Balta1701

Their TV Guys weren't exactly geniuses either. A couple of my favorites from last night: Iguchi is not the regular starting 2b, but has been splitting time with Harris, and is only getting more playing time now because Harris has been slumping. (No word about how well Tad has actually done). Neal Cotts is usually a situational guy, and he's probably not ready to work more than a couple of hitters. (they repeated this each inning he came out...seems like no one bothered to tell them that he used to start games)

I really think his problem before the Padres series was that he was overworked...the weekend before that series he pitched in something like 4 straight games, and ended up giving up his first run in the last one of them. I think the week off is just what Hermie ordered.

Konerko's OPS against Lima has to be over 2.000 now. Man he has murdered him. 8 for 12, 2 home runs, 7 RBI.

Something tells me that pitch won't be our last complaint about this umpiring crew.

Leadoff man is out to shallow center. Me likey. BMac got ahead of him, got rid of him.

1st pitch strike from BMac. YAYAYAYAYAY!

Aw hell...poor BMac, there goes his strike zone. Hopefully that "Investigation" MLB launched earlier htis year after the Oakland series came to fruition and these guys won't deliberately kill us.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 04:52 PM) I think Ozzie should have stacked the lineup with lefties. Lima is horrible against lefties. Lima is horrible against lots of people. Dye is hitting .421 against him. Thomas...333. Konerko, um, uh, .621, with an OPS of 1.818.

Have I mentionned yet how much I don't mind not seeing the name Sweeney anywhere on those lineup lists?

I want to see something that gives me hope he can be a good starter for us. This year.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 04:08 PM) Which means no HD. Which means I'm hoping that they broadcast the Royals announcers, because otherwise we DirecTV folks are tuning into John & Ed.

Right now I think the biggest weakness on this team is long relief - there's no one who can come out of the bullpen and pitch 4 or 5 quality innings if a starter not named Mark Buehrle ends up only going three or 4. We end up blowing our entire bullpen in 1 day if someone has a bad start, and that probably will hurt us eventually. Ditto if we hit a long extra innings game. If BMac can cut it...I give him that spot in the rotation, and give El Duque a couple months to sit around in long relief. I'd slap him back in the rotation in August or any time BMac struggles, but that would be by far the best thing that could happen to the team.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 01:34 PM) I hope we destroy old man Maddux for his Buehrle comment. Well, Timo is hitting .421 against Maddux in his career....with 2 home runs!

On the other hand, there's always the possibility that come August, we'll see the Twins, Yankees, and Bosox on our calendar, realize that these are the games we need to win, and we'll go all "Sox vs. Yankees and Indians in 2000" on their asses and walk out of those 2 weeks with like 2 losses. We've been basically hovering around or inching upwards from about 18 games above for the last month or so...no gigantic 7 game winning streaks like we had twice earlier this season. We're due to get blazing hot again. And I think we just might be there now.

QUOTE(Dam8610 @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 12:37 PM) Why do I doubt this? Could it be that he has barely any AAA/MLB experience, and thus will have a quick hook on him? Or could it be that I don't think McCarthy can keep a ML team (even if it is the Royals) to 1 run for 7 2/3 innings at this point in his career? How many rookies have kept us to 1 run in 7 2/3 innings this year?

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 01:26 PM) Have you guys been White Sox fans for more than 2 months? We are a team that is known to blow it in the second half. Look at our 2003 team! How did they blow it? They sent Esteban Loaiza out to pitch against the Twinkies with a cold. Loaiza fell apart. The season fell apart immediately after that loss. Loaiza cost himself the Cy Young award on that day.

QUOTE(nvxplorer @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 01:17 PM) The Sox are 5th in runs scored. Their BA sucks, but it has been steadily rising. The only teams with more runs scored are Texas, Boston, Baltimore and New York. Baltimore's pitching is okay, but the other three suck, staffwise. The Sox offense is just fine, and if Frank continues to be Frank, it will only get better. A significant portion of that ranking, however, is due to 1 game against Russ Ortiz and 2 games in Coors field.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 01:15 PM) And remember how is Crede going to be when Boras negotiates during arbitration. How do you think that is going to go. I seriously think Boras will get his ass handed to him in arbitration based on the fact that Crede's been all-around underperforming.

The LA Times ran a very good feature on ballpark organists a few weeks ago. Sadly, they're a dying breed, and even the Sox don't expect to replace Nancy when she departs. They did interview her for the piece though, which is always a plus.

QUOTE(Adam G @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 01:04 PM) Yeah, all the signs except, you know, muscle. Have you seen him shirtless? I haven't.

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 01:04 PM) Any team that can be shutout by Shawn Estes needs to get something going with their offense big time. Games like that one are games where we stop playing so-called "Smart ball". You see them from this team every week or so - they stop pushing people over after falling behind early,a nd then everyone starts swinging for the fences again.

I didn't know where else to post this, but I just wanted to point out;this is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen at ESPN.com. The Ex-Yankee roster versus the current Yankee roster...and somehow they have the current yankees sweep the series? Man, that's nonsense.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 11:38 AM) I saw the clips of some of those pitches on SportsCenter. While I didn't see every pitch thrown, the ones that were shown were definately balls. I was watching the game when he melted down... The pitches were close enough that they could go either way. I think what probably actually happened was that the strike zone shifted slightly during the game, and during that inning, he wasn't getting the call on the pitches that were close but slightly off the plate. Everyone here has seen those pitches called both ways depending on the ump. Many times.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 11:29 AM) The question is -- if we don't hit Lima hard will posters here transform into Hawk and say that Lima is really an ace-quality pitcher? I still remain amazed how many pitchers we've managed to make look like they are ace-quality. Especially rookies.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jun 20, 2005 -> 11:01 AM) I dont think that is much of a dream, I think it falls into the realm of possibility the more that Houston loses. Not with his contract situation. It's way too attractive to Houston for them to even consider dealing him.