CaliSoxFanViaSWside

BP did pretty good. Better than Houston's any way and Houston is supposed to be a great BP.

1st ever win for Grifol. 1st ever hit for Colas. 1st ever save for Reylo.

Same old SOx ! Beat the World Champs on the road and breaks a 10 season opening day winning streak of the Astros !

Uno mas LFG !

I haven't heard that very often .

No hit and runs or steal attempt either were there ?

Way to go Colassal !

I was hoping to have a lead by the time it got to the BPs.

He's just riding the wave of same old Sox that's going through the thread. The defending World Champs aren't exactly killing it either.

What? It's 0-0 in the 1st game . How did we get to 0-3 ?

Here we go . Nice running Andrus.

https://gameavenue.co/h3-houston-astros-vs-chicago-white-sox/

I really like the 1st 4 . Against Valdez and that sinker they have to go up the middle or the other way and take advantage of the no shift on the right side of the infield. Cease limiting the walks and having a strong outing against a depleted Astros lineup will help net the Sox a victory.

I never said ST goodness equals a good season.However for certain players it means you make the team and what you do with that opportunity is a work in progress. Colas could've been sent down if he sucked in the Spring but now he will be playing a lot. Same with Volpe and Jordan Walker and James Outman for that matter who I was told "sucked" by the guy claiming ST means nothing. Lux got injured the opportunity for another LH bat was there and Outman earned his spot and Dave Roberts said he will play "a good bit" . He earned it with a good ST on a Dodger team that won 111 games last year but was thin in the OF. Clearly him not sucking in the Spring meant something to an organization known for developing talent and a tremendous organization. I don't see how anyone can say Spring training stats mean nothing when they clearly do whether you're a bench playing vying for the last couple of spots or in a position to be a starter and get a lot of playing time or be the strong side of a platoon. Leury is gone because he sucked last year and in the spring and because Romy and Alberto stepped up with good springs.

They mean something. Does Romy make the team if he had hit poorly all spring? Does Colas make the team if he hit poorly all Spring or do they send him back down and gain the extra year ? Alberto won himself a job because of his performance in ST and maybe because Grifol likes him. Is Santos here if Hendriks isn't injured or is Diekman, Ruiz or Lambert gone ? If Crochet was healthy does that remove another BP guy or is he starting in AAA. Opportunity and performance combined means a lot. Does Volpe and Jordan Walker make their teams with terrible springs if others had stepped up ?

I was as skeptical about Romy as can be thinking that he might get the starting 2nd base job. I think his 2022 had a lot to do with his health but when he started off poorly this Spring I was glad Andrus was around. Started poorly this spring but it's hard to deny what he did the last week and a half of ST. I wanted Duvall as much as the next guy but Romy does have the speed to play the OF and from what little I saw of him in all 3 OF positions this spring I think he can handle it. Maybe some of the hype surrounding his off season wasn't all hype. There's only one way to find out. Look at the lower half of the Astro's lineup for today's game. Not exactly Murderers Row. While the Astro's weather some injuries they better hope the scores can remain low and pull out wins because of their superior BP early on.

Colas was cold the 2nd half of ST and Romy was ultra hot. Also Colas was a GB machine this spring and Valdez is GB machine pitcher. Maybe Colas trying to hard to do what the coaches want and K less and put the ball in play but it resulted in a lot of GB . Colas started hot then fizzled. Romy started slowly, had a minor injury then came back like his hair was on fire. Romy is a lot more likely to K but he may also be more likely to a HR . Romy .961. ST OPS . Colas .703 . Grifol just hoping the hotness carries over for a game against a LHP. Colas will play often and get AB's against LHP just not against Valdez today. There weren't many Valdez types pitching in the minors.

Can'yt completely ignore it either.About 5 guys on the 26 won their spots because of their spring and BP injury.

I am as high on Oscar Colassal as anyone, but even I don't think it's a bad move. Valdez when is a GB machine. I would expect a HR more from Romy than I would from Colas against him. Hit HR's win games. If Romy goes 0-4 with 3 K's and an error I reserve the right to retract everything I said.

Waiting for the lineup. Part of me thinks Grifol goes with the red hot Romy in RF. It wouldn't phase me but I am anxious to see what Oscar Colassal and Romy both can do. Let's do this !!

Yes it would and I know I made a long post about his hitting but Believe it or not I want to expand on it. There's one reason why Judge had a historic season. He's a big strong guy who was, in the past ,inside outing the ball trying to go the opposite way to take advantage of the short right field porch or reaching on outside pitches to try to do it. 2021 his walk rate was a career low 11.8 %. 2022 his walk rate went back up to 15.9 % . That's what happens when uyou hit bombs. They don't want to throw you strikes. Last year he pulled 95 balls compared to only 59 the previous year . In other words why have a big strong guy doing something that lessens his power ? It shouldn't have taken him until he was 30 years old to figure that out but it did. Colas is not as tall as Judge. He's actually around 5"11 but he's built like a tank and the best LHH power prospect they have had in a long time playing in a home park that is very conducive to LH power and they are teaching him to go the other way ? Lift and pull when your power bat is capable of hitting 450 ft. bombs . Lift and pull some bombs maybe then you can improve your walk rate. Teaching him to go the other way is just encouraging Colas to swing at outside pitches. Just look middle in and mash . I'll give pitchers props who can consistently hit the outside corner . If you get behind in the count , sure look to go oppo but if you are ahead 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 ,don't try to go oppo just because you get a pitch away . Take it. Draw some walks. You can't get ahead in the count unless you take pitches. You can't take walks unless you take pitches. You hit more HR's taking pitches getting ahead in the count. Pitchers make plenty of mistakes. Learn, turn ,burn .

Big Baby Eloy !

I misread something when I looked up his spring stats. Mistook a B for meaning Both RH and LH . Not sure is it's usually a B or an S when referring to a Switch hitter

I'll repeat what I said earlier about him in a few recent threads. He worked with the hitting coach in Miami during the winter. Judging from the ST results which we know may not be indicative of what will happen in the season. But this is what I saw. He did not K a lot. He also did not walk a lot. He started hot then faded. He did K a decent amount in the minors but he still manged to hit for a high average and hit for power and many times massive power . Right now I'm not so concerned about his K rate as I am his GB rate which seemed observationally high. I don't know what his GB rate was in the minors so I could be talking out of my ass . I do understand trying to get him to hit like Vaughn , Eloy and Anderson who make it look so easy going to the opposite field. However I am questioning if that was the right approach with Colas. I guess I would've been more comfortable with him just using the same approach as he did in the minors. Yes it would mean more K's and maybe a high batting average isn't very sustainable in the majors when you can't take walks (unless you are Anderson). But we do not want to see Colas turn into Anderson. We want a power hitter and maybe specifically a pull hitter for power who gets the ball in the air and also hits doubles. Didn't see many doubles from Colas in the spring either only 2 with 3 HR's so the OPS was only .703. So my gripe is that maybe the coaches shouldn't have worked so much with him on going the other way. Maybe it zapped some power while cutting down on the K's and turning him into a slappy GB oppo hitter reminiscent of the dreaded Menechino approach. I also think now that he is opening on the 26 to start the season that it doubly magnifies why it was silly not to bring him up last year. He could've used the same approach that he did in the minors and if it didn't appear to be good enough THEN maybe work on him going the other way or at least looking for pitches up andout over the plate or inside and spitting on pitches away rather then just trying to make contact with them like we saw so much from Robert last year . They also could've worked with him on hitting the cut off man and got used to his home field and some fields around the league. The hitting coaches seemed to try to get him ready for the majors without actually seeing how he would do in the majors and then making adjustments. Grifol seemed to specifically talk about Colas when he talked about guys who had things to learn defensively. I seem to remember that when he got to AA he changed something and it was then that his numbers really started to soar even higher in AA then they were in A+. There's nothing inherently wrong in power hitters striking out. There are a lot of great hitters who have high K rates. But he definitely has to figure out how to be more selective and make pitchers come to him. That's when you start to see more pitches in your hitting zone that you can tee off on. Robert has the same problem but at least in the spring it wasn't a K problem for Colas, it became a GB problem.