8/15-8/16 Red Sox vs. Cardinals Series Thread

They had seven balls in play with an exit velocity of 90 mph or greater in the fifth inning alone. There have been stretches of this season when it was valid to criticize the team's lack of power. This game is not one of those times.

Joe Kelly hasn't been good since returning from the DL. Keep him away from high leverage situations until he puts some consistent innings and quality appearances.

that was fairly funny exchange with Barnes and the camera.  Eck was pretty funny there also.

such an easy win, i almost got bored and didn't know what to do with myself.  So I started posting drivel.  I want 1 run ballgames from here on out. 

Good win. Offense did work, Porcello was serviceable and ate seven innings for us.

Good to see X and Hanley make some noise with the bats.

If zombies like Hanley and Bogey get going, look out. Our offense could explode.

Somehow we have to get betts to explode.

Yeah, if Smith can come back strong and be the guy he was with the Mariners then this bullpen is just ridiculously overpowered.

Huge. The inability to pull, and the inability to hit the ball hard, were the two reasons we believed the thumb was still bothering him. Rockets to left are exactly what we were looking for.

I was going to say this before this game: you forget just how thrillingly talented Xander Bogaerts is at your own peril. Just because he has not played at that level for more than half of last year, and played somewhat below it for most of this year and far below it for seven weeks (it seems much longer) does not mean the talent isn't still there. He is in the same tier as Devers, Betts, and Benintendi. To my mind, he remains an 8 ceiling guy (of the quartet, I'd put Benny at 7.5). It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he's the best player on the team the rest of the way (and I think I'll grab everyone's bWAR going into tonight just to see how this plays out).

BTW, for some reason b-Ref's fielding numbers and hence WAR excludes catcher's DRS pitch framing but includes their pitch-calling, which is a much sketchier number. They have Vazquez as +11 runs framing and Leon as +6 (BP has it at 10.0 and 2.6). Include those, and Leon is at 1.5 WAR and Vazquez at 1.2. However, they have Leon as +4 pitch-calling runs and Vazquez as -4, and I think those always sum to zero for a given team in a year, which is to say the catchers on a team are just compared to each other. I'm not confident they're doing that correctly, either. Without that, Vazquez is at 1.6 WAR and Leon at 1.1.

He wasn't missing bats even before his DL stint. He was playing over head true talent level no matter which metric you choose to look at.

Reed will figure it out though I would think.

If they push Fister back he just winds up pitching against the Indians. It's not like it's the White Sox or something coming up where you'd much rather him face that team.

Sonny Gray goes for the Yankees on Sunday.

If they don't start Porcello on Sunday, I'll lose my mind.