southsideirish71

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 24, 2005 -> 12:33 AM) Easier said than done. I pitched for a reason when I played. It was because I coudln't hit worth a lick. I understood what you should do with different pitches and could recognize them, but for the life of me I coudln't do anything aside from pull the ball (its why I was such an awful hitter). Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing of any sport, imo. You have to adjust between a 94 MPH fastball or an 80 MPH offspeed pitch (changeup) plus a curve or slider. Good luck. Walker has preached and does preach going opposite way. Now Crede and a few others may not be great hitters, but that isn't because Crede isn't doing the work (its because his swing just isn't a fit for the majors, imo) nor is it because Walker is telling him to pull the ball (no hitting coach would preach that). But if you have a pitcher who is concentrating in a zone. You have a better chance. This guy was hitting a zone and our hitters refused to make adjustments. This game is difficult, if it wasnt everyone would be a major leaguer. The frustrating thing for me is not the result, its the lack of adjustments. If you have a guy who is throwing strike one down the middle or middle away. And then its slider city, you may not want to take that pitch. Or you may want to concentrate on the outside pitch. Its all about adjustments. I hear walker preach in the papers about hitting the ball the other way. But this team is pull city. That is all they do, you spot the ball on the outside corner and then its a 2 to 4 hitter for the opposing pitcher.

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ May 24, 2005 -> 12:17 AM) Late breaking junk ok? You tell him to be aggressive on fastballs down the middle and take all the sliders outside. It's alot easier said than done. Here, buy MVP 2005. Turn the sliders all the way up with variable strike zone, turn off the hitter's eye. Turn the pitch speeds way up and turn down your own contact. Then have someone throw you 94 mph cutters or fastballs mixed with nasty sliders with maybe Brad Lidge. We can't expect Joe Crede to have a perfect AB every single time. We can hope or pray he hits above .260 but there's no secret you can tell him that will make him any better. Lets stop with this is the second coming of Nolan Ryan. This was a rookie with a good arm hitting the outside corner. He was tossing a fastball pretty much all the time for strike one. Then using his slider to see if people would reach. Our hitters could of taken a different approach and gotten a bit closer to the plate, and maybe cut down on their swings. But they were taking full long looping swings trying to hit the kid hard. He took advantage of some free swingers who didnt have the sense to adjust to the situation. Joe Crede has a wonderful .164 BA in May with a .524 OPS Everett is batting 204 in May Timo is hitting 200 in May

Timo Perez cannot play CF. If he is in there Pods needs to play CF at least he has some range. Crede is rocketting back to last year. The batting cages, the new swing. I think Borchard has a prettier swing that Cruddy. Everett has to be hurt or something. He is very late on the fastball, even when he knows its coming. When did we sign Mike Jackson(aka Viz). Same feeling as last year with this guy. When he comes in, he is going to get hit hard. Ozzie keeps marching him out there. Iguchi, this guy just hits. Adjustments all the time. Walker better not learn japanese. Uribe made comments before the season about him improving on his power numbers. He needs to realize that we got rid of Jose "only go for the homer" Valentin and we dont need a younger version. Make contact and stop swinging for the fences. He needs to get on and swing for doubles. Pablo should be playing for Crede tomorrow. Widger can DH for Everett. Gload and Thomas need to get healthy and back up on the team. We need both of their balanced bats. This team has too many similiar hitters.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 23, 2005 -> 11:10 PM) Well personally I creamed myself when Konerko jammed himself to go opposite field. When Konerko is doing that you know he's very close to breaking out. I absolutely love it when a guy is going opposite field because when he's doing that he's going to start getting pitched inside and get pitches to drive. BINGO!!!! Hitting the outside pitch makes them pitch you inside. That is the pitch you drive and pull for power. Last year in Cleveland there was a game were we scored 14 runs. In the first two innings they tried that paint the outside corner crap. Hit after hit was to right and to center. Then the pitcher came in and homers started raining. Thats the approach they should have, keep the opposing pitcher honest. The following game after that, they went back to pull only and scored 1 run on a few hits. Pauly pulling an inside pitch. No problem with that. Pauly reaching for a pitch on the outside black and trying to pull it. What is he really going to do with that pitch besides roll it over for a ground out or pop it up.

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ May 23, 2005 -> 11:07 PM) I swear some of you guys must cream yourselves every time we get a hit to the opposite field. That and the genius scouting report on Santana of him being a "crappy pitcher" has me believing you guys were just waiting for a chance like this to spew all this built up hatred for pull hitters. From TV, I couldn't tell how "hittable" Santana's fastball was but maybe you can tell me since you seem to have faced him before. I won't argue that some of these guys' approaches suck (see Crede, Uribe) but jeez. Yeah I guess corpseball is back because we finally got shutout by a pitcher with wicked stuff on the West Coast. Rob Deer and Jose Valentin are examples of great pull hitters. Name a 300 hitter with good power that only pulls the ball. In fact name a pull only hitter that hits above 280. Most good to great hitters in baseball hit the ball where its pitched. Thats what makes them great. If you pull only and even better announce in the papers I only pull the baseball do you really think you are going to see too many pitches in. OUTSIDE AND OUTSIDE ONLY.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 23, 2005 -> 10:57 PM) This is different. Rookie or not the guy pitched amazing. You couldn't throw the ball much better than he did today and hell the SOx lost. They didn't stand a chance in this one (it could of been closer) but they weren't going to get a run off Santana today. If they approached this like they approach tough pitchers and tried to make contact and not over complicate things by trying to hit long shots. If on 3-1 Everett wasnt trying to park one, instead of making contact and moving the runner over. I give the angels pitcher credit. He hit his spots on the outside corner. We will see a steady diet of this until our hitters learn that there is other parts of the park besides left and right field bleachers.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ May 23, 2005 -> 10:49 PM) Just watch the game...he didn't throw anything straight tonight. Not one pitch of his wasn't moving (mainly with sinking action) and he was painting the black. Santana pitched like he was capable and there is no harm in this loss. Its a tough loss for JG but Santana flat out earned it and pitched what I'll call the best pitching performance the Sox have faced all season (he was 10 times more nasty than Prior and Prior was nasty on Sunday). Methinks you over estimate this guy. Prior challenged us over the middle of the plate. If he read the scouting report and just painted the outside corner he might of had a no hitter against us. Our guys are pull baseball only hitters. Throw it over the center or middle of the plate and they will mash it out for a long home run. You paint the outside corner and they cannot adjust at all and attempt to pull the outside corner. Joe Credes approach tonight was embarrassing. Stepping in the bucket, head up trying to pull the outside pitch. I watched the game, the fastballs were pretty straight. They had some velocity on them. Everett on 3-1 not catching up to a fastball down the middle of the plate twice and then grounding out after he pulls the slow slider was silly also. Our hitters have to do a better job of adjusting. There is a particular way that most pitchers will attack the sox. Now the top shelf pitchers like Colon, Pior, Zambrano, Johan will pitch in. The rest especially the plus six era guys just hit the outside corner. Last year we watched as crap pitcher after crap pitcher would look like Cy Young because all they did was spot the fastball on the outside corner. How many times did our offense get 4 hit, 3 hit 2 hit by some plus six era guy. This game is about adjustments, after seeing a patter. Like first pitch fastball on the outside corner, take the bat off your shoulders and take a chance.

Jaret Wright, Chris George, Brian Anderson, are just a few pitchers that pull the paint the outside corner last year and let the sox hitters attempt to pull the ball like crazy. This guy was even worse for us. He has a very hittable straight fastball. But he not only spots it on the outside corner but he has an automatic strikeout pitch with a sharp biting slider. Our hitters did not adjust to the situation. After the first 2 times through the order maybe someone should of said, you know he seems to throw a lot of fastballs for first pitch strike to the righties on the outside corner. Maybe instead of waiting for 0-2, how about I shorten the swing up a bit and go back up the middle or to right. Ah the hell with that, just get a bigger bat like a 42 inch and see if I can reach it.

The pitching chart was funny on this. He threw literally about 90% of the pitches on the outside corner. Crede kept stepping in the bucket over and over trying to pull the outside pitch. His ABs were pretty sickening. Iguchi was the player of the game. He at least had the brains to punch the ball up the middle.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ May 23, 2005 -> 10:29 PM) So, he sucks because he had one bad outing? Because they understood that he throws very straight fastballs on the outside corner. Our guys are falling over trying to pull the ball.

PAINT THAT OUTSIDE CORNER 90% OF THE TIME AND YOU WILL OWN US. CRUDDY FALLING OVER TRYING TO HIT SLIDERS IN THE OTHER BATTERS BOX. GUYS TAKING OUTSIDE FASTBALLS AND BEING 0-2. GREAT EFFORT. 4 HIT BY A CRAPPY PITCHER. YEAH. FIRST SHUTOUT.

EAT s*** CALIFORNIA STYLE.

I tivo'd the game yesterday and after Viz gave up the dong he got the ball from the ump, turned around and faced centerfield and started to lick the ball. Almost like he was putting a spitter on it. Very wierd. He needs to start to spot the fastball a bit more and use it more. His slider should be his outpitch. Currently he is pitching backwards, using his slider to throw for strikes and then coming in with the fastball.

QUOTE(Steff @ May 21, 2005 -> 06:09 AM) That place was rocking yesterday... Sox fans were out in full force.. the "Pauly" chant could be heard loud and clear. We were sitting right by the Cubs pen and I kept saying.."Ya gonna close today LaToya..?" He got real pissed and at one point I thought I was going to get tossed from the game, LMAO. In the stands it was a repeat of "Monday night fights at the cell". I was amazed at all the fights we saw. One right next to us in section 10 about the 3rd row. Both fans kicked out.. and quickly. That was nice to see. Then there was one behind us in the first row of 108.. amazing to us it was over Old Style or Old Style Light being a better beer.. A bunch in the 200 sections down the 3rd base side which seemed to be because of Sox fans chanting "let's go white sox".. :rolly A lot of "Sox suck" shirts.. I just laughed and said "are you guys at .500 yet..?" One guy looked at me and said.. ".500...?". Jim just about peed his pants. Cub fans do crack me up. Today we are behind the Cubs pen.. I'm so looking forward to the game today even more than yesterday. Steff I was over in the 200 sections with my wife and son. It was loaded with sox fans. SOX PRIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just got back from the Urinal. Sox fans were out in force and were showing sox pride. They were pretty loud and they had some good chants going. One real good piece of info from the batting practice. Everyone, and I mean everyone was practicing hitting to right field before the game. I had my 11 month old son out all decked out in Sox gear. Some retarded cub fan told my wife oh thats child abuse having your son wear sox gear. She told him, "You and your boyfriend are just upset that you cant make babies of your own." SOX PRIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :fthecubs

I just got some released tickets from the flub website. I am now going, just told my boss calling in sick. I am going to root our boys on and boo the living s*** out of the cubs. SOX PRIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELLL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

EAT s*** CRAPTACULAR CUBS! Walk Derrick Lee and their offense is shut down, ala the Royals and Mike Sweeney. I cant wait to see our baserunners run wild on Barrett.

QUOTE(sox-r-us @ May 19, 2005 -> 12:51 AM) Konerko pulled each of his three hits. But he also hooked a few drives that landed foul. Should he try to hit to the opposite field more often? "I'm a pull hitter," Konerko said. "I've been a pull hitter since I was 5. That doesn't mean I can't hit some balls the other way. ================= I hope we do not sign this guy in the offseason. :banghead http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sp...-home-headlines Maybe my crazy rants about this guy going out of his way to pull everything weren't that crazy. Dear Mr. Konerko, If you tell everyone "I am a pull hitter" they will continue to paint the outside corner getting you to GIDP and pop up. You will have some impressive power numbers as they will have to come in at some point, however you will have Rob Deer numbers. Lots of dongs, tons of K, and a 214 BA. In my opinion his wife should be giving him a swift kick in the nuts over this. This approach and telling people in the paper what we already know is going to hurt him in his pocket book as this is his contract year.

NOW LETS BEAT SOME SILLY CUBBY ASS. :fthecubs :fthecubs :fthecubs :finger :finger MAKE THEM EAT s***!!!!!!

POG MO THOIN RANGERS!!!!!! We win IRISH STYLE. DRUNK AND DISORDERLY NICE BALL GAME Garland. Nice job top of the order.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ May 17, 2005 -> 04:20 PM) I thought we were in first place? Patience is a virtue and we must be patient with our hitters. They will hit. Do not panic! Anderson and others need more seasoning at the AAA level. People said this about Crede last year and Valentin. I hope we arent sitting with Kong at 210 in August in a pennant race.

QUOTE(TheDybber @ May 17, 2005 -> 02:38 PM) When is .262 not good? It's ok, but considering he was below .240 last year, that's a marked improvement. If he can keep it at .265 the rest of the year, I would call it a success. Walker can only get in their ears. He doesn't have the respect of a Charlie Lau, who was his hitting coach when he played. Charlie Lau wasn't about homers at all, he was about open stances, waiting on the back foot, and hitting line drives. And don't forget, nobody thinks this team has the big boppers like they had with Carlos, Maggs and Frank. So when Frank gets back, if he can hit like we all know he can, that will open up the lineup to some good ol' hitters pitches. Don't give up on Walker yet. Thomas will produce and that in itself will help. But its not like these guys have been aced time and time again. These guys are missing on fastballs down the middle of the plate. Your right, teams dont respect the power and they are going after Dye and Kong. Both of them as fastball hitters should be tearing it up. Thats the problem. If Greg is preaching it and they arent listening. Then its time to bench players. and worry about their fragile egos another time. We are trying to win a divsion here.

QUOTE(ptatc @ May 17, 2005 -> 01:45 PM) I agree the first three have been doing well. If we begin to get any production from the 3-4-5 we will be in business. Back to the walker discussion. "I wonder if the little guys" are more capable of following the opposite field thoery than the others for whatever reason? Its not just about hitting the ball the other way. Its about not forcing the issue. This is what these guys have been doing so far. Arow started a few weeks ago with some power strokes to right. People were pitching him away and he started hitting the ball to right center with power. He has a great power stroke to center/right center. Gooch what else can you say, he pulls the ball when its thrown in, and he goes with the pitch and hits it to right. Nice line drive swings. I have been very impressed with him. The 2 hole on this team is a very difficult position. You have to take a ton of pitches to let Pods get a jump. You have to give yourself up at the expense of your BA. Pods has been doing everything. He has been walking, bunting, hitting the ball up the middle. Doing what he can to get on. If the big guys did some of these things we wouldnt be talking about a slump right now with the offense. But our big guys are pulling the ball too much and making themselves easy targets. If you make yourself into a one dimensional hitter major leaguers are good enough to pitch to that and get you out more and more.

QUOTE(ptatc @ May 17, 2005 -> 01:21 PM) This is an interesting take on the situation. While your points are valid, everytime you hear walker talks he discusses going the opposite way and up the middle is the most important part of hitting. This brings up a few possible scenarios. Either he isn't teaching what he discussing, the hitters aren't listening or the hitters are truly just stuck in a slump and are guessing at pitches. None of these possiblities show well on Walker. One thing I have noticed is Walker keeps talking about his hitters did not walk enough last year and they worked on it in ST. I wonder if they are becoming too passive and wind up going after pitcher's pitches, which may explain the high rate of pop ups. Let's hope the professional experienced hitters can turn it around. In the Month of May 2005 the bad news first Our power guys Joe Crede who everyone is claiming is a Walker success is batting .191, he has a .268 OBP Kong is batting .149, Everett is batting .233 Dye is batting .239 Our swing players AJ is batting .243 Uribe is batting .245 Now for the good news Our little guys Arow is batting .340 with a .404 OBP Gooch is batting .283 with a .345 OBP Pods is .308 with a .429 OBP And now for the news of hope Our first three guys are doing their job, the rest of the guys needs to kick it in gear. If they hit at all this team will score some runs. Frank should be licking his chops looking at all the ducks that will be on the pond for him.

QUOTE(DonkeyKongerko @ May 17, 2005 -> 12:24 PM) It's so easy to just blame the hitting coach. How many hitting coaches did we go through under Manuel? And how often did it a result in a noticeable improvement? Jermaine Dye was a risk when we brought him on. His decline has been well documented over the past 3 years. Konerko is a streaky hitter. How many good half seasons has he had in the past 3 years? It's a struggle with him for consistency. Joe Crede's swing was a bit quicker coming into this season. Honestly I think he has already done more this year than any of us expected. I keep hearing references to people saying this would be "Crede's year" but I think for most of us, this was always just a pipe dream. We've been lucky to have some pretty darn good hitters here with guys like Maggs, Frank, and Carlos around. Podsednik doesn't need to hit .270 to succeed, just look at his on-base percentage. Try to keep some of these things in mind before thinking that ANY hitting coach could raise a team's batting average by 30 points or anywhere close to that. What is the purpose of the hitting coach then besides to be a cheerleader. If its not that important and it really doesnt matter why not just eliminate it all together.