All-Star Break Gameday Thread

Bringing a giant net?

Mookie please be careful shagging balls.

Amazing.

MLB nailed the new format for the HRD. It had gotten stale and took too long, but now its a 2.5 hour event with drama in almost every matchup. Bryce Harper's run at the end was insane!

Yeah not trying harder to go to something in '99 (summer before my HS sophomore year, so money wouldn't have been unlimited) is one of my great regrets.

I've been blessed to go to some really great sporting events. ALCS Game 3 in 2003 (the Zimmer/Pedro brawl, thinking a guy had jumped into the bullpen, etc.), FSU winning the National Championship at the Rose Bowl recently (wife's an alum), Celtics playoff games including a 20-point comeback against the Magic (random - I sat next to Gordon Edes, who was there as a fan), the first game in which Cam Neely played against Ulf Samuelsson after his knee injury in which Neely was clearly trying to kill him and got thrown out in the first period. I'd even add things I wasn't technically at like tailgating in the parking lot with a tv hooked up to a generator during the tuck rule game and watching the first Pats Super Bowl win from Chunky's in Pelham. Anyway, last night was potentially the most fun I've had at a sporting event. It's basically a three-hour party, and the way the night played out was fantastic.

Hoskins did a great job warming the crowd up as the first guy up, which helped a ton, I think, with bringing the crowd into it. No Piazza-esque duds helped (the balls being juiced for the event is a good call, let's be honest). The Schwarber-Hoskins semifinal was extremely dramatic. And Harper winning in the end, the way he did (I thought he was done for 90 seconds into the round, and with like 90 seconds left there was no chance he was winning) was stunning.

Honestly, as someone who dabbles with watching wrestling, the parallels were kind of eerie. Hoskins played the part of the hot opening match. The matchup format allows the crowd to pay attention, then take a second to come down, get food/drinks, chat with neighbors, etc. Harper winning in the end was like the babyface making his big comeback to win the title in the main event. I mean, hell, Harper was practically dressed like a wrestler between the cleats, DC bandana (which I need in my life btw), and USA bat.

Also, I'm not sure if they showed this on TV, but Rece Hinds and Bobby Witt Jr. in the Junior Home Run Derby final, which I assume was during a commercial break, was also really fun. I think everyone was skeptical at first (high school kids? really?), but then they came out and hit some bombs and everyone popped big for them. Nice moment.

Speaking of the crowd, best non-playoff, non-Yankees-Sox crowd I've been a part of and easily best DC sports crowd. The 8 pm start helped, as DC crowds are notorious for showing up late (my guess is that is in large part due to what's probably a higher prevalence of white collar, non-9-to-5 jobs), but this gave everyone a chance to get to the park (and surrounding area), get a couple drinks in them, and have fun.

But yeah, great night. Haven't come down yet.

I see there's a bit of a small controversy over Harper winning the derby. Apparently there is a rule that the ball has to land before the next pitch is thrown but Harper's dad was rapid firing the pitches before they landed to save time during the the big HR binge. Not that it matters because MLB isn't going to change the result.

I haven't been lurking on the forum as actively this year, so I'm not sure if this has already been posted about, but r/RedSox over on reddit has started putting "Africa" by Toto over video of our grand salamis this year. With 9 at the all-star break, enjoy this grid!

streamable.com/hof2x

There are times I wonder the same thing.

I look and see 4 spots that are below average offensively: 3b, 2b, CF, and catcher. Yet the Sox are at the top of the league in runs scored.

That's a testimony to how amazingly great Betts and JDM have been and how strong a season that Bogaerts, Benintendi, and Moreland are having.

The Sox have 3 of the best players in baseball having awesome HOF level seasons in Betts, JDM, and Chris Sale.

Also, underappreciated thus far, is how good Craig Kimbrel is at locking down games.

There have been many, many leads that could have slipped away and Kimbrel has locked them down.

And somehow Barnes, Kelly, Hembree, and whoever Cora mixes and matches has done a great job holding the leads. Barnes has been the most consistent guy but here is where Cora deserves a ton of credit.

Somehow, in just about every spot start, if not all of them, Johnson and Velazquez have given the Sox a reasonable to good chance to win. You don't see that often. Normally you see what Jalen Beeks has done. That's normally how it works. That's been minimalized.

They've also, with the exception of 2b (Nunez) and some occasional defensive miscues by Devers, have done a great job defensively and haven't beaten themselves. I've watched the Mariners, Rangers, and Jays destroy themselves recently with their own defense. The Sox have minimalized that.

I think the Sox will be severely tested in the 2nd half.

Porcello and Price have had recent atrocious outings and Sale is the only certainty. It's not reasonable to continue to anticipate that Velazquez and Johnson will step in without skipping a beat. Having those issues at least twice out of every five days will tax the bullpen.

If E-Rod and/or Wright can't return healthy it will be difficult for the Sox to win in the post-season unless all 3 of Sale, Price, and Porcello are on top of their games.

To help mitigate these things, Dombrowski is going to have to find a way to improve the Red Sox obvious vulnerabilities without giving up too much, but doing nothing is not an option.

Devers can hit better. Maybe they skate by with Holt/Phillips. Maybe JBJ hits as he has the past month. Maybe Leon and Swihart continue to hit better.

Lots of maybes there, and some of those if not all can continue to happen, but the pen would definitely benefit from a high leverage reliever and it would allow Brasier and Hembree and Workman to work earlier in the game which might be necessary with 2/5 of the rotation down. Pomeranz can't be counted on at this point either.

Pitching is the priority for Dombrowski.

Agreed.

It's almost like Nunez is his blind spot. It's almost like he's back in Houston remembering the gameplanning for the ALDS. One where Nunez leads off for the Sox and one where he's too injured to play.

The Nunez Cora saw last year was mashing the ball.

It could have been simply a hot streak, but in his tenure with the Red Sox last season Nunez was crushing the ball. He was a difference maker in the lineup. When he was re-signed cheaply I think a lot of us were happy about it.

I think Nunez simply isn't the same player since his problems with his knees. It's like he never really recovered.

I didn't think of him as a .320 hitter with power (I think he had 8 homers in 2 months), but rather as a guy in the .280 - .300 range who could hit 15 or even more homers per year.

I think Cora sees that guy rather than the broken down hacker who is awful at 2b that we all see now.


But all in all, Cora has been wonderful. I think there are going to be times when he'll have to get quicker with the hook, like on days where Kelly can't find the plate or like last week when Porcello had nothing and he waited too long to get him out of there. And he'll have to pinch-hit a little more often, which was something he was passing up earlier in the year. And on occasion he might have to utilize the bunt. I was surprised he didn't do so when Bradley doubled in the tying run with no outs in the last of the 9th against Toronto.

I think Roenicke will have to help him out there.

But when it comes to handling the team, setting the tone (this is more important than any stats can show!), and seeing details, he's awesome. If he wasn't the manager, he'd be an amazing scout. He just sees so many details. I feel like he always knows what wrong if a player is struggling and how it should be addressed.

He's candid in his dealings with the media and blunt on his assessments. I loved the way he's been blunt about Pomeranz's issues. I don't know if Hanley's release was totally Cora's decision, but I do believe that he felt after watching the two play that Moreland was the better player going forward. And I think he's done a great job handling the bullpen. There's not a ton of certainty other than Kimbrel and Barnes, he has no lefty, yet he has mixed and matched beautifully.

Also, too: Imagine being upset about that.

That seems like an enviable position in some respects. I imagine that it's easier to improve a roster with 8 quarters and 1 penny than it is to improve one with 9 dimes.