8/3-8/5 Red Sox @ Tigers Thread

Normally I'd agree. But he's never played the position in the pros. You're asking him to learn something new while rehabbing instead of just putting him in the outfield. Worst case you could just play him out there and send Duran down.

Arroyo is very injury prone. Lets face it that could have happened if he got out of bed the wrong way.

The Sox look like they are spent. All season long almost every game has been a nail biter and they just look mentally exhausted from pulling near miracles out of the hat.  It's been an interesting situation where not one player on the team could be said to have been over performing expectations. And many on the team have been worse than would have been reasonably expected and yet somehow they kept winning.
The most obvious problem is the rotation. Scherzer is a free agent this off-season. He's said he would play in Boston. The Sox can go all in to try and sign him without giving up their best prospects for a shot in the dark chance this year.
At this point the best thing the team can do is play Duran, Cordero and Dalbec almost every day to see if any of them can get it together. All three are on the older side for prospects.  They should also be extremely cautious with Sale as there is no point in pushing him.

Have to give some credit to Detroit for hiring Hinch. I think he is a good manager.  Yeah, the Astros stuff is a part of it, but his teams play well for him.  Even before the scandal he started with a young Astros team and they improved pretty quickly.

Schwarber has been able to take batting practice and work out at 1st base as has been reported, so IMO he should be ok pretty quickly. Cora should just tell him not to try and stretch a single into a double unless he can walk into second or he risks reaggravating that hammy, they can be very touchy for a while. And limit rounding 1st too hard. I hope things go well there and he signs on LT.

The hole on this team that will cost the Sox the season without some form of miracle is the rotation. Sale and Houck might be enough but I doubt it. Maybe if the pen can continue to bail them out they could hang tough but that is going to take some reinforcements from AAA as they are on the verge of overuse.

I advocated for months buying starters at the deadline but obviously that didn't happen. A big question and possible fix is if Perez or Richards can be more effective in limited inning situations, are they capable of dialing it up a bit if they know they only have to go thru the lineup once. I doubt it but they have had some moments, like last night Richards looked good the 1st time thru. We can only hope but the Sox need a few guys to step up if they are going to compete in the last 50 games.

Why wouldn't Scherzer simply stay in LA? They have the money to pay him as I assume they will be out from what they owe Trevor Bauer. That money is earmarked for pitching and Scherzer agreed to go to LA, probably because he knows they can extend him and he wants them to extend them. No reason for them not to. I wouldn't count on the Sox bringing him in. I also wonder how excited Bloom would be to pay $100 million for a guy hitting 40 at the end of the contract. I just don't see Scherzer to Boston happening.

If they don't win tonight I will personally dive down to the bottom of the ocean and retrieve CDJ's phone.

Its weird to me everyone is worried about Schwarber when the most obvious problem is Pérez and Richards. Cora as well actually. They’ve both been hammered for like a month plus. Cora keeps leaving them in way too long, bringing them back out for another inning where they inevitably give up at least one run after getting out of a jam the previous inning where they clearly lost it. This happens basically every Richards start.

Yeah the offense is in a funk but they’ll snap put of it.

Bauer is a paraiah in the Dodgers clubhouse and I wouldn't give anything for his major league future. I have a feeling he'll get when he has coming to him and the Dodgers won't owe him a thing.

Noted and deleted. Except consider that Schwarber had a significant hammy strain. Working at first could exacerbate that if he decides to stretch for a ball or a throw.

I feel like Perez is reverting towards his expected numbers. The problem is that while he's reverting, ERod has still not done the opposite, so it makes the staff as a whole not look great. Eovaldi not giving us a shut down start this week didn't help either, this was the week we really needed a strong outing to hold back the tide.

My concern right now is that since June 1st this team has a pythag of 0.500, with 263 runs scored to 262 runs against. They had been squeezing out wins with their comeback heroics to stay on their 0.600 pace, but the magic seems to have run out. This will be their first 10-game stretch all season not at 5-5, 6-4, or 7-3.