GAME #24 - TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021 - BOSTON RED SOX @ NEW YORK METS

[longgame]

Agreed on Richards and on Dave Bush as the pitching coach.  We've seen what good pitching coaches have done in the past.  This was not the game anyone was expecting with these two guys going.  What's next, a slugfest tonight?

Very concerned about the Sox power outage as that was a strength of this team.  I think Verdugo is a big part of this lineup and if they can get around the deadwood LF situation they're pretty solid.    Not sure what's keeping the bats in check so far.  One thing I've noticed is that this team swings at a lot of pitches and there aren't a lot of deep counts.

Barnes was very impressive.  The best I've ever seen him.  Locating and good velocity. 

[Sea Dog 23]

The more I think about the more I believe that Bloom's best decision was the one to make Dave Bush the pitching coach.

I saw this on GR this morning,

Last night Richards had the second-most curves he's ever thrown in a start.

In the presser, Richards said that they had made an adjustment allowing him to repeat his delivery, and that it allowed him to "gather over the rubber." He used that phrase twice. DiNardo interpreted that as gathering his hands, and you can see that in the delivery comparison.

As of right now,  our rotation for next year has Sale, E-Rod, Eovaldi, Whitlock, Richards, Pivetta, Houck, and Seabold.

Richards went from 52.2% strikes in his previous start, to 75.3%. He threw one more pitch,  but had 22 more strikes (and only one was a gift, strike 2 to Peterson in the 5th).

[SeaBeachFred]

JD just showed us how basic fundamental competence can still have their worth despite cement boots he's wearing.

The ESPN folks said Verdugo had a tight hammy.

Richards, I think, was a pitch away from an "Immaculate Inning".

Well as we saw tonight we need Verdugo to get that hammy loose because we don't need him on the shelf since he is one of our best players and a big building block for the future.  Hope he is in there the rest of the trip.  As for Martinez in the lineup as an OF, much better than having French Fry Franchy in there.  I do  think though that we have to start hitting more since that was supposed to be one of our strengths, but I have always like 2-1 wins since it means we did what we had to and got good pitching.

You beat me to the punch on the JD/Cordero thing.  ;D

I'm sure there were others who were thinking the same thing Mongol but were just a mite slow with the computer.  Perhaps Frenchy will finally find himself but with his rotten defense and seemingly poor baseball sense if he doesn't hit a ton he is worthles to the team----and right now he is close to that.  Play our best and most experienced players and stop this front office talk that in Cordero we have another potential Big Papi.  That is ludicrous on the face of it.

[SeaBeachFred]

The more I think about the more I believe that Bloom's best decision was the one to make Dave Bush the pitching coach.

I really hope you are right on that.  I have believed that we have needed a strong and talented pitching coach for a long time.  In our case just a decent one is not enough because for whatever reason we have not been able to draft and develop good young pi tchers for a long time and have depended on castoffs, undera.chievers and  experienced but long in the tooth holdovers to get us where we need to go.  Schilling, Martinez Beckett, Lester, Lackey, Sale and David Price helped us win four titles but as you can see only ONE of them was home grown.