HypeLikeJoseCruzJr.

I am a little concerned with what I heard from the media surrounding his start. He wants to call his own pitches, he wants catchers set up a specific way, depending on the pitch he is about to throw etc. I don't think we need a high maintenance junk baller and I hope he can just get outs and eat innings.

Ya, we are swimming in bats, and especially DH-eligible bats. Only need now is SP and perhaps a nasty setup guy

(In Backstreet Boys soundtrack) Grichuk's back, all right!

Wow, read the article before seeing the replay. According to Rougned it was a good clean slide and Jeff Bannister called it "appropriate".

And Smoak would have to hit .333 ++ (consistently) to make other teams consider reducing their shift. However, they'd love it as he wouldn't have the chance to hit HR's or Doubles in doing so. Best approach would be to learn how to hit screaming ropes to 3rd (and area) which would cash in runners. Even if he only tried to go the other way on strike 1.

Torn. a few games below .500, bring him up and pencil him 9th in the order (days off against Cy Young / HOF candidates). See what his numbers are like after 20 games, that's the hitting part. Where does he play? We know that he plays JD's position so this makes things awkward, and you don't DH a kid. So, DFA Morales and let JD and Smoak rotate between 1B/DH and put JD at 3rd when the kid needs a day off? But, it might actually hurt the team (whether he hits or not) because of the positional changes. With the bad vibes on the team as of right now (Osuna situation etc.) I think it makes a lot of sense to just wait and basically hand him 3B next year (in a rebuild year) and see if Bichette can fit in somewhere as well.

Tear jerking, RIP Doc

Yes, unexpected outcome for sure. You come into the season with a "set" 5-man rotation that individually have all seen success in recent years (if not last year). Heck, I somewhat expected Sanchez to be on the 60 day DL with blister issues by May 1st, but he's been reliable! He just hasn't been Aaron Sanchez Regardless, I was fairly confident that 3 / 5 would have "good productive" seasons and with better middle infield offence and a new bullpen, we would cover that up.... Here we stand with 1 / 5 starters having a productive year.....

Really not sure what happened with this team, seemingly on May 1st. Losing Osuna the way we have, seems like it affected the team worse than had he just came up with dead-arm or elbow issues. Essentially, he's absent in either scenario, but this seemed to affect not only the team, but Gibby as well. Unless you have an absolute terrible set-up man, it should have been simply bumping everyone up a notch in the pen. Tep to close, and then choose the setup guy (likely Oh). if Tep drops the ball as Clip did, then you make the change, but I think that would have sent less shockwaves through the team and bullpen vs. putting Clippard in there first. Clip just doesn't have the stuff at this point in his career to be put to close unless a lot of other options fail. I think Gibby went with him because of the mental makeup and veteran experience, but it backfired.

I think Gibby is really just letting Estrada have a chance to become a true ace. He wouldn't have done this with Sanchez, but Estrada is earning this by the way he is pitching, almost every time out. I think he managed it perfectly, give the rain a bit of credit for reducing pitch selection in the 9th for Osuna.

I think Shapiro and Atkins want their guy, and he's making it easy for them to make a change at this point. his offense needs a lead-off hitter, the Storen / Revere trade has really hurt based on Storen not even able to provide mop-up duty at this point. Sad that we are wasting great starting pitching.

We're a team ready to win the division, would rather have him inducing ground balls and staying longer in games vs. strikeouts. He's going to need to win 16-18 games if we want to win the AL East.