Balta1701

Actually, Walmart's prices as a whole really aren't that low at all.

28 God damned games over .500, and it's June 24th. 8 game winning streak. 3-1 this season against the Cubs - its now impossible for the Cubs to finish this season with a winning record against the Sox. Twinkies currently 10 games back. Winning percentage is .6944 - if we sweep this series, we'll be back above .700.

I hate to keep pointing this out, but if you ignore May, Joe Crede is having a fine year. He had 1 terrible month. If it weren't for May, he'd be a .300 hitter right now. He's still swinging and missing too much right now, but he's not flying open like he was in May; he's keeping his head down and driving the ball, which is exactly what he should be doing. If we can figure out a way to cut donw on his strikeouts, he could turn himself into an All star pretty quick.

Cotts hadn't pitched since going 2.1 innings on Monday after BMac's outing, Shingo and Marte both got time in before the offday. Usually with a reliever, the longer they sit, the more rusty they are when they come out. I can't find a problem with using Cotts for an inning tonight, and I'm not surprised that he had a little rust on him. I'll live with 12-2 wins over the Cubs any day of the week.

A.J. Pierzynski has just tied his career high in home runs with 11. You think he likes that ballpark he's hitting in?

Come on Crede...just put the ball in play & hope it gets through...just don't strike out.

Frank Thomas has now tied Luke Appling for most runs scored in White Sox franchise history.

Let's go Freddie...let's make us first to 50 wins today.

QUOTE(Yossarian @ Jun 24, 2005 -> 10:29 AM) Upon further review of those attendance stats, we're now above 60% of capacity and that is sure to improve, no matter how the team does the rest of the year. We're making steady progress, but people cling to old and outdated stereotypes. On other notes, Cleveland has fallen off a cliff haven't they? It wasn't that long ago when they had a gazillion or so straight sell outs. How long can the Devil Rays keep up the charade that they are a major league team?. Some minor league teams probably outdraw them. OK, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Didn't mean to hijack this. The Devil Rays are basically the 2nd most profitable team in baseball. We're really sure to improve, because not only do we have the Cubs series, we have multiple series with Minnesota, We're probably going to see the return of Ordonez to the Cell at some point this year, and we have yet to host either the Yankees or the Red Sox.

I don't see this posted anywhere...but there's an update on this story...it seems PBS escaped the knife in the House. Via the LAT

Found it! I found the article I was looking for all day yesterday...on how a pitcher's ERA changes on average when he moves from league to league. It's basically exactly what I said...from CNNSI

QUOTE(sti3 @ Jun 24, 2005 -> 09:38 AM) Fact is if you want to sell a magazine or a website, whom do you put on the cover? Besides Willis' ERA is half of Garland's. Willis also pitches in the national league, where he gets the benefit of not having to face any DHs and gets a nearly automatic out 1 time per order in the pitcher's slot. That knocks roughly 1 run off of a person's ERA. Ah-HA!!!!!!!!!!! I found the piece I was looking for about how a person's ERA usually changes when they swap leagues. From CNNSI Going from the AL to the NL on average causes a pitcher's ERA to drop by .95 runs. Going from the NL from the AL on average causes a pitcher's ERA to go up by .93 runs. I say that from now on...if you're going to compare ERA's between leagues, a "National League ERA adjustment" of .94 should be added to the numbers for the NL pitcher, or subtracted from the AL pitcher.

QUOTE(Hideaway Lights @ Jun 24, 2005 -> 09:44 AM) I just heard on the radio that Ozuna is starting at short today I like it Guess that means Uribe is still sore...Sun Times quoted Ozzie saying he wanted Juan to play today. Hope this isn't something too nagging for Uribe.

With any luck, the government will finally make something of either the Balco case or his tax case and that won't even be an option.

People who come to mind instantly also include Nolan Ryan and Kyle Farnsworth... Barry Bonds - he'd be chemically angry.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 11:19 PM) I actually wouldn't mind seeing Ozuna start at SS tomorrow. Has there been any update on Uribe's slight injury today? Any idea if he'll be going tomorrow?

QUOTE(TheHammer @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 11:28 PM) HRs, btw, will win more ballgames than stolen bases for instance. If you get the pitching any style of offense can win ballgames. Carlos Lee produces more offense than Scott Podsednik and I think that is fairly obvious. If we had this pitching last season we almost certainly would have won the central and could have possibly won 100 games even with our inconsistent offense. Hell we won plenty of games earlier this season when our offense was consistently not very good. I think people look at Pods as kind of the poster boy for Ozzieball so the natural tendency would be to overrate his impact. He has been a good leadoff hitter, but is not the big difference in our team from last season to this season. See, now this is exactly why I did this post today. Yes, we are scoring less runs per game on average (although I bet a part of that will change with Frank back and summer arriving). But we are also far, FAR more consistent in our scoring. Instead of beating up on teams when we face poor pitching and being absolutely shut down by good pitching, we are able to keep the shutout and 1 run games to a minimum, and score at least 4 or 5 runs per game far more often. We are able to go up against good pitching and still push a few runs across the plate...and if our pitching keeps up we're going to win the game. If we scored 5 runs every game and had a good pitching staff, we'd win a lot more games than if we scored 9 runs in half our games and 1 run in the other half. One of these days...I want to take a moment and do the same sort of analysis with this year's Yankees. They remind me a lot of the Sox last year - they're capable of exploding for 13 runs in an inning twice against the Devil Rays, then the next 3 days they get beaten by being outscored or outpitched.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2005 @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 11:21 PM) I think they're the heavy favorite to win it al in 06. With Ginobili and Parker back and with another year's experience...yeah there's no reason at all why they shouldn't be the favorites. Then again, for all we know, Darko could go nuts and have an amazing year or something like that. Who could have predicted the Suns rise this year? And they may very well be better next year as well too. (Of course...the Bulls might be better too... )

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 11:19 PM) Jesus, D-Train just got his 12th win. His ERA is now 1.76. Just remember...the rule of thumb is you have to add roughly .9 to convert an ERA from NL values to AL values. No I can't find the article where that number came from...ESPN.com earlier this year. His numbers put him right in with the best guys in the AL - Buehrle and Rogers.

QUOTE(Rohan @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 11:06 PM) But lately he's been doing alright.. His ERA in the last 7 days is 27.00

On the other hand, Freddy's stats in day games... 2-1 record 3.07 ERA 37 hits 11 walks 41 innings pitched 4 home runs 21 strikeouts .240 BA You guys worried about him pitching on a hot day...well he's always been better in day games. And on top of that...he had the start at the Cell against the Dodgers, which ended up working out pretty well once he found his control.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 10:59 PM) The ball hit the yellow line. It was a homerun. Anybody else unable to stand how the rules vary from ballpark to ballpark as to whether or not the yellow line is a home run or is simply the top of the wall?

QUOTE(Rohan @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 09:51 PM) Umm don't you mean selfish? I always like El Caballo... I don't know why he's talking so much trash.. The only reason i can think of is that the media is getting to him about being traded from the best team in the majors... The guys on our end did talk a little bit of trash about him when he was leaving...the whole slide into 2nd base against the Twins, I doubt that went over well with him. Anywho...the Brewers got exactly what they needed in their lineup - some fairly cheap right handed power. The Sox got exactly what they needed - salary flexibility, speed, and a quality leadoff guy who just needs to learn how to get a good jump on a fly ball. Both of these teams are better because of that trade, and both stand a good shot at being playoff contenders because of it for a long time. Without that trade, both of them would stand a good chance at being average/mediocre for another few years.

QUOTE(ptatc @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 08:37 PM) i agree. This article makes CLee sound very selfess. I wasn't the man, I didn't get the RBI opportunities.....Maybe he complained to Ozzie about this and that's why Ozzie said he should be the one to go in a trade. Um, are you sure "Selfless" is the word you're looking for there? And not a different Suffix?

QUOTE(TheHammer @ Jun 23, 2005 -> 09:55 PM) Its also kind of pointless to add up all those winshares against Lee like we wouldn't have played with a catcher or 2B or another starter. We would have signed a 5th starter regardless and we would have probably picked up another reliever and starter at 2B or catcher. The idea that KW is willing right now to add payroll which I believe to be true also makes it seem very possible that we might have been able to grab all those players if he thought it would make us a playoff team. Of course if Pods would start hitting like he did two seasons ago, people really wouldn't complain about the trade. Yeah, we'd have played with a 2nd baseman and catcher. Willie Harris and Ben Davis. Exactly like we did last year. And you're saying we'd have signed a 5th starter...well, we basically ran all last year without a fifth starter, if we didn't have the salary room, who's to say we wouldn't have done the same thing? (Or started BMac as our 5th starter to open the season) We barely added salary in the offseason compared to last year. Our big changes were salary shifts - Ordonez to Dye and Garcia, Lee to Iguchi, Pods, Viz, and El Duque. Our salary adds were Contreras's salary and somewhat Hermanson, along with signing contracts with ARow, Timo, Ben Davis, etc. The reason we have room to add salary now is that we're a winning ballclub and that's drawing in more fans.