hello again everybody welcome to another edition of time out for sports talk here a lot about the belmont media center where we continue to be belmont's first and only live all sports talk show my name is todd lonnie hours as we kick off our twenty first season yes we're now legal we welcome you to his live show on monday august the twenty sixth two thousand and thirteen we're going to be here live for the next sixty minutes you know the drill by now and dozens we are here live on august twenty sixth we are taking your phone calls at six one seven four eight four two four four three once again that number six one seven four eight four two four four three and happy to be back once again with my copilot sitting to my immediate left back here years old when the show started that's crazy so yeah i know right well the way they do the t v seasons to technically our twentieth anniversary won't be coming up until next january but that will be when we observe that  distinction and by the way for those of you watching us tonight we do have a new set behind us it's our new h d set as you can see here we're kind of in transition the desk is going to slowly fade away not tonight it's not going to  red sox a fad which i know has been better than the summers for some people say they get those debts but we want to get into some good red sox talk by the way you can also follow us on facebook we have our facebook page timeout for sports talk and have nothing to do with computers i guess all of the clubs the segway but certainly sox about a great summer unexpected after last year in the september before that and i mean we're looking now we just got through one of the toughest stretches of the schedule sixteen out of one thousand games on the road they finished eight and nine and ten in those nineteen games which considering everything considering they just came back from a trip on the west coast for him to against the giants of the dodgers the dodgers they they beat they take two out of three out first time the dodgers and lost a series of their last series yes back to june the last time somebody beat them in a series in the sox were able to do it i know the dodgers didn't have all of their best pitchers available that series but it's still impressive to see what the red sox did john lackey jake peavy complete games for for both of them jon lester went into the eighth inning in his start i mean the i mean that's certainly been the reason right now the right why the red sox are in first place is just because of the pitching in if they didn't squander several great pitching performances the shia they'd be way ahead because it was several games that the the dempster a lackey pitched in even less the with the sox didn't score any runs they'd lose two to one one to nothing i mean you look at these guys a pitch in the hot sun it's like a run please you know also i mean they could be up by five six games if it wasn't for that and that's and that's the one thing that you know every every baseball team seems to always have a pitcher where they never get run support and for many years it seemed like it was always to wakefield  wakefield would go out there and it drove these incredible games and had never get the run support and i think this year it's really fallen john lackey and you know john lackey i think has been one of the huge keys to the team he's a guy who you know we signed for big money a couple of years ago you know he was a dud when he first got here he was a big part of the fried chicken incident all the madness that was going on behind the scenes but he showed up at spring training this year i mean slimmed down he lost a lot of w lackey that we saw back when he was pitching for the angels of the reds against the red sox in the playoffs back in the day he's turned into that pitcher that they need and the red sox you know or have a nice three deep rotation now if you look at it with you know you put the engines revved up again now so you know they're really they're pitching has come together and i think if you look at it all the one thing that you know maybe it's concerning is you know for the off chance as potent as it was the being of the season and the second half of the season it has slowed  little bit but the pitching is stayed pretty consistent from start to almost finish now i would say that if you remember the big in the air i said that lackey has a chip on his shoulder to prove this yet he wants to prove that he is the pitcher that everyone said he could be and then when he came into camp all the weight that he lost it's like you know what this guy is in for a good season and again if it wasn't for the run support he'd be that have the most wins on this team right now i firmly believe that because he's just right most right and you try to you try to go back and think oh when was the last time he had a bad start and you can really think of all lack he was awful this night or that night he's been consistent and when you look at someone like jon lester who you think is he's supposed to be the rock you know one of the rocks of the staff  you know i can i can count on you know probably both hands awful starts that he's had this season he's had a real up and down season but you know lackies one of the guys that's been able to put out you know stop some streaks when he's had to and he's come out with decent he keeps his team in the ballgame every night and that's that's all you can ask for from us pitcher go deep in the game and give us a chance to win you know that's what they do but the other thing that i think is really gone unnoticed is a horror in the way he's pitched as the closer i mean you know the red sox went through two closers in the first half of the season and again the point where everyone was saying all the red sox are going to have to acquire closure at the trading deadline they're not to get someone you know you hire as an eighth inning guy he'll never do well in the ninth inning and i think i saw stat on saturday afternoon i think he hasn't given up a run and i think it's like twenty two straight games or something like that and he's been he's been lights out and he's been solid for the red sox in the bullpen and since being in doing it as the closer easy's but you're right it's been more the lights out really right in on him for the most part of them a couple of games  ball down he you know he he has that nasty splitter and keeps it down in a way and you can always you know mariano rivera had so has had so much success throwing his cutter low in a way getting people to ground out and stuff and you hires them the same thing with the splitter and he's been able he has just enough movement on it where you know hitters can't go up there just watch it go by it looks like the fastball they swing at all the time and you know he's really he's solid that bullpen when people like andrew miller and whatnot of just sours the other bullpen you are it's been great i mean if there is a week this on their pitching staff it's certainly you know it's it's not the starting rotation we've talked about wacky i would say since the all star break lester certainly you know had more of that on that upswing that we were talking about the bullpen i still have some concerns about it because although you have you on hari it's you know getting to the closer it's those set up pitchers you notice out was being decent he's been all right but other than that you're kind of counting on a lot of you know unproven stretch run this year i don't but i don't know but the one thing is what's going on here is the red sox don't need to depend on that bullpen as much because their pitchers are going six seven innings more consistently and that's taking the pressure off the bullpen but you know when you think about it you know i you know i was some sort of you know i've enjoyed watching this team all year but i haven't dedicated my whole summer to sitting down and watching every game every night like maybe we used to five or six years ago but you know when i think when i when i look back on the way the season has gone so far how many games really has the bullpen cost them and it has you know i can't you can't really think all you know the you know they've lost a ton of games because of the bullpen so at least they're they're holding their own and that's i think in major league baseball that's the one thing you could you know you can get a light supple pen but that's few and far between but you know they they keep they keep you in it and you know they're obviously the red sox have had a lot of walk off wins a season but that just means that you know they're going to do and getting a good job by their plug gets pulled on the office again it's a problem i mean their pitching is keeping them in every game really i mean from the starters to the bullpen and then as far as the batters i mean you know this team is not made up of a bunch of all stars offsets of lee but the way they they compete at the plate the way to make opposing work and work deep into pitch counts so you get into their plans and maybe some of the weaker parts of other teams pitching staffs which that allows the red sox to exploit i mean they've got some quality hitters at the top of the order i mean obviously jacoby ellsbury had a good year just of a draw is looks like he's about to league regular season and i'm not sure right now as we stand which of the minor league teams could be going to the playoffs i think it might be if he needs another he's either either buchholz might have to get a third rehab start down like a playoff game for pataki or portland or the red sox may just end up using him up here to have those rehab starts maybe only pitchers three four innings they're going to expand it roster so they're going to make writers up anyway maybe they can just cut pieces together is it going back to i mean in the middle of a pennant race when you're a game when you have a one game lead in the the vision where it's more important than ever to win the division you don't want to play that wild card game anymore to the red sox when take the chance of letting clay buchholz go out there and throw sixty pitches and that might take two innings and then you've got to go to your bullpen against you know you're playing in the month of september you're playing a lot of games against baltimore tampa bay and new york and you know even though new york has had a bad season they're still in it so they're still going to play there and we all read it there are only three and a half last they're not they're not they're not given up on their season sol you have a lot of hard to play this month so is that a chance you want to take you know you yet you have colorado but that's at the end of september so and yeah i think the chicago white sox weekend so that he probably the if you were going to do it that probably would be the chance to take against a team like the white sox where they're out of it and then basically conceded their season sol is that is that where you do it probably but you don't want to do it against before i know there's been pitchers sometimes who've had to get a chance to contribute getting you know getting starts for the minor it seems i mean it it does it has worked in from time to time yeah looking at the schedule i mean there's a lot of off days coming up after the sox got through this difficult stretch they  one of the issues you run into here the special way of playing in your division for most of those games in you know you can't give in and anything and you're playing a team in detroit who you could see in the other month in a playoff series as well well so there's a  there's not a lot of there's a lot of wiggle room for this team coming down the stretch and speaking of detroit it will kind of cycle back to this we have been on a couple months let's look back to the trade i know talk radio is had a field day particularly certain shows have a field day with the with the trade you know the jake peavy trade which i think has helped the rotation certainly its length and the rotation it's taking the pressure off the bullpen as we've talked about where you have some question marks and that that piece pitched well i mean i was we saw that last night you know he said you know probably three of us five starts have been better than decent the other two one what's up are the others but ok were you ok giving trading way jose iglesias like i said i know there are some folks out in the world of sports radio disagree with this i didn't have a problem with it because of the depth of the position in within the organization and in fact you're seeing you have to basically drag him off the mountain you know he's a he's not he's talking to russell he is good but he's he's an intense pitch or he wants to be there he wants to win you know if he's getting further he's getting long in his career now he knows that and you know he's he's just an intense pitcher he's a good pitcher and he's i think he's something that staff needs because you know lester has he's sort of a fiery guy but he can get he gets knocked out he loses come in and are you know bring that toughness to this staff and you know once they get in the playoffs you know he's going to probably be in that rotation but pete is the type of guy that you know if you get into a playoff series and you get new a game where you need a good pitcher to maybe on two days rest to the bullpen and take a couple innings you know he's one of those guys it's going to be the first one the raises and to get out there and take one for the team and do that type he just he just has that old mentality of a good pitcher and i think the red sox have been lacking that in that area but i think the chance of them win the world series of the same without a man oh yeah doesn't you know drew drew has been solid enough and you know bogart's is the future of the team is put in the mortgage on him right now sol you know i think i'm completely ok with the trade and you know i think i think sometimes in the city people get to namrud with certain certain players just because of the hype on the radio and whatnot but you know detroit probably likes having iglesias there i mean detroit doesn't need another big bat in their lineup but you know the red answer production i would say at this point like i said we didn't want the guy for two months right that was that was my big thing yeah no i mean i think that was dead sherrington is approaching to when he was looking at the trade market i mean someone like p v they knew they were going to have for beyond that you didn't want to just rent a player and i think that was that was part of it i think other people will also look at this trade and they certainly want to go back two decades and go back to jeff bagwell you know because that would be the parallel here because you know you know twenty years ago the red sox were deep at third base remember bagwell was in double a behind scott cooper was in aaa who was behind wade boggs so again you have kind of a similar stacking at the position now obviously in hindsight the red sox kind of guessed wrong on that but they also didn't vision back well as a first baseman either but you know in this case you know i think the red sox ultimately you know will only time is going to tell but i mean even for we've seen a couple of games of a twenty year old zander bogart's i mean he looks like he's already ready to play on the major league level you can't say that about many twenty year olds you know being able to just adapt quickly or at least look very things around jackie bradley junior's always been you know he's a good defensive player and he's fast you know he's one of those speedy guys but you know for a while we were talking about ball guards and you know he's like well he's a he's a good defensive shortstop but the thing that been talking about is he's got a bat and on since you know that that's where the hype is and you know you see that you can sort of see glimpses of it already in his first game or to a small but that's most ricky's come up in goal for three in the first game but last couple games he's been making contact and you know when he makes contact he's made solid contact and he has one of those big gaping swings that you see this guy's going to hit a lot of balls and i think he's going to be in a good spot and i think the one thing about him is too as they can fit him in a bunch of different positions you know shortstop is his natural position that been teachin in t play third base a little bit and i guess he can play a lot of field too so they can be very flexible with where he goes and i think you know i think he's going to he's going to be very good for the see but are they just not they just not one hundred percent sold on middlebrooks because they keep making the short stops moving them and having him play third base wells or is it just the injury thing or is it i they don't one hundred percent sold on him i think middlebrooks i think for spaces in middleburg future i think that's where he's going to eventually end up as soon as napoli's done although he's never played it and i think the bigger really never did he they was a catcher played a very you know you're right you're right but i guess middlebrooks literally has never even picked up a first baseman glove like they they won't they will this year you're not going to see him make that transition maybe they'll tell him in the offseason you know want to you know start practicing a little bit of base to get them ready for next spring training but on the other issue with middlebrooks is and i think we were all kind of quick to do this because we got caught up in the excitement last year he interviewed for a bunch of power then you know suffered the wrist injury when he got hit on the pitch in august was you know missed the last third of the season and you know this year he came back really slowly and then they you know he goes back down to talk it and i think he does much down there you know i think well because i think personally to him he was kind of shocked about the whole like change of events here like you just need that you deserve to go back down but he  to moan and groan about a leg and then he came back up and he actually was pretty hot up until this recent dodger series he was hitting pretty well he was on a good little hitting streak and i think what they're looking at i don't think you know how you get back to your point with bogarts i think they're just looking for someone who can also back up at the position because you know when you're looking at the way the current roster is configured you need sort of a utility infielder type and they want bogart's to at least have the ability to back up at you know authority you know another position if needed i know we in the one of the games in san francisco they actually when they had a big space but that doesn't mean a thing but first base first base is one of those positions where you can you can put a guy there and he can pick it up pretty quickly i mean even this year we've seen you know that we've seen daniel nava go there as well in some games so you know go and see him play looks like a very special the red sox love their shorts off you know after next year bogart's won't be the shortstop anymore because the red sox like to have a new shortstop every year at leas you had jeter you had a rod playing shortstop you know yet the likes of cal ripken still play you know and you had all is great you know and a whole era of great shortstops and now that position to sort of fade away is one of the power positions on the proves he can get to fifty for career he will last till may you'll stick around i mean but you know one of the knocks on him i know this year's been you know this has been kind of a rare exception to his career most of his career he's been like about a two hundred hitter and they you know i don't think the red sox wanted to carry somebody like that in the in the permanent nine hole in the batting order they were just looking for somebody with a little bit more pop at that position i mean also i don't you know what i think is sherrington said at the trade deadline he wasn't looking to deal with places this opportunity came up and they didn't have to trad young prospects you know they were able to do all you know and they had jeff the shortstop so that's why hey they got a front line starter someone who can be a kind of a top of the rotation guy not a certainly an ace but you know the red sox you know starting with reagan they don't really have aces per se but they anyways because most of their remaining games against their division in the first place you know that's that would put them in a good situation they just need to i mean the way their last couple septembers have gone they just need to stay consistent the same time or that's that's all i'm really looking for to play the truth but the division is way is important you don't want because that wildcard game it's one and done in you know you can get in that wildcard game and win it but you might need to roll out all you know three starting pitchers in that game to win then you know then that just throws you off for your next series in the first place and he never want to count on a one game series right i mean anything can happen it's like a game seven in hockey a basketball anything can happen at any time and if you you know all it takes is one miss and you well a like what was it else for the other night what do you it's it's that there's definitely some interesting stares if you get that wildcard because the teams that are looming that you could probably play are would be baltimore or the cleveland indians and that would be really interesting as well there's  last month of the season which is it's been a phenomenal baseball season you know when the steroids of sort of you know cast another shadow over it but you know you have a team like the pittsburgh pirates trying to get back in the playoffs for the first time in twenty i think it's twenty four mean i mean what forty six in ten ronald to that i mean they went from like eight games back to like now ten games up and then you have cabrera having almost another triple crown type season for an absolute detroit i mean it's just it's been a good baseball season with a lot of bad things going on in the background but it will be interesting to see if the how the momentum picks up over the next month yeah i like the red sox chances in september you don't because they have all those divisional games in front of them they also five days off example they only has one more day off the rest of the way in their schedule so topics new producer in town then he's doing a show called belmont for a my henrys baseball club that's the other website and henry's baseball club dot com and you can catch his new show here on the b m c channels so you might want to check that out  how you're at michigan see not get to the finals by the way they had the kid was like six eight and six hundred six but he was only twelve right there was another kid that was six two two zero zero seven gosh if i was that size in high school i would i could have been the star in the football team the basketball team the baseball watch much of that but i gain a lot but i think that connecticut game where they were down twelve to five and it all went in right ok that whole thing i like watching that i thought yeah the one thing since you bring up the one thing that always amazes me is you know you watch you watch and you first season here and time out for sports talk and of course when you say kicked off and you say the end of august it can only mean football season right around the corner the england patriots and certainly a team with a lot of changes coming into this year  on almost a decade but they are they're definitely contender when you have a star coach and a star quarterback so you start there and then you fill in the rest of the gaps and you know one of the in recent years how we've always talked all right well before we before we he yeah i mean i wonder myself that you know and actually one of things we're going to get into here is with you know some interesting final cuts to be made on this roster i'm wondering if there is room to carry which by the way i want to mention the sum front for those people who don't know does not have practice squad eligibility so they can't stashing away the practice and i didn't know that so he has to be one of your final fifty three or he could conveniently have an suppliers they have on this team is there's a lot of guys who strike you look at napoli and golems and middlebrooks oh yeah everyone there was an article i think before the season they said the strikeout has gone up like the number of batters who strike out now there's not as many you know guys work in the county as they used to in the red sox are one of the the rare examples of that but most of these teams yeah i mean they have a bunch of free swingers up there i mean it's a different philosophy and adding th series win in a league world series yes i had the challenge of the japanese team the other day california put their best pitcher out there and he had he had fifty pitches after two innings because they just kept fouling off his pitches the whole time and they made him throw and make mistakes and that's and that's how they they got to him but that's also going to that again you see a player with two strikes choke up the baton shorten that bat just to make contact and those are the things you don't see in a lot of major league baseball and they all want to be an e s p n highlight show and yet maybe it comes from that mentality that you're always waiting for your pitch and you can't you know you don't want to look foolish when you get a bad pitch  if they don't win that division i think you'd have to rethink your coaching death i mean so everybody can see the tool or starting in week one for the buffalo bills of that would be jeff tool yes that's actually his name i'm not making that up and who he is we have no idea but oh no you know what you'll be  actually read this today if jeff joel who has been named the game will the week one starter for the buffalo bills if he makes that started week one in which they might go out and i mean i think if they pick up line or right who knows who's going to start but if he does get the star he could be the first undrafted free agent quarterback to ever start in week one of the n f l season they said ever it's never happened but i think what you will but the two will could be jeff too i think those type of games all those type of games always scare me because i feel like the patriots always do a little rocky up and you're right i think all of us it for you know gasps for a moment but just you know the only thing i would say to that and i'm not saying it's a good alternative but you know in two thousand and eight everyone thought you know cassell was a terrible quarterback and you know he looked terrible that pre n and he's you know when he would to the chiefs to probably the bad you know actually you know everyone for it's out about all you know obviously obviously things are going to go how we want to have tom brady isn't in the lineup but at least someone like r was just going to guess the flow you know by the way that trade ultimately yesterday was the one year anniversary of the red sox dodgers you know make a deal and ultimately a trade works for both teams yeah i mean look both teams are in place but working say it worked for both teams but did yeah he's still never he's still not what you know he was it was expected of him when the red sox just let the home run go right he's a you know he's a twenty homerun guy now which you know twenty homerun guy in major league baseball you can find twenty homerun guy with twenty were talking about the first couple of weeks for the patriots and they probably catch a little bit of a break because you know the ease of the edgell divisional games off the bat but the two teams that do not have starting first three weeks i mean that seems pretty you know pretty good start in september and then you know certainly i see three and one they are at least right i mean the atlanta game i think might be kind of tough yes actually in atlanta right and you know tom we know tampa bay they have issues they can't stop the patriots we saw that the patriots play them in the preseason last year the plane there in the regular season ran them over you figure they would have figured it out this year and in the end all the training camps that they had to go the patriots were definitely you know the second guy behind ridley but i mean that's i think what the patriots the show i think the approach is with all the questions at wide receiver and your other receiver you know why not become more of a writing team it worked in the later years by the way for john elway didn't new england patriots and here we go with october and you can see things start to get a maybe a little more difficult coupled with the visual there is a very of the jets out of the way early this year yeah they do they're going to do with the jets by hollow mean and you know you get miami at home new orleans you don't know what you're going to see out of them that might be interesting shut down and back coaching and that's us still there that's always a tough game because you know new orleans is going to go bombs away on you you know brees is going to be out there and that's all they do they throw the ball may throw it a lot and what about those  patriots i would say yeah i mean i see him again going three in one here so you're probably looking at like six into through the first half when we pull up the november schedule and see i mean i think the second half gets tougher for the patriots and i mean right now i'm probably think it's somewhere around ten or eleven w to wait a week thirteen you know and then you know it's your acura line now that's a monday and it's an extended break right did they then the monday night and then they have a they come back and they play the following sunday night at home against the broncos obviously the here though the patriots are playing a lot of teams that are going to throw a lot of different things at you this year you know you you look at new you look at a team like new orleans who you know they're going to sling the ball and then you look at someone like carolina someone like kim newton who's go yeah oh no no that was several years after operate right and that was the mask game of the season i that was a not a super blow a yeah yeah yeah but it was another yeah was another last and last game here season yet it was several years later but yeah i mean i look at that schedule i'm i'm still i'm going to probably say either ten or eleven wins i guess if you had to pick me i'd probably go a leaven i mean i think baltimore is going to be tough houston is going to be tough denver they're not only schedule is tough it is it's one of the tougher ones i'm going to go with eleven and five i mean you know a lot of people are already saying twelve wins easy i don't   the cleveland a couple couple years ago as well and you know if you're on you know what and i always say that that gives a dangerous game because it's you know you're getting in december and you know if the patriots come into that game like that on a roll that's a game where the patriots are could just think you if i had a pick five losses atlanta new orleans denver houston baltimore but i can't see even if they finish eleven five that's not going to be the one they should and if you want them to consider be a contender for the super bowl you want them to win at least one or two of those games concede i can see the last two team like cleveland overload getting blown up by a team like denver and how many times have you seen a schedule where you basing it on what the team was last year up to be a lot better this year you know so you can always go on that either you know that some some of these teams could surprise you with a play but the division of pay the a f c east is just awful the patriots should not lose a game in the division all right well back to the back to the patriots themselves that we are where we do have the concerns i mean obviously i mean what is the biggest  the receivers around that at least yet we don't know again that's the big question mark and we don't know what he's x acto you know i'm not as concerned about the receivers because just from what i've seen you know over the last couple years i you know you don't take a lot of the preseason but you always  these new receivers this year what's brady going to do with them and in the preseason it's always been well braze not connect connecting with these guys but you've been able to see you see you know i tompkins is he's been able to get open in brady's found them and even people like dobson even some of the guys that brought in the last couple couple years like when i was in here brady wasn't looking for him out on the field when he was out there so that's a good sign that shows that you know he has some confidence in them saul i'm sort of taken that in saying the receiving is going to be and there's a confidence or as i don't have any other options but there's been on the years where he's had even less options in this so i'm a i'm not too concerned about i'll take my chances with this year so just to go that would be one of my putting you guys down for wins what do you think twelve until you are going with the twelve might very well be right and what let's hope that doesn't happen anyway we are winding down the show here want to remind you our next program will be coming up on september the thirtieth so that'll be after their first four games after the quarter pole with a chance to see where the patriots