8/6-8/8 Red Sox @ Blue Jays Thread

For both teams.

With those pitching matchups the Sox would be fortunate to split. If they can tread water during the series without giving away any games, I'd guess you'd have to take it.

Hopefully that's the last Richards start and my guess is we'll see one more Perez start. I really wish we wouldn't.

On paper Toronto might be the most talented team in the division. Up til now they've been the most underachieving team in the division.

Seabold and Sale plz

Who does Ort have to kill in order to get a shot? You have Austin Davis on this team right now...

Him and Munoz could help this team. 

I imagine you don’t see Davis optioned until Darwinzon gets back

I could do without Robles as well.

Red Sox are gonna be betting underdogs in all four

Toronto is a good team

haha. Yeah, it is like the talkshow thing where somebody complains and says, "Call up that kid from AA. There's no way he could be any worse than the guy we have playing now."

So they do and the kid struggles and is even worse than thought possible and the same guy calls up a month later and says, "Why the hell did they call up some green kid from AA?"

I guess that could be me with Duran, but still, I'm willing to stick it out with him, or at least until he struggles or Arroyo comes back freeing up Kiké Hernandez to play CF. In a playoff roster, even with him struggling, I'd include him. That speed of his is game altering. And if he does hit, he is capable of going yard, even if he strikes out the rest of the time.

But with Perez and Richards, their peripherals are lousy. They've been lousy. Richards is a mess without his sticky stuff and he was borderline with it. Perez has a long track record of being a very mediocre to bad pitcher and a track record of fading out as the season goes on. So the odds that they can improve upon it is good, although it wouldn't shock me if Sale had a really rough outing either his first and/or second time out, but still I'd take my chances with him. I'd take it with Houck. I'd even try out Seabold. He looked good last year and the Sox thought he'd be knocking down the door in May, but injuries held him back, so now it's not so maybe he can come up and help. It would be crazy not to try it knowing full well what you get with Perez and Richards and knowing they can no longer afford to keep running those 2 out there every 5th day.

The biggest thing is is the pollanya homers versus the sky is falling chicken littles mentality that goes on, and frankly none of it really matters. Like Cora said, the players are going to play and whatever happens happens. You can only spin it so far. A loss doesn't mean they're eliminated even if it can feel like it and a win doesn't result in the printing of world series tickets, even if it can feel like it.

My guess is that they hang onto a Wild Card spot, but I certainly wouldn't be my life on it. Maybe Manfred, you're right after all, and this is an 87 win team. You're closer than I was - I had them pegged at 79 wins. They're playing like a 79 win team right now, but hopefully that changes.

A lot has to go right for this team to be serious pennant contenders (not talking just making the wild card), but that's the case for a lot of teams that do get that far. A lot of things have to break right. This Sox team has less margin for error, for sure, but it's possible. But it's also not hard to see how things can spiral the wrong way. This is why they play the games.

If the Blue Jays get swept their season is over, if the Sox get swept we can still fight for the wild card. It's clearly worse for the Blue Jays. It still would suck horribly for us to get swept but "terrible" seems to be the right word for it.

You might be projecting, in that if we get swept by Toronto that's likely a sign that we're not good and will struggle the rest of the year. That could be true but that's still an assumption on future outcomes. Incandenza is just objectively looking at these three games.

It'll be tough, but if the Sox do get swept how does one deny that the Sox are in trouble? If they get swept they do still have time to get straightened out, but if you're of the mind they were overachieving in the first place, it's fair to question whether they can come back. If they get swept they will have frittered away most of a 9.5 game lead over a hated rival who resembled a AAA team a couple of weeks back, a team that loses somebody every day to the Covid list. The Sox have lost a 4.5 game lead over Tampa pretty swiftly. So yeah, there's reason for concern.

Hopefully Schwarber, Sale, Houck, Arroyo, Brasier, and maybe even Seabold represent something like the cavalry coming. The other key piece is getting better situational hitting out of the offense. Maybe Cora's message of controlling the strike zone and making contact will finally sink through. I would guess that point has come out during their team meetings. And the big 3 need to heat up and Verdugo needs to turn it up. So there is still hope no matter what. But at the end of the day what will happen, will happen, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, other than react. They actually have to do it themselves. It is that simple.

The Red Sox are in second place in the division. If they get swept in this series they are guaranteed to... be in second place in the division.

Then Sale comes back during the TB series. Then they get Baltimore at home, and somewhere in there Schwarber arrives.

If they can scratch out two wins in this series that would be great. But nothing can happen in Toronto (save some plague of injuries) that would really be catastrophic.