Mojo Dojo Casas House: Boston Red Sox 2024

Watched The Franchise last year, from 2011, and an underrated bit of these kinds of things are moments like this:

Amazing clip of Bruce Bochy telling Brandon Belt he made the team in 2012 🥲

"If you need a beer, grab a beer." pic.twitter.com/HuqL4tTlkN

— KNBR (@KNBR) January 11, 2023

Btw it’s underrated how fucking adorable Raffy is every time they mic him up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeRkiFBzZSE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHtNAvTauCM

iirc Cora says he's not drinking these days, or at least not as much.

I'm stoked for the 2004 doc as well but i hope there's a cache of HD/film footage out there that hasn't been seen à la Last Dance, rather than, i dunno, AI-upscaled broadcast footage. i mean of course i will watch the hell out of it regardless.

They should adapt that Athletic article about the Idiots except there’d be too much nudity

in another decade we'll just be able to feed that article into a an AI as a prompt and we'll get the entire doc. you choose the nudity level.

“Constant”
https://i.postimg.cc/63wY6Dmx/IMG-4991.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/4yxPVpG8/IMG-4992.jpg

See if you can get the Mojo Dojo and Mojo Nixon threads right next to each other today.

Story Camp!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbHvkDUjfR0

The most coveted title of Story Camp: Knockout Champion 🏆 pic.twitter.com/5d1F5onwtK

— Red Sox (@RedSox) February 8, 2024

Vaughan Grissom looks like a fun hang

The right side of the infield is just going to be bro central

Alex Cora suggested that he sees a full season of Story as a reason to expect a significant defensive upgrade this year. His range to his right and cross-body arm strength are both in an obviously excellent place at the start of spring training. pic.twitter.com/Je8xh9e5Ru

— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) February 13, 2024

Lucas Giolito didn’t know that former White Sox teammate Liam Hendriks was signing with the Sox until this morning when Hendriks texted him asking where he was and told him “I’m in the breakfast room.”

— Gabrielle Starr (@gfstarr1) February 19, 2024

Spring training gives us the best Content

Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock: Tigger/Eeyore/Bird of Prey/Koala/Black Bear/Winnie the Pooh/Dug

Houck deviated from the pack with his initial answer. “Honestly, I’m more like a cartoon character,” he said. “I’m like Tigger.”

If Houck is Tigger, then what would his closest friend on the team, Whitlock, be?

“I think he’s Eeyore,” Houck said with a chuckle. “I’m all over the place and he’s just kind of like –”
Whitlock chose that exact moment to amble over. The pitchers’ lockers are next to one another.
“I’m saying how I’m Tigger and you’re Eeyore,” Houck told Whitlock. “Especially at 7 o’clock in the morning, I’m definitely Tigger and he’s definitely Eeyore. Until you get coffee in him, he’s definitely Eeyore.”

“Eeyore?” Whitlock exclaimed, equal parts outrage and amusement.

“Until you get coffee in you, yes!” Houck responded.
“I mean, yes, Tigger is right for you,” Whitlock said.
Then, Martin walked over and told them he was a giraffe.

“Giraffes makes sense,” Whitlock said. “I’m a bird of prey.”

Because he’s going to be feasting on batters this season? “Oh jeez,” Whitlock said.

“I mean, that’s what you said you were,” Houck said with a grin.

“Birds of prey, they’re sometimes solitary, but huge family values and they always mate for life,” Whitlock said. “I’ll go red-tailed hawk, because that’s what we have in Georgia.”

“Wow, you really went deep on that,” Houck said.
Then, another pivot. “Now that I think about it, honestly I might be more of a koala,” Whitlock said. “I love these questions.”

“I’m a bear, because a bear always wants honey,” Houck said, pivoting as well. “I like sweets, I like Sour Patch Kids, Mike ‘n Ikes –”

“I think he’s a good black bear, because they’re not scary,” Whitlock said of Houck. “Grizzlies, you run away.”

Or perhaps Houck is Yogi Bear.

“Hey there, Boo Boo! I think I found a pic-a-nic basket!” Whitlock said, mimicking the cartoon character’s voice perfectly.

“I don’t know what I am,” Houck said.
“You said I was Eeyore,” an affronted Whitlock replied. “What the heck? I’m a depressed donkey?”
“He’s just low-energy sometimes,” Houck said. “Like you, before you have your coffee.”
“I mean, that’s true,” Whitlock agreed.

Postscript: The following morning, Whitlock told the Herald that after much discussion between the pitchers, Houck was the golden retriever Dug, from the movie “Up.”

Let’s hope he doesn’t get called up till next year

.@RedSox top prospect Marcelo Mayer spoke with @SamDykstraMiLB about rebounding from last year's shoulder injury and the adjustments he's made. #MLBTonight | @MLBPipeline pic.twitter.com/x6yLw7UphZ

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) March 5, 2024

I love him

Red Sox born & raised. pic.twitter.com/gzQodZjDUg

— Red Sox (@RedSox) March 7, 2024

TIL it’s bay-o

You should watch this, it’s the canonical Bello video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNuOnnQNPk8

https://i.postimg.cc/SsVRQhJK/IMG-6603.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/zvBBVcgF/IMG-6604.jpg

Proud dad Pedro

https://i.postimg.cc/65qjdz7W/IMG-6774.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/hGLpS5Yr/IMG-6775.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/q7V1HT1q/IMG-6776.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/JzBpFncS/IMG-6777.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GJCWRenXMAA2djm?format=jpg&name=large
Cook!

at Seattle! What a day for you. :)

Don’t even talk to me about split loyalties here, it was hard enough being simultaneously happy and sad (ok mostly happy) when Casas hit that Barry Bonds home run in SF last year.

at 24 years & 316 days old, Brayan Bello will be the 4th-youngest Opening Day SP for the Red Sox in the last 85 seasons, older than only:

1979 Dennis Eckersley: 24 y, 184 d
1961 Bill Monbouquette: 24 y, 243 d
1995 Aaron Sele: 24 y, 305 d https://t.co/oXXZUNZ5R9

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) March 19, 2024

Also, please let Trevor Story be great, he’s been making plays like this since he came back from injury

.@Tstory2 makes it look easy 😎 pic.twitter.com/rjtu6VQ1R8

— MLB (@MLB) March 19, 2024

That 'thing' on Isaiah Campbell's face is a thing of beauty. Can't even focus on his pitching when he's got that thing staring at you. That's a +1war stache

Doesn’t look like Bello had his best stuff last night but he still pitched five innings and gave up 2 earned runs (off a Haniger home run). No walks.

Stats was talking last year that Bello’s fastball was unusually hittable:

Last season, Bello threw 362 four seam fastballs to left-handed batters. They batted .333 with 8 2B, 2 3B, 6 HR, and a .704 SLG against that pitch.

In his final spring training start, 1 of his 91 pitches was a four seamer.

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) March 29, 2024

No four seamers from Bello tonight. pic.twitter.com/QZmW2x2z8v

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) March 29, 2024

The season is officially back pic.twitter.com/34Y3CX5pXv

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) March 29, 2024

Also, Joely remains TERRIBLE, I have no idea why he made the roster over Bernie and I hope they cut bait on him sooner rather than later.

yeah i do not understand that either

i was reading that about bello’s fastball a couple of days ago. on the one, great that he’s adjusting, on the other hand, major league pitchers without a fastball are kind of a rare bird these days. the 0 walks is probably my favourite stat of the night

https://x.com/alexspeier/status/1773536959840834013?s=20

We need a full ⁦biomechanical analysis of Tyler O’Neill’s throw from RF. pic.twitter.com/UZnJUCzk4j

— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) March 29, 2024

I saw that, hilarious. He made a similar acrobatic throw in his spring training micd up video.

that's beautiful

yeah i do not understand that either

i was reading that about bello’s fastball a couple of days ago. on the one, great that he’s adjusting, on the other hand, major league pitchers without a fastball are kind of a rare bird these days. the 0 walks is probably my favourite stat of the night

Watching it back both NESN and WEEI were saying Duran was distracting Casas and he didn’t look happy if you watch the bottom of the ninth back. Story’s like, you’re on your own bro, if he wants to eat you I can’t do anything about that.
https://i.postimg.cc/QdkyfGMK/IMG-8213.jpg

And that Rafaela triple! Ceddy/Story/Duran/O’Neill are going to be menaces on the basepaths and it’s fun. Especially impressed cos Cal Raleigh really is good at throwing runners out.

Yes, this. pic.twitter.com/CEQYoA07Sx

— Red Sox (@RedSox) March 29, 2024

- get Joely Rodriguez off this team and Bernie back ASAP
- Casas & Story both have timing slightly off, feelsbadman.jpg (though it’s literal March)
- need Grissom off the IL ASAP
- Cora’s continued inability to manage a bullpen in high leverage
- Devers pls don’t be out too long
- Abreu nightmare game :(

However:

+ can this team actually defend now? The starters look good!
+ the pitching. The pitching! 3 ER over 16 innings.
+ Trevor Story in the field
+ Ceddy just incredibly special
+ the speed on the basepaths is night and day
+ provisional YES on Tyler O’Neill

However

The Dunedin Police Department’s scanner on February 7, 2020 pic.twitter.com/IwJ8uzFjX7

— Pod On Lansdowne (@PodOnLansdowne) March 31, 2024

This is so cute, sorry if this offends. Masa is so loved, I’m always seeing guys hugging him

what is happening lol pic.twitter.com/YaQ2bw8o17

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) April 2, 2024

Kenley doing Kenley things

(unable to throw strikes against the *checks notes* bottom of the A's lineup)

Kenley is playing through a back strain atm iirc and also closed out the first game last night which was like 16 hours between outings for him. It was ugly but the man got it done. I don’t think they put him in there if they didn’t use most of the pen yesterday.

I have no idea how people suffer a full season of baseball. I couldn’t even look at gameday during the bottom of the ninth; I was sitting on the bed checking my phone’s lockscreen for a message from my friend telling me the game was over, while my husband* was following on his iPad and gleefully going “oh no he’s walked someone, double play? Oh no force out…” It’s rough, man, but an ugly scraped out win still counts just the same.

* he also watched my Spanish flu era king George Kirby get knocked around by the Guardians before turning to me and going “What is this, an all-hitter?” Who’d follow this fucking game?!

I love this trend, keep going Craig

Red Sox are in agreement with Ceddanne Rafaela on a contract extension, source tells MassLive.

— Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) April 8, 2024

interesting look at the red sox consciously reducing fastball usage: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/not-so-fast-red-sox-cut-fastballs-in-new-approach/

Didn't reduce quickly enough to prevent Pivetta from hitting the IL. :-(

I’m glad you’re happy, Steve

:-( <> :-)

story out for the season

We know

I’m at opening day! I accidentally bought a ticket to tomorrow’s game first, so I guess I’m going to that one too

lol

This game is very boring to watch, I’m just glad Grissom will be back soon and I hopefully never have to see Valdez play 2nd again. If they move Rafaela to short they might be cooking. Nice to see Bello doing well, especially in the day.

Roman I think is a late 2025 guy, but I guess we’ll see if he gets promoted this season and he’s forcing the door down. He is ofc another lefty (as are Mayer & Teel). If all those guys are good then you have:

Anthony, OF, lhh
Duran, OF, lhh
Rafaela, OF, rhh
Abreu, OF, lhh
Casas, IF, lhh
Mayer, IF, lhh
Story, IF, rhh
Devers, IF, lhh
Grissom, IF, rhh
Hamilton, IF, lhh
Yoshida, DH, lhh
Teel, C, lhh
Wong, C, rhh

On expiring contracts at the end of the year:

O’Neill, OF, rhh
Refsnyder, OF, rhh

I feel like they’ll try to move Yoshida this year which opens up a spot for a righty, but hitting lefties is a bit weakness for this lineup. Casas hits lefties well (our king), Devers is ok, but most of the rest not at all. Assuming Rafaela and Grissom are starting that’s 2/9, they probably hold onto Romy as an infield utility guy and hopefully Refsnyder too?

Does any other team in the league have a too many lefties problem? I’m pretty sure they don’t.

with mayer, grissom and story i'm not sure there's room for both romy and hammy as utility guys.. as a lefty hammy might be the odd man out

all quite speculative of course - injuries and... events.. will probably make all this clearer

Wilyer is so special

Since the all-star break, Wilyer and Romy rank 8th and 11th in quality of contact out of 280 MLB players. pic.twitter.com/kQQEMgcv0x

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) August 9, 2024

Our pitchers all need about two weeks off

What’s that smell?
https://www.truebites.co.uk/cdn/shop/articles/pork_burnt_ends_original.jpg?v=1566839967

that pork has not yet been pulled… i can only hope the same is true of the rotation

That pork is burned to a crisp is the point

I’ve missed this moose’s postgame yapping

"We're playing good baseball and today was a full team effort."

Triston Casas on the win over Houston@WebsterOnTV | #RedSox pic.twitter.com/aeY9hVQXIr

— NESN (@NESN) August 21, 2024

Lmao
https://i.postimg.cc/XYj8vdYh/IMG-6027.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/ht20QvJG/08e6592d-f77a-441a-8611-d4a4c7376e04.jpg

Sloppy game. I sent gyac some photos of Casas at bat and in the field--I'll post a couple here. We had great seats: just beyond first base, eight rows up.

As I've mentioned before, I'm the world's most inattentive fan at games. As we talk and talk--about the '87 MVP vote, about how much umpires get paid, about how many leadoff HR Brady Anderson might have hit the year he hit 50--I take notice of about 2/3 of what's happening on the field. The two best things last night were Vlad's two-run double and Kirk's stand-up double in the RF corner (the only part of play not visible to us). I'm Kirk's good-luck charm; I'd previously seen him beat out a throw at second for a double.

Hot dogs, too (Loonie Tuesday). I ate four; 18 between four of us.

My friend was going on and on about Schneider removing Francis after 5 (~75 pitches). It was his last start of the year, and he hadn't given up a run (and only three hits). I didn't care. The Jays bullpen is just awful.

https://i.postimg.cc/nzGcFMVF/casas-1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/63mbGfpY/casas-2.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/1XKHr09k/casas-3.jpg

Wow great seats!

I’m also an inattentive fan. Sometimes I’ll do the scorecard just to make myself pay attention. Going to a baseball game is really just an excuse to have long conversations ime.

Honestly, the beauty of baseball--just not the same as hockey or basketball.

Did you notice anything about how Grissom handled the ball? People say he’s better. Honestly at the start of the year I thought he was pretty stiff

I...didn't! But we did talk about him. 1) That it's just not right that he's not Marquis' son (which then had us rhyming off Expos players from back then: Delino DeShields, Moises Alou, Will Cordero, etc.); 2) Vaughn Grissom sounds like a baseball player; Spencer Horowitz sounds like a Nobel Prize physicist.

Loved this write up and photo. I woke up about an hour and a half into this game due to a cat trying to get into a drawer near me, which was about 2am my time, and so I saw the last part of the game. Sox bullpen has been brutally, league-leadingly awful the second half. I liked the Guerrero-Guerrero matchup!

Did Casas throw foul balls into the crowd at the end of the Sox inning? He threw out a ton of them at the game I attended before his injury.

Alejandro Kirk doubles are always incredible - look at those little legs go!

Did you have any observations about any Sox players the 2/3 of the time you were paying attention?

I’m really glad for the Loonie Tuesday update. Was the game sparsely attended despite that? What was attendance like?

Sweet photo of you and friend! Nick “son of Eric, nephew of Steve Sax” Sogard played in the first game and caused a minor flurry of interest on Blue Jays Reddit - I didn’t realise his dad was a Blue Jay for a huge month. What did you make of all Cora’s chopping and changing?

I have attended two (2) baseball games with Tracer Hand and can confirm he fills in the scorecard and also will talk at length during the game. During the Pittsburgh series my husband and I attended all three games with our mutual friend who TH also knows and we were talking the whole time, including about Reese McGuire’s Dollar Tree arrest every time he came up to bat. We also got talking to fans around us. A lot to love about attending a baseball game.

Also, I would have been mortified if Casas had a golden sombrero or something the night you saw him play but he was fine! Nice hit off a lefty.

Did you notice anything about how Grissom handled the ball? People say he’s better. Honestly at the start of the year I thought he was pretty stiff

Casas didn't throw any baseballs out, no. My friend's son and his nephew, both 13-14, tried all night to get a baseball. When the ushers had one to give away, they'd scurry down the eight rows to ask for it, but every time they lost out to someone younger. The one thing I'll say about the Red Sox was their lineup was just more impressive on the whole than what the Jays put out there last night. Boston had OPSs of .750-.800 up and down the lineup, led by Duran; not spectacular, but tough outs throughout, even Rafalea hitting 9th (just missed a HR). With Toronto, it was Vlad above .900, Horowitz pretty good, and then nothing. I can see where Cora would be a little desperate--they're still technically in it, so that win was crucial.

The lineup has been pretty good most of the season. It was when Devers took a knock on his second shoulder (he was playing through inflammation on the left one since spring training) that his production fell off a cliff and the lineup with it. With Devers and Casas both struggling, Duran gassed and the two rookies Abreu & Rafaela running out of steam at the end of the season it’s been very grim watching for about six weeks? Cora finally forcing Devers onto the IL last week has seemed to change the shape of the lineup significantly. It helps also that Casas and Story have shown signs of life.

The Rafaela situation is that he will swing at everything but also:

If you need a hit Rafaela gets a hit if you don’t need the hit he’s largely uninterested in the at bat entirely

— Céad Míle Fáilte (@ColeyMick) June 1, 2024

friend’s son and nephew*

Of no importance whatsoever, but: for some reason, the photo of me and my friend is reversed, so you can't tell where we're actually sitting.

Can I upload that video you sent? It actually gives the clearest view of your vantage point plus iirc one of you is being rude about George Springer

Sure..."Makin' the first out"--I think that's me (meaning "Great, you've got Casas on video making the first out").

It's a strange sensation going from having, like, no guys - to the extent that Tyler Heineman was DHing for us at one point - to having a surplus of guys at essentially every position apart from 1B and C.

We should start a 2025 thread but I was holding off on that until things quieted down. Title needs to be “The Roman Empire” obvs