves a job in that pen, let alone “closer”. Betancourt struck out Papi and Manny like nothing, and then Borowski completely sh*t the bed. I mean, if his terrible start and that last atrocity (from the Indians’ perspective at any rate–personally I had soul-crashing joy the moment Manny’s bat touched that ball) aren’t enough to say “he shouldn’t be the closer”, what will?
It just upsets me as a rational human being to see Borowski as the closer. Especially with the bookend appearances of Betancourt (solo shot homer and all) and Papelbon.
Nice job on the slowburn comeback that suddenly became wildfire in the ninth, especially Youk off Betancourt. That was awesome.
Also: Jon Lester. Fifth starter. Figured that from the beginning of the season, haven’t seen a thing to change it.
I want to watch Papelbons two Ks again. They were obscene.
I think it would have been a galactic coincidence if both Todd Jones and Joe Borowski recorded saves on the same night. The universe would not allow it.
Yes they were. They were of the “I am just going to throw it past you and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it” variety. Best kind there is.
It’s great to have someone like Papelbon, as opposed to someone like Borowski. Papelbon was pumped as hell after Manny homered.
Jed Lowrie will make his ML debut tomorrow at 3B or SS, Sean Casey will get the day off.
TJ, hasn’t Lowrie played in the majors before? I swear I remember him getting some at-bats last year.
sure, fine time for the midges to take a night off
Nope, he was placed on the 40 man roster for the first time on April 10, when his contract was purchased from Pawtucket after they placed Lowell on the DL.
What I’m saying is it’s not a Papelbon vs. Borowski thing; it should be a Papelbon vs. Betancourt thing. His ERA doesn’t reflect that right now (but his career ERA is 2.85), but last year, until Game 7 ALCS when his arm was burned to a crisp from desperation, he was the Indians’ relief ace. He was used in the most immediately stressful situation in yesterday’s game and handled the most dangerous hitters with flair. He should be the Indians’ closer.
Borowski has never worried me, while Betancourt does. Devine, you said it better than I could.
Borowski has been placed on the DL now, too. Looks like the Sox damaged his body as well as his spirit.