someone needs to put a .45 up to Tito's foot every time he tries to hit youkilis fifth and say, "it's gonna cost you a toe, terry, think about it."

he'll probably move him before you get to the other foot. well, maybe.

he is having a very bad second half, though. it's just the nature of baseball - guys who perform poorly in small sample sizes get moved down temporarily. honestly, if i am hitting like [censored] and my manager kept putting me in the 2-hole instead of the 5 or worse, it makes me feel bad that guys who are performing well are still behind me.

Desparate times call for desparate measures. Got to shake up this line-up. Post your line-up card, here's mine:

Lugo
Pedroia
Youk
Manny
Papi
Lowell
Drew
Tek
Coco

I know it's sacrilege to not have Manny and Papi in the 3 and 4 spots but the 5 hole has been the big problem for 2 years now. This solves that and with Lugo and Pedroia now hitting, get Youk in front of these guys for protection and I think this line-up will show more production.

the problem really has been the 8 & 9 hitters, so that's where Manny and Papi should go. Then we would have the best 8 & 9 hitters in the league, which should solve some problems.

hahaha

yeah this is a great plan, lets get lugo MORE AB's and ortiz LESS.

So I get three flames from just who I thought would but no one posts their line-up. Am I to assume that you all say leave it as it is?

Grow a pair guys and post yours.

the one they use now seems pretty okay to me

I think it's basically fine, as Sublime said the solution is not to get your best hitters less AB's and your worst hitters more AB's.

sometimes "growing a pair" isn't the best solution to a problem, when "sticking with what you know is best" is an alternative.

lame poker analogy: you shouldn't start overplaying JTo and folding Aces when your Aces are getting cracked, b/c you need to "mix things up". you just need to have patience and ride out variance.

ditto!

if i were in some weird universe where i could actually get what i want, ortiz would lead off

drew
pedroia
ortiz
manny
lowell
youk
tek
lugo
coco

Put Youk in the 1 or 2 spot from time to time, especially against lefties, to see if he gets some better pitches to hit; if he starts hitting again leave him there and drop Pedroia to 6th.

Or trade for Texeira already FFS

also these arent 'desperete' times. these are bad times that occur over a season....even to good teams.

really, i am constantly amazed that some of you play poker seriously and understand that sometimes good plays (and players) don't win, yet when it comes to baseball the same concept (running bad etc) just befuddles you.

How can you all say this? In case you haven't noticed, they're not scoring any runs guys.

Sublime et al,

I envy you guys. You're too young to have gone through all the collaspes past Red Sox teams and suffereing fans went through over the decades. You would think that 2004 would have exorcized the demons but it can never completely.

Plus we're talking about our principal pursuer being the evil empire, coupled with this bad stretch we've been in for going on 2 months now, and the finger is hovering near the panic button.

They've scored more runs than 25 other ML teams.

(Or were you referring to just the past 5 games?)

Their run production is down since June 1.

April 125 runs for a 5.2 average
May 155 runs for a 5.5 average
June 127 runs for a 4.1 average
July 79 runs for a 4.9 average (skewed by one 15 run game against TB)

The only short period of time that this team seemed to have any life at all since June 1 was the cup of coffee by Ellsbury. Sending him down and bringing up Bailey before the All Star break was a silly move.

Ortiz played 1B against the NL without embarrassing himself and would have been fine for a couple of games while Youk was hurt. Or Hinske if they determined Ortiz wasn't up to it.

Ellsbury provided a nice spark while he was up but the team is just dead right now.

Sumblime: Is your avatar Bucholz?

re: the lineup posts, does anyone really think Youk should hit 5th? He seems to me to have the skillset of a prototypical #3 hitter. Since we know he's not going to hit there, I guess he should be put 2nd (just like the Yankees do with Jeter). So, I guess the correct lineup is:

Pedroia*
Youk
Papi
Manny
Drew
Lowell
Tek
Lugo*
Crisp

*I would switch Pedroia with Lugo when they both start to come back to earth. Thoughts?

Can't bat Drew 5th until he shows some power. And if you like Youk 3rd, you basically like the line-up I posted.

I wish they'd score more runs, too. But a lot of hard hit balls aren't finding gaps, they're HR production is much lower than expected, and they're not stringing many hits together. Thus, a lot of LOBs and one-run losses.

It is possible to run bad for two months. Even over this 20-24 stretch, I'm sure they outscored their opponents. The run production will increase. And when it does, the pitching will probably go in the tank for awhile, and we'll all have something else to bitch about. That's baseball.

But I do agree the lineup should be tweaked, and no way Youks should be batting 5th. And I'll also admit this year doesn't have that "special" feel about it yet, but I'll bet most St. Louis fans said the same thing about their team almost all of last year. As far as the panic button, what is it and what purpose does it serve? (and I am old enough to remember 1978)

Good grief, we have like 100 hits this week. Stop worrying about the offense!

so when ellsbury was on the bench and manny was up at plate, he was extra pumped to hit?

L O L

yesa

my lineup is what I feel is the correct lineup assuming everybody is healthy and playing well (or at least as expected).


what I said was that Youk strikes me as a prototypical #3 hitter. Obviously, he won't hit third in this lineup. I wouldn't expect him to. If I put him on, say, the Pirates for example, I'd hit him 3rd in front of Bay.

you've mentioned this a couple of times recently. Is this just in your head or is it a possibility? I haven't heard anything about it, but then again it's still a little early for the start of the wacky 11th hour trade rumors.