6/8-6/10 Red Sox vs. White Sox Series Thread

tough loss.  haven't really seen one like that all year.  Just need to win series.  Keep winning series and we will be alright.

Unpopular, or not based on fact? Cause there is a huge difference... and saying fact at the end of the post doesn't really make it an opinion anymore.

2nd place kinda sucks.

All I can say is that baseball is a weird, weird game. Didn't see tonight coming at all (although we are a different team/line up without Mookie and JDM)

I get that the loss was frustrating, it really was but this is an incredibly hot take my man not a fact.

Are you 12? We are all above childish nicknames.

I had a bad feeling about this game. It sucks seeing a strong Chris Sale outing get wasted.

Tonight they trotted out probably the worst lineup they have had all year and lately I've been saying that the lineups they post aren't that impressive.

Between having practically no bench and his two best players out the Sox lineup was awful.

It underscores how this lineup has functioned.

It is a very top heavy lineup.

Betts and Martinez have been spectacular.

Benintendi has been excellent.

Bogaerts and Moreland are having strong seasons although I do worry about regression from Moreland.

That's five spots that are producing a ton, especially Betts and JDM (and lately Benintendi).

But the other four spots overall have been below average.

2b is better with Holt but between Holt and Nunez it's been sub-par, not brutal offensively, but not great - as most of it is Nunez's lousy OBP (and he bats 5th lately).

Devers has been pretty awful offensively. He's not even a .700 OPS guy and it's not like his defense is stellar. If they had a better option, I wouldn't mind seeing him at Pawtucket, but they really don't have a better option.

I do expect he'll improve and become a huge asset - perhaps on both sides of the ball, but I worry it won't be this year.

I think he's having Xander Bogaerts' 2014 season in a way.

The catching has been brutal offensively. Vazquez and Leon have been relatively hot and their numbers are still awful.

Same with JBJ. His numbers are awful, too.

CF and catching offense have been black holes.

At this point I hope for Pedroia to come back relatively healthy which might be wishful thinking and I hope for Devers to become an offensive asset.

If those things happened it would close up two holes and then you're dealing with JBJ (wishing that he could have a month that's anywhere near May 2016) and the catchers (and I keep hoping for Swihart to assert himself to close up another hole).

And what really sucks is that despite the mediocre lineups the Sox had continued to win, reached a high water mark of a whopping 24 games above .500 while playing near .700 ball, and they have the audacity to lose two games in a row, and suddenly they're out of 1st place to the team I hate the most. Why do the MFYs have to be THIS good?!

So the Yankees are up by a half a game in the standings and they have 5 more games to play in the season (one game being a suspended game).

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. The extra games seems like a good thing. It means they should wear down and tire out, but other teams keep puking all over themselves when they play the Yankees.

Normally I would think it's bad to have to make up those extra games, but when they do, they have-nots will be divesting themselves of whatever little talent they have so it might be easy pickings as there are more have-nots than haves.

This means that both the Sox and Yankees might surpass 100 wins with room to spare. It might take 105 wins to take the division.

Counterpoint: Xander Bogaerts is actually very good.

Yeah, I can't ever complain about Xander or JBJ ever really. JBJ has been a 4th outfielder this year and I still can't complain about him. They both put up really good at bats most of the time, even if they don't win the battles in the batters box. I rarely ever speak badly of them. Hanley (when he was here), Vazquez, and Eduardo (health wise) are two completely different stories with me.

The way the Sox have managed Martinez has been perplexing all year really. You need to play him in the outfield, even on a bad back. Then you need to sit him for a full game because you played him in the outfield, on a bad back. That is a contradiction in itself.