White Sox great Paul Konerko’s number will be retired today, as Bruce Levine of CBSChicago.com notes. Since retiring last season, Konerko says, he has watched the White Sox on occasion but hasn’t spent much time watching baseball. He did, however, attend Wayne Gretzky’s fantasy hockey camp, and he has three young children. “A lot of guys I talked to said, ’Listen, you have to find things to do,'” says Konerko. “When you go home, they said, ’You can only play so much golf.’ I definitely have a lot of stuff going on to keep me sharp.” Here’s more from the American League.
- Of all the players who left the Blue Jays last winter, the one who would have helped the team the most is, improbably, J.A. Happ, Brendan Kennedy of TheStar.com writes. The Jays’ rotation has struggled this season, while Happ has produced a 3.61 ERA with 7.2 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9 for the Mariners. Happ had frequently been little more than a contingency plan in Toronto. “They must have felt like they had better options,” says Happ. “I just tried to take advantage of the opportunities when I got them, but I was definitely trying to fight for my cause.”
- The Red Sox should at least consider firing John Farrell, writes Christopher Smith of MassLive.com. Since winning a World Series with the Red Sox in 2013, Farrell has a .441 winning percentage as manager, and this year’s team is filled with expensive but struggling veterans. Nonetheless, the AL East hasn’t been a strong division this year, and the Red Sox could still win it. Smith suggests that might be difficult, though, if the Red Sox don’t dramatically improve or make changes.
Fire the pitching coach, than fire the manager, and then fire the hitting coach, and then maybe maybe realize that none of those guys built this sox team, and the blame should be on the GM, that thought this was a good team.
Do you do anything, other than post negative comments regarding the Red Sox here?
Nope all 3,000 comments are negative and about boston.
I blame Bobby Valentine for the Red Sox struggles.
Firing the Sox’ pitching coach would be like firing Ryne Sandberg because the Phillies are bad. He can’t do much with what he has.
Yeah, except, it worked. Rotation has performed considerably better since that change was made.
They put the worst starter on the DL and played a stretch of games in pitcher friendly Oakland and Seattle. Let’s see what happens now when they are home and back to the usual environment.
before the blowout of Porcello last night? Miley/Kelly/Bucholz had all gone 7-7.1IP and allowed a combined 6ER on the homestand. Not bad in my book.
We’ll see. It takes time for pitching coaches to implement change. It’s too soon to draw any conclusions about him. Good or bad.
Really? Because team ERA in April was 5.04 and their ERA in May is 4.10. It would seem that they have improved.
I have a feeling I’ll cry during Konerko’s number retirement.
J.A. Happ would not necessarily have helped Toronto at all. You don’t get to take stats in a vacuum. If he was a Blue Jay, he would have pitched in different places against different batters. The results would almost assuredly not have been the same.
I think Cherrington should be more under the microscope than Farrell.
Absolutely. He had a golden opportunity to take the East if he spent on a more balanced roster but he had to try to look like the smartest guy in the room and sign redundant players.
Red Sox were highly overrated to start the season. They are a .500 team right now. It’s hard to improve 18 games from one year to the next like it was predicted
It’s all about chemistry. I didn’t expect the Rays to do well with everyone healthy. Yet even with all the injuries, were in first place. I think the Red Sox need to focus on chemistry, or not, because as a Rays fan I don’t mind them doing bad
I never count the rays out, as a jays fan im deeply saddened by our play right now. Such high hopes… such horrible results.
Yeah, the whole division is different than ever
Chemistry is a product of winning, it isn’t something to work on.
I think the Red Sox have too many assets. Simplify. Pick your starting team, bench/utility or option the rest, trade what’s really surplus, and let it rip. It’s not the super-team that Bos Media predicted, but there’s more than enough talent.
They made that work in 2013. That is baseball now. No one starts 162 games a season. Lineups are fluid and they change often.
Yes, and they have some versatility, if they want to deploy it. I’m not suggesting everyone play 160 games. More along the lines of making some choices. The Craig and JBJ moves might be the start of that.
I think they probably will in the long run. At the moment, the only real surplus players are Victorino, Castillo, and Nava, as Holt fit’s that utility player nicely. I’d personally pick Castillo to take Right and try and off load Nava and Victorino if I were them, but Nava has been hitting like garbage, and Victorino is already possibly hurt again after seeing action in only a few games, so he’s gonna be a hard sell with his contract price.
Except it is… Chemistry is how well you work together with your team. So I’m pretty sure that’s something you can work on
Except that it isn’t. Chemistry is a product of winning, not something that creates a winning team. Otherwise you would just be able to fill an entire team with “good clubhouse guys” and win every year.
Chemistry is how well you work together
The only important chemistry is that which is produced by winning. Working well together does nothing to insure success. Oddly the Red Sox chemistry has looked really good over the last two games. They look like they’re really having fun out there. They’re smiling, laughing, high fiving. Coincidentally the chemistry has improved when they are winning. How strange.
The Red Sox should do what??
I am not so certain about that it is all Farrell’s fault.
The Reason why the Red Sox won the World Series in 2013 was because their pitching could get to the 7th and to the 7th inning in good shape.
The GM was the one traded everyone away that was a big part of that.
I don’t think it’s Farrell’s fault, but hey what do I know?
The Manager that I am not exactly a member of the fan club is Showalter.
He drives me crazy with his defensive shifts. He burns up the bullpen on a regular basis. He sticks with his catchers too long. I think that is why Wieters got hurt, he never really got any rest and Joseph who really isn’t an everyday catcher became one in Show’s eyes. However Showalter probably isn’t going anywhere because he still has several years on his contract and I am really the only O’s type who complains about him. At least that is how I feel about it.
I love Showalter, lol. Him and Girardi are both great managers in the AL East though I don’t watch every game they play. I also like Farrell too and believe he is the perfect fit for the Red Sox club except right now the result just aren’t there.
Cash is doing a great job too.
The reason the Red Sox won in 2013 was because they had a ridiculous record in 1 run games, had 12 walkoff wins, and had a closer that was un hittable for most of the season. Bottom line they got lucky, didnt give games away and got hot in the playoffs.
The Sox lineup consists of a lot of slugger types. That lineup typically is prone to slumps. They could come out of it Or maybe Napoli and Papi are washed up. One thing they need is a real rightfielder.
“The Red Sox should at least consider firing John Farrell”
“..this year’s team is filled with
expensive but struggling veterans.”
Clearly the manager’s fault.
only reason the Sox are retiring Konerko’s # is because they didn’t run him off 1st.
They definitely should fire Farrell. He wasn’t a good manager for the Jays and he’s been terrible for the Sox. 2013 was definitely a fluke year where they had a bunch of mediocre veterans that played at their peak along with a lot of luck. At the beginning of 2013 everyone had them at winning no mitr than 80 games.
Actually by and large they were picked to win the division again. Clearly they didn’t but no one picked them to be a .500 or below team.
Konerko was also at the Hawks/Ducks game last night. They were showing his number retirement from that night, so I was shocked to see him there instead of the Sox game. You could tell he didn’t want to be on the jumbotron, but after a ton of applause he broke into a smile and showed off his babe of a wife