The Kids Can Play

Seby did nothing wrong and protected the plate as any good catcher is taught to do. The guilty party here is Cruz who intentionally avoided a proper slide in order to flagrantly try and hurt Seby with the purpose of intentionally trying to knock Seby down and get the ball dropped. As we all know, there are potential consequences for stupid dumb plays. Nobody likes to see any player get a serious injury. However, the fact is, if Cruz was dumb enough to attempt that type of careless misuse of his body at the plate, then nobody should be shocked that a bad injury happened.

Mark this date down. If Vince Velasquez shuts down the Sox today and makes them look bad and we lose, then this team is really F*3ked...more than we already knew.

Yep, along with the other annoyingly arrogant comments , "We're going to win multiple titles and "It's World Series or Bust". Hahn has been the GM for 10 years now! W-L record of 700-817 for a .461 winning percentage. Only 2 winning seasons. Only 2 playoff wins. Zero playoff series wins. No other owner in baseball would still have this POS loser Hahn still employed.

It's not only ridiculous, but it's sickening and it exists for a few good reasons: 1. The Yankee owners care about winning and our POS owner could give a s%*#. 2. Their GM Brain Cashman is a proven successful GM who knows how to build a winning organization. Their organization knows how to draft players, make solid effective trades and spend the right money on free agents. Our GM is an incompetent executive who has failed miserably in building a club that can efficiently scout, draft and develop players. Furthermore, Hahn has been horrible in trades and free agent signings, which obviously the Yankees usually do very well at. 3. Yes the Yankees always pick behind us, but obviously they have a track record of knowing how to scout, draft and develop winning major league pitchers. Until our POS owner Jerry Reinsdorf is no longer the owner of the White Sox, and the new owner fires the loser Rick Hahn, this team will always swim in the baseball hell of mediocrity.

The fact it took this long is seriously pathetic. He never should have made the roster from spring training. He should have been DFA after that second horrible debacle outing. Another fine outstanding example of our Fu*#ked up front office having absolutely no clue in how to scout, draft, develop and coach winning major league pitchers.

it is totally alarming and pathetic. Thank you Rick Hahn! Great job on your rebuild that you started in 2016 and promised us a team that yearly that would contend for a World Series.

Isn't it amazing though, the Sox can't seem to put players in the lineup who can hit HR's in a home run park like our opposition does to us.

That's what I'm talking about! Great article to add! This club is an embarrassment to Cleveland in terms of drafting and developing pitchers. Plus there are many other teams besides the Guardians that are good at developing their own pitchers in their own system like the Braves, Dodgers, Rays.

You're damn right they made a mistake and we will see as time goes on. However it's only because the POS owner makes irrational decisions due to his emotions and not his intelligence, which at this point in time I doubt he has any cognitive skills remaining. We can thank our POS loser owner for hiring a drunk aging manager for two years...but then he passes on Ozzie because he was mad at him for personal reasons.

You're damn right it sucks down in Charlotte and Birmingham. The quality and depth of pitching in the minors has been horrific for several years now. It just didn't rear it's ugly head going into this season. As I have posted before often, this is a huge front office debacle. The Sox do not have the right people in place from the POS owner to Rick Hahn and and on down the line in this organization to have the proper scouts and coaches to draft and develop prospects into major league starters or relievers. I am absolutely beyond sick and tired of how other winning baseball organizations seem to figure this out.

Don't Stop Now Boys! Let's kick the Giants hard today and win this series and keep the momentum going? You guys need to be dominant at home this year and have a well above 500 record at home this season and not the horrible under 500 record you had last year at home.

This type of gutty performance even solidifies Dylan's resume even more than we already know it is, as one the the premier pitchers in baseball. Being totally sick and not having anywhere close to your best stuff and still going 5 innings, 1 hit, 1 ER and 8 K's. The rest of the Sox players ought to immediately take a page from Dylan's "toughness book" and begin applying the utmost mental toughness and concentration towards every single pitch and at bat going forward.

Agreed. Since Giolito and Kopech have lost their fastball speed, maybe it might be a great idea to learn from the value of a nasty sinker and add that to their pitch arsenal.

You're damn right it's sad because the Sox never gave him any run support last year. Not to go through all of the games, but here are some examples of Dylan's 2022 day game losses or no decisions: 4-27-22 7-3 win vs KC. Went 6 Inn 2 ER, left leading 3-2. Got ND 5-7-22 3-1 win vs Boston. Went 5 Inn 1 ER, left losing 1-0. Got ND 5-29-22 5-4 win vs Cubs. Went 7 Inn 0 ER, left leading 1-0. Got ND 8-11-22 5-3 loss to KC. Went 6 Inn 1 ER, left losing 1-0. Got loss 8-28-22 3-2 loss to Arizona. Went 8 Inn 2 ER, left tied 2-2. Got ND 9-14-22 3-0 loss to Colorado. Went 5 Inn 3 ER. left losing 3-0. Got loss. 9-25 -22 4-1 loss to Detroit. Went 6 Inn 1 ER, left game leading 1-0. Got ND. Oh yeah, first game this year Sox win 3-2. Dylan goes 6.1 Inn 1 ER and gets no decision. Left game with score 0-0.

Ok that was from a treadmill and that is really rare and a major fluke. However then have Eloy get on an exercise bike. You can't fall off that. The NFL and NBA use exercise bikes all the time to keep their players loose when not on the field or floor.

No, that is not the problem. Jose Abreu was DH many times and he never pulled his hamstrings. You always Jose staying loose on the bench with some type of movement or stretching and bending. As someone else pointed out, there is a treadmill or exercise bike in the locker room. He could spend a few minutes on those machines to stay loose. I'm sorry but Eloy is either lazy, dumb or undereducated, or all the above, in this area of how to take care of his body.

Wow, shocking to see another hamstring injury from the Sox, especially from Eloy with his new DH role, which was going to help him since he wasn't playing the OF. Good thing Rick Hahn has kept his promise that he was going to hire the right trainers and strength coordinators to get this team to stay healthier. Hahn's last hire from a season ago promoting Goldy Simmons to Director of Strength and Conditioning has really been working out well. Hey Gordy news flash...maybe you should have educated and taught Eloy that just because he isn't playing the outfield, he still needs to be stretched before he goes to his next at bat. Hey Goldy, here is a novel idea for you...maybe instead of having Eloy sitting his ass on the bench laughing with the guys while the Sox are on the field, maybe you could tell him to be stretching his hamstrings occasionally and especially right before his next at bat to stay loose. Absolutely pathetic!

I that could be part of it, but I think more of it is he has a serious loss of velocity on his fastball and his secondary pitches don't have the same sharp bit like they used to have. However if that is the case then Katz better be figuring this out and fixing it. Katz better be spending a lot of time right now watching the previous video of when Kopech was dominant and compare it to now and figure out why in the hell he is tipping his pitches.

That's a great point and I totally agree. These are both huge concerns. When Giolito had his best year in 2019 he was consistently at 95-97 and threw that no hitter and made the all-star team. Giolito that year struck out 228 in only 176 innings and had a 3.41 ERA. The fact he was so effective was because he could hit those higher 90's with his 4 seamer high fastballs consistently. This of course as we recall, made his change-up probably one the best in baseball. Now that Giolito's fastball is slower, his change is not nearly as effective to cause so many swing and misses. I am not saying Lucas can't still be a good pitcher, but if he ever is going to be an above average pitcher again, it will only be because he develops another pitch or two and strengthens his current secondary pitches and masters the location of them. With Kopech, when he was healthy and doing his best pitching regardless of him being wild, he was upper 90's (96-99) with great movement on his fastball. Again like Lucas, this made his slider and curve look so much better. Plus those two secondary pitches had much more better movement and location than...they they do now. In my opinion we have more serious issues with both of them. I personally feel unless they both of them develop other strong pitches to add to the current mix, which they now desperately need to make up for their loss of a dominant fastball, then they might never be that good again. It's either that, or somehow miraculously they both get their fastballs back. I also realize realistically you can't start in the early season and drop what you're doing and just learn and master new pitches. This is a huge problem and I'm not panicking just because of one start from each. I truly hope they both can be saved because the original rebuild was about these two being big time starters for us.

I do too, but I'm pretty sure Dylan Cease doesn't hate them, as I recall he had a really good ERA last season in all his day games whether home or away.

The best way to put a embarrassing debacle loss behind us is to have Dylan Cease pitch another stud game. We need that game from our stud Dylan more than ever now. Yet I am concerned about the early offensive struggles due to some of the offensive flaws we had last year that are still showing up again this year early on. We hammered the point at nauseum last year how much our hitting coach and manager sucked and how we we had poor plate discipline, along with hitting too many groundball outs, not enough launch angle and getting more walks to increase the men on base. Well folks, it hasn't really changed much. In yesterday's game, the Sox had 16 outs produced by groundballs. We still can't draw many walks either. We had 2 BB's yesterday and we are currently 28th in walks with 2.2 per game. Furthermore, last year we were dead last in MLB in pitches per plate appeances at 3.78 and through 5 games this season, the Sox are 29th at 3.65 Pit/PA. I know its only 5 games and we shouldn't be panicking. However shouldn't we see some improvement in the areas we were terrible at last year? I'm not saying it has to equate to more wins right now, but all the leading teams in 2023 in these type of OBP% stats so far, are the same great winning teams from last year like the Dodgers, Braves, Brewers, Padres and Yankees.

Maybe the hype was too much, but that is what great winning organizations with great minor leagues do...and that is develop, coach, teach and harness that wildness from a Kopech type pitcher when they have so much upside potential. Does any ML team just find pitchers throwing upper 90's and they just automatically become stars in the big leagues? The fact certain teams like the Dodgers always find, develop and have great pitching is not by luck. On the flip side, the fact the Sox struggle every year finding great pitching is a huge organizational structural problem, as far as the coaches and scouts we have finding and developing our pitching talent.

If Kopech cant get his velocity back and his breaking pitches aren't better placed with more movement, then yes he might be done as a starter in the near future. It's one thing if Kopech's previous nasty stuff was there and he just got hit hard and had a bad game. His stuff wasn't there the entire outing and that is why he was hit hard today. Keep in mind this was a Giants team that got shutout in 2 of the 3 games in their prior Yankees series. I do agree with you Kopech should have been pulled sooner. This is a concern with me about Grifol as a rookie manager and learning to properly use the bullpen.

We all had big hope for Kopech. Let's not forget he was the second biggest piece to the 2016 rebuild in the first big trade involving Chris Sale. He is not anywhere close to that pitcher we thought we were getting. He has lost that upper 90's velocity that was suppose to be his strength. His secondary pitches are not strong either. Sadly for us, he might be nothing more than a future middle reliever.

Not only an amazing bullpen Rick put together, but one amazing con job of Rick pretending to be a good GM.