5/19-5/22 Red Sox vs. Mariners Series Thread

Great Sweep!

3.0 out of the wild card now.

Bring up some arms and Duran see who adds and then go shopping Chaim!

Red Sox' low point win probabilities in this series:

15%, 46%, 9%, 32%

4-0

Welp I prefer this to talking 23 draft so let the good times roll.

Franchy just reminds me so much of Papi and I know that's unfair.

Has the sky stopped falling yet?

There's a story about Bear Bryant when he was coaching Alabama. A player scored his first TD for the team and got excited. Bryant is said to have told him, "Act like you have been there before." 
Cordero nailed that.

Good to see them on the periphery although if they couldn't do that against the schedule they were facing at home, then they'd be looking at dismantling the team as soon as possible, but they won the games they needed to win to at least hang around, but if they get swamped by the Yanks, Rays, and Jays, then they're right back into sellers mode come July. That will be the big tell of what they wind up having to do.

The Sox have the O's and Reds soon. I think they have the White Sox who they have to play much better against and the Guardians, too, I think.

They need to get near or over .500 after that and then survive the steady diet of NY, Toronto, and Tampa, and if they do, then they actually might become conservative buyers. If they don't they fall into sell mode, which forces them to reveal their true intentions with Bogaerts, and probably extends toward Eovaldi, JDM, and perhaps even Devers.

As far as the pen goes, it's actually been decent in the middle to 8th innings. Strahm, Schrieber, and surprisingly Davis, have been pretty damn impressive. Robles isn't too bad if he's not "The guy". I think Diekman is kind of the same way. I guess at this point Houck is in the pen as well. At some point Taylor comes back and can help out.

But it's that damn 9th inning. If they can find a reliable closer perhaps the rest of the pen falls nicely into place. I don't think any of those guys you mention are closer candidates. Maybe Mata becomes a 8th inning guy although I don't know that his control will be there. I'm most intrigued by German at this point, although I don't think anybody has him as a future closing candidate - I just want the Sox to steal another pitcher from the Yankees.

I don't think there are Victor Martinez type hitting catchers out there to get, though. I'd love to see them get Melendez from KC, but there's no way that the Royals don't find a use for him, even with Perez around (who is hurt I think?)

As far as the Mariners go, they're a weird franchise. Last year they totally overachieved by a ton, and then they improved their team on paper with Ray, Frazier, and Winker, and now whatever good luck they had last year is long gone. Go figure. That's the Mariners for you. They haven't been anything special since 2001. I do think at some point Kelenic figures it out and it looks like young Julio Rodriguez is already on the way to figuring it out - he's pretty damn impressive.

To add on, because I think I understand the point of your comment now:

Strahm is not being overused in my opinion, and nowhere near the level of Barnes last year. Strahm has 14.1 innings over the course of the past 1.75 months, Barnes pitched 14 innings in just April(24 innings by end of May). Strahm has pitched less innings than 3 relievers in the Sox pen, and is tied with Brasier for innings(who isn't even on the team anymore). He's nowhere close to being overused.

To add onto that, its not like he pitched the day before. And instead of putting Strahm in, the Sox put in Diekman(pitching in his third straight), and Robles(pitching in his second straight). Doesn't make much sense to me.

Along with an off day the next day, Strahm in any part of the late innings would have been a great spot for him to pitch a high leverage inning and still be well rested.  

Immediate outlook may be bad for them but Kirby/Gilbert/hopefully Brash/hopefully Hancock in the rotation and Rodriguez/Crawford/hopefully Kelenic are Damn good building blocks. I’m also super high on Harry Ford

In terms of closers, Harder would be a obvious option. I don't see much else at the trade deadline. I see the Sox and Bloom rolling the dice with what they have. Closers get overpaid at trade deadlines. I don't see Bloom falling into that trap. Dombrowski would, but not Bloom.

www.mlb.com/redsox/video/drew-steckenrider-in-play-no-out-to-franchy-cordero


Triple by Cordero