southsideirish71

We could be ranked 30th for all I care. As long as we start winning games, and we get into the playoffs some how. These polls are subjective bullspiff at best.

QUOTE(southsideirish @ Jul 28, 2006 -> 10:17 AM) Holy smokes! They gave up a bunch! Kevin Mench, Francisco Cordero, and Laynce Nix!!!!! WOW!!!! Right about now Bowden just blew his load. Jackpot city for any Soriano deal. The spiffload for Carlos Lee

Well tell Konerko and Thome to start mashing the ball again. And tell our pitchers to show the hell up.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 03:47 PM) There's our general problem. The TV gun has been very erratic this year. It has been up to 8 MPH off, and it generally seems to be slower. I forgot who it was against, but we were facing someone that consistently throws 94 and the gun kept showing it at 86. It's also not uncommon to see Jenks at 92 on obvious fastballs. I go by the one at the park. Mark was at 86/87 in the last start I was at hitting 88 a bunch of times also. Then in Garcias last start against baltimore, he was 86 most of the time, dialing it up to 88 a few times and then popped on in at 90. The same radar gun in the next inning woudl have Bedard at 93/94 consistantly.

QUOTE(Jake @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 03:19 PM) 88 and 84 are vastly different. And as I said it makes his changeup more ineffective even when thrown correctly. Right now batters can guard the low part of the zone easily because they have plenty of time to adjust to the high pitches. Yesterday's game he hit 87 only once. I don't know if it's the career innings or innings of late or even an injury or lack of effort, but he needs to make some kind of change. If he ends the year above 5 ERA, I don't expect the Sox to pick up his option. Below 89 its not that much different for a major league hitter. Its more about location and speed differential, adding subtracting of velocity that makes a pitcher successful below the 90 mark. A major leaguer can destroy an 88 mph fastball and an 84mph fastball. You take Mark Buerhle of last year. And if you took his control away and had the same control this year you would see a similiar effect. Now Freddy Garcia is a different cat altogether. He is a guy who had a 93-94 mph fastball which ran down and had movemen. When you have that type of fastball you dont need to paint the black at the knees to be succesfull. That plus his breaking pitches made him very tough. This year he has poor location, plus a medicore fastball. Buerhle had a medicore fastball, but pinpoint control. Losing a few mph for Buerhle is not as bad as him losing a few inches in his control. Garcia never had the pinpoint control, so when he dipped below 90 he was meat.

QUOTE(Jake @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 03:08 PM) Has anyone else noticed Buehrle's drop in velocity? He was never a hard thrower at all, but he was usually in the 87-90 range with his fastball and usually 77-79 with the change. In his last few starts, his fastball has been around 83-86 and his change is the same speed (He also threw several 81 mph cutters yesterday). Not only does this drop in velocity cause a smaller margin for error, there is a much smaller difference in speed between his fastball and change-up, which is ideally 9-12 mph slower than your fastball. Mix this with imperfect location, you get the Buehrle of the last month. Location is killing Buerhle more than his velocity. He has survived with pinpoint control at below 90. His control is off, and worse is he is leaving pitches up.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 02:03 PM) Vazquez just isn't that good. It's no secret he's bounced around the league lately and there's a reason for it. He's a mental midget. Well if he pitches great in this next start through 5, and Ozzzie and Coop let him go into the 6th and he gets rocked on cue, then I will have another couple of mental midgets for your list. And Coop is still going back and forth about letting him go into the 6th because of how it helped Garland when he was a 5 inning pitcher.

QUOTE(champ @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 12:40 PM) Detroit (still should have won that series despite struggles), Oakland, LAA... If you think that this is the team (the way they're playing right now), feel free to jump off the bandwagon. Regardless of their record in the last 15 games, I still believe this is, by far, the best overall team in the majors. And I believed that before Kenny improved the bullpen...now that the bullpen is improved, I seriously don't think (if they're not struggling), that any team can beat them in a playoff series. You realize that we need to start more than 2 guys in the playoffs right.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 01:17 PM) The Tigers have managed to go 4 months without "comming down to earth", what makes you think they'll do that now? Just curious. I am still trying to figure out with 3 out of 5 of our pitchers pitching like Danny Wright/Felix Diaz/and Anrie Munoz do we think that we have a .750 run left in us.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 12:15 PM) Alfonso Soriano just went deep. Pods is still trying to leg out that hit from yesterday.

LOL at him hanging hit hat on one center field dong, and one oppo dong as a reason for "were not trying to hit homers" Sure Kong and company are just trying to make contact. its just plain luck that they are pulling everything and popping things up.

QUOTE(DrunkBomber @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 11:54 AM) Maybe bring up some fireballers from the minors and let them throw at opponents to their hearts content until they are ejected, just to relieve some stress. Then whenever we want to intimidate other teams bring them up again and have them stare from the pen. What fireballers from the minors.

QUOTE(SoxFan76 @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 09:05 AM) Sort of off topic, but not. I don't know who the minor league experts are around here, but I'm going to thow this one out there? My buddy threw 87-89 in high school, went to college and actually LOST 3 or 4 miles off his fastball. This is with increased physical training, higher competition, and better coaching. Does this happen a lot? My velocity dramatically increased from high school to my freshman year of college. I gained about 6 inches in height from my senior year to January of my Freshman year. My velocity in high school was 78-80 mph I think, I could top it off at 82. My freshman year I was humming it in there at 87-89 and could break 90 depending on the gun. I did a ton of running in the offseason. But I also did a ton of long toss in the fall. I think that, plus my height helped me gain velocity in a short period of time. I lost velocity in my junior year, but that was to damage in my elbow and my shoulder that was seen with an MRI. If his mechanics changed and he isnt driving off the mound a lot. If he is out of shape, if he worked out a ton and gained a lot of muscle and isnt as flexible as he was. If he is overworked that could be another thing. I pitched a lot more innings between college and playing in competitive summer collegiate leagues and playing fall baseball. Any of these things could be a reason. Just see if its isolated or this is a trend for him.

I have a few superstitions. Dont throw meatballs to hitters on 0-2 with men on. Dont try and hit every pitch over the fence. And if a ball is hit to you, catch it. These are the reasons they are losing.

He is going to get worked over in prison.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jul 27, 2006 -> 10:38 AM) I'm real worried now that the Twins have pulled even. Why? Garcia. Vazquez. If we could switch Vazquez and McCarthy, then trade for Zito and get rid of Freddy, I'd be so much happier. As it stands, I'd just be happy by switching Brandon and Javier. The only way bmac starts this year is either when we are out of contention alltogether, someone admits that they are hurt, or KW trades on the SP. ozzie will run these guys out no matter how many runs they give up. Forever.

Well to all those who constantly say, no matter what if the season ended today we would be in the wild card. That is no longer the case. The Yankees would be the wild card. Time for the whitesox to man up and start to fishing hit, pitch and play defense.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jul 26, 2006 -> 05:56 PM) That can't be right. I know it's probably a high number, but I wouldn't have guessed 80. I'd say close to 50-60% of games Guillen has had his opening-day lineup. How many games do you see the entire starting lineup without one sub come into. Maybe 1 time in the last week or so. The number might not be that far off.

I saw this little tidbit on another board. I havent researched this to be true, but if it is, then what the hell are we doing . We have played 100 games so far. Our opening day lineup has played as a unit in 20 games. We are 17-3 in those games.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jul 26, 2006 -> 05:43 PM) Misunderstood? Guillen himself has replied, when asked why a starter was left out, that he was attempting to give his starter an opportunity to win. I know this isn't an exact quote, but it isn't a figment of my imagination, either. Concerning yourself with a starters victory total means, in essence, leaving them out one inning more than necessary. This isn't Guillen thinking, "I rather see a 'W' next to Garcia than Jenks," but him disregarding a pitchers fatigue or a team's previous inning success against someone. How many times have we seen Garcia battle though the 6th or 7th inning, just escape, and come out the following inning only to give up a run? All with a rested bullpen. You can call it instilling confidence, I believe it's failing to recognize a game situation. Our pen has pitched 253 innings. The lowest in the AL by over 20 innings.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 26, 2006 -> 05:26 PM) I said this before the year, and it's more accurate now than ever before: if the main 5 starting pitchers on this Sox team struggle this year, we're not making the playoffs. McCarthy's not going to get moved into the rotation, end of story. When we acquired Vazquez (and re-signed JG/JC), McCarthy's 2006 season was spoiled. BTW, a handful of McCarthy's great starts last year were against teams that the rest of our pitching staff really struggled against. He 2 hit Boston in Boston and basically did the same thing to Texas in Texas.

Thank god that your stats as a reliever dont exactly translate to your stats as a starter. Francisco Liriano as a reliever this year ERA 3.22 1.39 WHIP Francisco Liriano the starter 1.59 ERA .86 WHIP And now we have Brandon McCarthy as a reliever ERA 3.83 with a 1.23 WHIP Surely he cannot best nor crack our stellar allstar rotation. Not with those numbers. Maybe medicore Liriano should of stayed in his bullpen with his less than stellar relief numbers also.

Mark Buerhle ERA in July 11.39 Vazquez 6.48 Somehow I think Bmac might be better than that right now. But then again Felix Diaz/Danny Wright/Munoz had similiar numbers to these guys. Maybe we gave up on Jason Grilli to early also.

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jul 26, 2006 -> 04:37 PM) I'm at a point where we could even sweep the O's and Royals and I still wouldn't think very much of this team. We failed against the good teams. This team needs to prove itself against the AL's best for me to become optimistic about their chances. Well we need to sweep the Royals. And before someone pipes up with they are still a major league team, and they play better at home. No they are bad. Teams all over baseball are beating the ever living snot out of them. Bedard will own us tomorrow night.

Against Silva and his almost 7 ERA, we scratched 3 runs.