ST: Red Sox @ Blue Jays | May 8 - 10

[Waylanderz]

May 8 to May 10 - Rogers Center, Toronto, Ontario

Friday, May 8, 7:07 PM ET- Sportsnet One
W. Miley (1-3, 7.15) vs A. Sanchez (2-2, 4.62)

Saturday, May 9, 1:07 PM ET- Sportsnet One
J. Kelly (1-1, 5.72) vs D. Hutchison (2-0, 7.47)

Sunday, May 10, 1:07 PM ET- Sportsnet One
C. Buchholz (1-4, 6.03) vs R. Dickey (1-3, 4.38)

Let's go Blue Jays!!!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

These **** again? **** 'em.

Edit- It's amazing how the Yankees are the AL East team I hate the least. I never thought that would ever happen.

[s e n s i]

These **** again? **** 'em.

Edit- It's amazing how the Yankees are the AL East team I hate the least. I never thought that would ever happen.

yeah, the orioles and the rays have somehow unseated the red sox and yankees respectively on my AL east 'go **** yourselves' hierarchy, which would have been absurd to say three or four years ago. the yankees are pretty respectable all things considered, no notable punks on their team. meanwhile our inability to beat the rays and the orioles just being their stupid selves have allowed the red sox to take a back seat to both for the time being. still, **** the red sox.

[Raptor_Guy]

I predict a combined 70 runs this series

[dagger]

Red Sox just fired pitching coach Juan Nieves.

Some organizations are less patient with incompetence than others.

[hyper316]

Those ERAs are pretty ugly, dickey being the lowest out of the six at 4.38. Our pen is gonna be used a lot

[dballislife]

Why we only play yanks sox and baltimore? There's 30 teams

[Santoki]

Why we only play yanks sox and baltimore? There's 30 teams

We have to play them 18 times a year each at some point. It just so happens this year we play them a lot at the beginning of the year compared to playing them at the end of the year like last season.

After the Baltimore series, something like 76 of the next 98 games come out of the division.

[wazabifuzz]

if the red sox fired Juan Nieves after their struggles, whats to say about the Jays doing the same thing ?

[Randle McMurphy]

Red Sox just fired pitching coach Juan Nieves.

Some organizations are less patient with incompetence than others.

And some managers get to shield their own incompetence for years with a title:

John Farrell's late-inning moves did not work in club's favor

BOSTON -- This hardly helps to clarify why Luis Jimenez, who had just one hit in 15 at-bats before being released by the team with the worst record in baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers, is on the Red Sox roster.

Picked up off waivers on Sunday, Jimenez made his first appearance in a game for the Red Sox Wednesday night, entering in the eighth inning to run for David Ortiz at second, one out, and the Sox down a run to the Tampa Bay Rays. The move, while certainly defensible at the time, might have wound up costing the Sox a game.

Not only did Jimenez fail to score -- he was retired on a force play at the plate when Daniel Nava grounded weakly to first -- but he came to the plate instead of Ortiz in the bottom of the ninth as Boston’s last hope, the tying runs on first and second. Jimenez hit a little squibber in front of the plate and was easily thrown out at first.

“With [Ortiz’s] run being the tying run, if we get a base hit and he’s thrown out at the plate, you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t,’’ Red Sox manager John Farrell said.

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/ ... lubs-favor

[Lateral Quicks]

Red Sox just fired pitching coach Juan Nieves.

Some organizations are less patient with incompetence than others.

I guess the Red Sox didn't buy into the excuse that since pitching coaches "don't throw the pitches", they should be held blameless.

[PurplePJs]

Off day - ballz

[Randle McMurphy]

Red Sox just fired pitching coach Juan Nieves.

Some organizations are less patient with incompetence than others.

I guess the Red Sox didn't buy into the excuse that since pitching coaches "don't throw the pitches", they should be held blameless.

Farrell is supposed to be the great pitching guru. Using the logic that it is the coach's fault whenever bad pitchers pitch poorly, they certainly should have sent him on his way as well.

[dagger]

Red Sox just fired pitching coach Juan Nieves.

Some organizations are less patient with incompetence than others.

I guess the Red Sox didn't buy into the excuse that since pitching coaches "don't throw the pitches", they should be held blameless.

Farrell is supposed to be the great pitching guru. Using the logic that it is the coach's fault whenever bad pitchers pitch poorly, they certainly should have sent him on his way as well.

Maybe they will if this persists.

[Schad]

Red Sox just fired pitching coach Juan Nieves.

Some organizations are less patient with incompetence than others.

I guess the Red Sox didn't buy into the excuse that since pitching coaches "don't throw the pitches", they should be held blameless.

When you're the GM that assembled the pitching staff, it's the easier of the options.

I like Cherington quite a bit; he does risk/reward as well as anyone this side of Beane. But there was always risk in the staff they assembled...Buchholz and Masterson were coming off terrible years, Kelly and Miley merely below-average ones. Perhaps more importantly though, there was serious risk in the defense, built as it was to shoehorn as many aging sluggers into the lineup as possible. Thus far they've been a mess defensively, which has resulted in a cavernous split between the FIPs (pretty decent) of the starters and their ERAs (appalling)...their corner infielders don't have the greatest range, Pedroia's grading out below-average in the early going (a huge change), Bogaerts is talented but a work in progress. And for all Betts has done in the outfield, Hanley Ramirez has been an absolute disaster in left field; he simply does not know how to play the position.

So yeah, I would say he's getting scapegoated to some extent, because it's not even that the Red Sox pitchers have been that bad...they'd look far better if the players behind them were capable of catching the ball, and that's not Nieves' job.

[Michael Bradley]

Coaches matter. They can make a difference. Ask Romero, Bautista, Edwin, and many others who turned the corner due to adjustments suggested to them by coaches. That doesn't mean one has to be scapegoated necessarily just for a month of bad pitching, but I wouldn't brush aside Walker's influence (or lack of influence) on the pitching staff. I think the Jays philosophy of not valuing coaches is a horrible trait for an organization, especially when two of their best players became who they are due to coaches. A manager might be interchangeable to some degree, but don't cheap out on the coaches that might be able to help the talent.

[Randle McMurphy]

They DFA'd Mujica in their purge. He's not particularly good, but he's still probably better than what we've got (Delabar/Jenkins). I'd try to get him.

[Lateral Quicks]

Coaches matter. They can make a difference. Ask Romero, Bautista, Edwin, and many others who turned the corner due to adjustments suggested to them by coaches. That doesn't mean one has to be scapegoated necessarily just for a month of bad pitching, but I wouldn't brush aside Walker's influence (or lack of influence) on the pitching staff. I think the Jays philosophy of not valuing coaches is a horrible trait for an organization, especially when two of their best players became who they are due to coaches. A manager might be interchangeable to some degree, but don't cheap out on the coaches that might be able to help the talent.

I've actually been on the fire Walker bandwagon prior to this year. He has very little success to point to, both as a pitcher and more importantly in this context as a coach. I'm surprised they've stuck with him this luck given the results and importance of coaching all the young'uns coming up.

[Randle McMurphy]

Coaches matter. They can make a difference. Ask Romero, Bautista, Edwin, and many others who turned the corner due to adjustments suggested to them by coaches. That doesn't mean one has to be scapegoated necessarily just for a month of bad pitching, but I wouldn't brush aside Walker's influence (or lack of influence) on the pitching staff. I think the Jays philosophy of not valuing coaches is a horrible trait for an organization, especially when two of their best players became who they are due to coaches. A manager might be interchangeable to some degree, but don't cheap out on the coaches that might be able to help the talent.

I've actually been on the fire Walker bandwagon prior to this year. He has very little success to point to, both as a pitcher and more importantly in this context as a coach. I'm surprised they've stuck with him this luck given the results and importance of coaching all the young'uns coming up.

Enough of the pitching coaches who were major league journeymen, we need a genuine MLB star for the next one.

[Randle McMurphy]

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?pl ... position=P

Of course, the irony is that 2002 Pete Walker would be our ace right now.