southsideirish71

QUOTE(Drew @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 05:12 PM) The '05 Sox lost 7 in a row and had a horrid August, and look what happened to them. There's a lot of ball left, and although we're not out of it, it smarts getting swept by the only team in baseball that I really truly hate. 15 game lead in 2005 that went down to 1 1/2 games. We have a 4 1/2 game decifit in our division, and a 3 game lead on the wildcard. Apples and Oranges to last year.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 05:09 PM) I see you have lost some faith. Be strong and let the power of the Rally Crede be your guide And to think we make fun of the fans to the north for doing the same thing that this thread is preaching.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 05:06 PM) Makes them keep their "eyes on the prize" all the more As they are to all of us. They sure look motivated to me.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 05:02 PM) All right, I'm not totally alone! If he starts to throw better pitches on 2 strikes he will be fine. If he throws very hittable pitches on 2 strikes and then has a mental breakdown then he wont. He has all the tools. Just needs a shrink.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 04:59 PM) A win's a win, my boy, any way you can get them I think our offense is fine for the most part. They just have to resist the urge to get homer happy. Remembering that linedrives are okay. Going oppo when men are in scoring position is a good thing. Our pitching needs to man up all around. Bmac needs to be in the rotation, and we need another arm in the pen. Anyone in here trying to draw comparisons from last August need to drop that. We had a nice cushy 15 game lead on the next best team in our division. We blew nearly all of it. This year we are sitting at a nice 4 1/2 game deficit and a 3 game cush for the wildcard. Our fallback cannot be so far this year. If we slump like we did in august we are done.

QUOTE(beck72 @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 04:54 PM) Didn't the sox win the previous 7 or 9 series before dropping the last two? Okee Dokee, you're on! Some of that was against the NL central. The NL central was a real tough division to run up some winning streaks on. The Royals could challenge the NL Central for dominance.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 04:42 PM) I'm happy to see you objecting on behalf of those who WERE reacting knee-jerk about the bullpen. Garland flipped a switch all of a sudden from bad-to-mediocre to good and solid, and Vazquez went from good-to-shady suddenly, too, all within this season. I don't think I'm stretching to say that our starters'll be okay, but I guess, considering how everyone's reacting, we'll have to wait and see. Garlands velocity has been the same all year long. Garland was constantly getting into 2-0 counts. Thats why he was struggling. Vazquez was facing bad teams. How many times can you face the Royals. The minute he started facing good teams he started getting hit and hit well. Plus have you seen Vazquezs overall records for the last few years. He is having his prototypical season so far. Garcia is noticibly not throwing the same velocity this year. He is quite down. Every so often he will hum it in there for a few innings. But for the most part his velocity is quite down. A physical issue is not something you can overcome, if you are hurt. You cannot magically flip a switch when you cant throw hard long anymore.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 04:33 PM) I've watched McCarthy before, thanks. I know he's good, I just don't look at him and say "Ace." We'll find out next year. This year, if some of you get your way. Consider yourself excluded from the statement. I too think we could use another righty out of the pen, but I feel good about our pen, overall, and wouldn't be devastated if no trade occurred. So when are the starters who have been who they have been pretty much all year, sans Buerhles last starts, are they going to flip this magical switch. When is Freddy going to magically bring his A game stuff. Right now Bmac gives us a better chance to win than Freddy who is trying to be Greg Maddux all of a sudden.

Anderson is stroking the ball. Maybe he can give some pointer to the rest of the team on the nice line drive swing he has. The rest of them think its a saturday night softball game where the more you crack it over the fence the more beer you get.

If he throws strike one, keeps the ball down, and runs his sinker in on righties he will shut down the tiggers. On that point, our team needs to man the f*** up. Waving Wendell Cora needs to read a baseball book on when is the appropriate time to send a runner that my 60 year old father could probably beat in a footrace. It would suggest that when the ball is received by the LF and the slow runner hasnt even made it to 3rd is probably a bad time to waving at the runner. Our team needs to go back to hitting line drives, and stop the pull monkey pull it over the fence crap. If a ball is hit to you, catch it, if the runner is going to score on a single throw the ball into second so the trailer does get into 2nd to make a bad inning worse. If they do a few of these things we should be okay. And the sooner Bmac is in the rotation, the better.

Paul is in his pull monkey mode were he tries to pull every single pitch no matter were it is. Today they exploited that by throwing changeups and slow crap on the outside corner. Paulie was much ablidged to work out the SS on that or pop it up. Line drive swings win ball games. Being a softball team that tries to jerk pitches over the fence no matter what the situation is reminds me of the 2001-2004 Offense we strolled in here time after time.

Our 3-4-5 hitters sucked today overall. This is the 2nd series they didnt show up to. They left a small village on base. Wright kept using his changeup away, and we couldnt resist pulling it on the ground for a DP. Nice effort. Next time guys, remember you dont need to hit the dramatic home run every single time you come to the plate. Sometimes a single or a double will clear the bases. However having Freddy give up 3 before you could blink an eye, and then another 3 before he left is just dumb. So much for the theory of he is good on the road in day games against good teams. Its time for some of our rotation to make a quick trip to the DL to refresh them. Let Bmac stretch out and start and leave Tracey in the bullpen. Our entire teams needs the Tom Emanski refresher on how to run the bases. And for anyone who tries to compare this to August of 2005, dont. We had a nice 15 game cushion last year. If we drag ass like we did in August we will be fighting the twins for 3rd with the division and wildcard out of reach. As far as motivating this team, what do you do. They had the 2nd place team in the wildcard with a 6 game lead. If they just avoided the sweep they would be 5 games up. Now they are 3 games up. And 4 1/2 out of the division. Maybe just maybe playing the B team and taking some of those losses against the Royals in April didnt exactly give us the cushion we could of used right now. This team needs a major wake the hell up, or they will ruin a good thing here.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jul 16, 2006 -> 09:42 AM) I think Mark's got a tired arm. He needs to skip a couple of starts. As bad as Mark has been lately, it wouldn't hurt to let Tracey take his turn for a couple. I would rather stretch out bmac, have him in the rotation while some of our starters get some DL rest time. Then move Tracey in the bullpen. Our team has a much better shot at winning with bmac in the rotation over Tracey.

Well at least this hopefully brings the Hermanson will be our bullpen savior to a quick end. Lets go KW go get us an arm.

vs Time for Freddy to man up and let his fastball go. We need this win to stop this little bump in the road.

Buerhle is at his best when he has his control, which is obvious. But especially when he runs his cutter in on the hands of righties. Pounding them in, like Mariano does to lefties. I know they dont have similiar stuff, but for Buerhle when he pounds them in with his cutter he is a much better pitcher. It opens up the outside corner for his back door breaking pitch or his changeup away. From what I see he is leaving his pitches up. He leaves his fastball up and over the middle of the plate. What he has been doing now for a month, is trying to sneak a quick fastball or breaking pitch over the plate because his control is off, so he can then use his breaking pitches to get the hitters out. What has happened is that people have figured this out, and are now hacking at the first pitch which is usually either center cut or away. They are not trying to pull the pitch, and are looking to go to right center with him. This is why you are seeing a lot of doubles to the gaps off of Buerhle. Buerhle and Coop need to figure out what is causing him to leave them up. He needs to get his command and control back.

QUOTE(winninguglyin83 @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:33 PM) it's Tracey. nice to see the Sox give him another chance. He's got a power arm. command ain't much. but he can do the long relief thing His command was pretty good when he was up last time. The only thing he couldnt do was plunk a batter. But his stuff was good, good crisp fastball, nice breaking pitch, and a wierd delivery.

For home networks you can run either a wireless network setup like as been talked about earlier. You can get a Linksys Omnidirectional 7dbi antennae to boost your signal. Make sure you upgrade your firmware and enable WPA instead of WEP for encryption. WEP has too many flaws and can be cracked easily. If you can use WPA2 that would be the best solution. Also try to use Netstumbler on one of your wireless PCs to see what Channels your neighbors are using for their wireless. Mainly people use 6 as the default or 11. Try and keep your wireless network off the same channel as your neighbors as you will see dead spots in your house in different areas. Another thing you can look at is something like Ethernet over Power. Like a Powerline solution. You can use your electrical backbone to transmit your ethernet network in your house. One of our engineers runs it as his house and says it works fine. I havent played with it at all, but I am going to run to frys tomorrow to pick 2 up to test on my home network. http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage...oduct_Id=152644

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:22 PM) Tracey didn't start. Either he is coming up, or he is part of a trade.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:11 PM) I assume, at this moment, you're putting Count and Jon ahead of him. Yup the Count and Jon are ahead of Bmac. Buerhle can be the minute he gets his head out of his ass, and starts to keep the ball down, and run his cutter in on righties.

I met Cliff Politte at soxfest. He is a great guy. I feel bad for him as a person. I hope he gets the surgery for his arm and gets the bone spurs taken out. You cant blame a guy for doing whatever he could to avoid surgery in his walk year. Good luck to you Cliff and thanks for last year.

QUOTE(soxunited @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 05:04 PM) There isn't much of a choice now, is there? Who do you honestly expect to get for Garcia and Vasquez? You are certainly not going to get two quality starters in return. McCarthy I agree, should have been starting long ago. It is a disgrace that he has been left to languish out in the bullpen. Bmac needs to step into this rotation. As of right now he could pitch better than 3/5s of our current rotation. Maybe KW used him in the bullpen to keep him fresh for the 2nd half push. A lot of young starters tire out in the 2nd half due to never pitchng that many innings. He threw 180 innings last year and should be fresh for the 2nd half run.

Politte needs to be designated. He is done. Hermy has back discomfort. If we rely on either of them, then we are nuts. Remember if a player, no matter how crappy is on a team, ozzie will play him. Timo Perez was a DH, a 1st baseman, and our leadoff hitter last year. Buerhle needs to start to get his pitches down in the zone a bit more. And throw his cutter into righties more. Pitchers like Buerhle live on deception, guile and control. He needs to run that cutter in on the hands of righties to get his changeup away to be effective. Today all he did was throw medicore fastballs belt high over the middle of the plate. Garcia needs to start throwing hard, get traded, or get an MRI. Vazquez needs to throw his slider more o 2 strike pitches to righties. He likes to throw his curve or his two seamer which seem to get him beat. Garland needs to do more of what he has been doing. Pitching in and running his sinker down and in to righties. Contreras needs to keep on his track. He is almost turned the corne. And Ozzie needs to stop trying to get X pitcher the victory and worry more about the Whitesox getting the win. To many times he lets a pitcher start an inning hoping that he will get the victory, instead of letting his bullpen take care of it. Or worse, he lets a pitcher get mauled over the coals for 8 or more runs, only to have us come back just short at the end of the game. You dont need to let a pitcher give up 8 or more to figure out he is having a bad day. Bmac needs to be in the rotation. His arm is electric, his change is nasty and this kid is chomping at the bit to start. Putting him in the rotation will give this team life

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 15, 2006 -> 01:34 PM) Considering people in another thread were saying Garcia and Vazquez would be the best starters on the market, I think you're right. The only way the Sox improve the rotation is either their pitchers pitch better or they move McCarthy into it. The series in Detroit is going to be big for Detroit, huge for the Sox. Its actually going to be huge for the sox, and not so big for Detroit. We have to sweep them to make something up. If we keep choking here we will be 4 1/2 or 5 1/2 games out. They could literally put us out of the race quickly.

BTW hopefully at some point we stop drafting guys who can barely break a plane of glass with their fastball.