Balta1701

A.J.'s power surge to me is 95% due to ballparks, as said above. The other 5% might very well be because he knows he can get the ball out of the Cell, so he's actually trying to hit them. Not only would about 8 of his home runs have hit the baggie in Minnesota, but San Francisco also has a fairly long porch in right field, so it's not exactly easy for anyone to hit the ball out of there unless they mysteriously add 50 pounds of muscle in the offseason like one who will not be named.

Perfect description of one of the reasons we're winning. In 2000, we might not have had the best team out there, but we won the most games by a good spread. Why? Because every night, we'd pick each other up. Someone would get the big hit or make the big pitch to win the game. This team has better pitching & better defense, but they have that same friendly attitude where everyone is working together. I think that can really help, and it probably was one of the driving forces in the Boston clubhouse last fall.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 11, 2005 -> 02:59 PM) They are horrible at manufacturing runs. They are the worst bunting team in baseball so they don't even try it. When you have guys like Ramirez and Ortiz both hitting .330 like they were last year, you really don't want to try to sacrifice runs, you want to get the guys on base so that they can be knocked in. Ramirez is only hitting .250 this year. That changes a lot of things.

QUOTE(Steff @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:47 AM) At Comiskey....??? No, it was in L.A. The Cubs will play the Yankees later this week I think. They played them for the first time at Wrigley a year or two ago, and that was a big deal. But while it'll be a cute series to see (and i'll have trouble figuring out who to root against), it won't be the same press that you got the first time they met since some random world series.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 11, 2005 -> 02:53 PM) Take a guy like Klesko last night, who has all 11 of his homers against rhp this season. I would much rather have Cotts face Klesko than Politte. Our Bullpen is starting to turn into a pretty good bullpen against righties, but I'm a bit concerned by our performance against the lefties. Hermanson is killing righties, but lefties are hitting over 300 against him. Cotts...well um, right handers seem to be hitting...get this....071 against Cotts. Lefties are hitting .278 against him. Marte...same sort of thing, righties hit .213 against him, lefties = .293. Politte...well lefties are hitting .174 against him and righties are hitting .140, so right now I could care less who he faces. Vizcaino and Shingo are struggling against both, although Viz has a history of being tough on lefties - just not this year, and Shingo last year was really tough on righties. Someone's gonna have to step up & get a little better against the lefties. Cotts or Marte are good candidates.

QUOTE(robinventura23 @ Jun 11, 2005 -> 11:47 AM) Anyway, don't know much about this Stauffer guy, but I hope he's no Eaton or Peavy. But MB hasn't had a decision since May 18. Almost a month. Tonight's a good a night as ever to get #8. Sadly, a lot of times it hasn't been Mark's fault, like that Extra-inning affair against the Angels. He was brilliant, team just couldn't get the runs. Seems like we can probably say that about almost every one of our starters except El Duque - we really owe Jose a few wins, and we've kinda let Garland down once or twice in the past few weeks. We owe Mark more than a couple of runs tonight.

QUOTE(SAVVY18 @ Jun 11, 2005 -> 02:58 PM) I actually use 3 spyware programs because 1 doesn't catch them all. I use the microsoft Beta, but I also use Adaware and spybot Search & Destroy. Here is a link to a bunch of free spyware programs: http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/security/fwantispy.html Adaware & Spybot are run on my computer quite often as well. I tried the Microsoft Spyware Beta but wasn't a big fan of it - it ate up a lot of computer cycles, and I tried to get it to set up to run an auto-scan every Friday when I was off at a discussion group, and for some reason it thought that Friday was Wednesday. If I have a problem in the future that Ad-Aware and Spybot can't fix, I'll consider reinstalling it, but I think I'm happier without it. I also have a program called "Spyware Blaster" which I find useful - supposedly it blocks your web browser from accessing spyware sites. I also have a "startup inspector" that shows me what programs start running when my computer starts up and lets me turn some of them off - another handy little gadget.

San Diego's been struggling. They lost 2 of 3 to Cleveland, we're "slightly" better than Cleveland, and we don't have to face either of their potential stoppers. L.A...we did you a favor today by helping you close in on the Padres, you did us a favor by knocking off the Twinkies. Let's repeat the favors tomorrow. Mark...Let's shoot for a 1 hour 50 minute game. I need to bike in to school to check on an experiment.

QUOTE(qwerty @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 11:49 PM) Why would a mediocore erstad have put us over the top and into the playoffs? This guy is extremely overpaid (7.5 this year and 8.5 the next). He also has a no trade clause included into his contract and i will never understand why. Some teams just give away no trade clauses like they're candy. I think that no trade clauses are pretty often signs of a bad GM/Owner. Almost everyone out there can find themselves in a situation where a trade could potentially help the team. Boston's philosophy is brilliant...they have like 5 guys who immediately get No Trade Clauses if they actually sign anyone to a no trade clause, but since no one has gotten one out of them, they have zero no trade clauses. That's how you structure some contracts. I can see maybe doing it with a veteran, a guy like Frank who's given a ton of service to your organization...but just as a sign of loyalty. That's the only reason it makes sense to me.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 11:55 PM) Erstad was a decent LH stick, something we lacked, and was also a good defensive player. Ross Gload.

One of the reasons the Wild Card teams have done so well the last few years is that the Wild Card is almost always very highly contested. That tends to select out the hottest team going into the playoffs. So you get the Marlins, the BoSox, the Angels, all of them when they're on fire. Conversely, the thinking is, if a team wrapped up their division a month ago, then they can get rusty. You can find examples of division winners who wrap up early who perform well and division winners who perform poorly. Atlanta wrapped it up early last year, and they came out terrible in the playoffs. St. Louis wrapped it up as early as anyone, and they came out & made the world series. On the other hand, the Angels won a very, very close division last year, with Vlad the Impaler carrying them to the end, and then they hit the Red Sox & were blown apart. There's just no science to it. Sometimes it helps your team to wrap up early because you can rest your starters. Sometimes it hurts because you're rusty. Until I see this team in October, I won't have a clue which one is better. I don't think there' sa formula to tell which way it'll be.

All you guys saying Timo could pitch... Don't you remember when Widger was warming up in that early Cleveland game? He's clearly our last pitching option.

Law's health is the reason he hasn't signed thus far. I think his health for next season should be called highly questionnable, especially given that he's been playing for quite a while now. That's a good reason not to make a major investment in him.

QUOTE(KipWellsFan @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 11:04 PM) http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/200...anns050610.html The reality of the mad cow situation in this nation is an absolute mess. Other nations test every single cow, or every single "downer" cow (cows that can't walk) for the disease. Other nations have far better testing equipment. Other nations make much more certain that cow parts aren't fed to other cattle, which is one major method of transmission. This nation doesn't even test every single downer cow. Cows that can't walk (one of the first symptoms of the disease) still make it into the food supply. Quite often in fact. If there really was another case, the U.S. almost certainly wouldn't know about it. In Japan, they instituted a program where they would test every cow, and they found multiple cows that were infected but showed no symptoms. In Britain, where it first started hitting, a few years after they had ignored the problem, people started turning up sick and dead. That is what I fear will happen here. The Cattle industry gives heavy political donations to the Republican party. The people running the regulatory agencies are literally lobbyists for the cattle industry. This situation won't change until people start dying. A year or so ago there was a farmer who wanted to test all of his cattle so that they could fetch a higher price on the open market. The lobbyists who run the regulatory agencies genuinely would not let him do that. They forced him to not test every one of his cattle, as is required to sell the beef in many countries. That is how corrupt this industry is. Eventually, it's going to cost a lot of lives. We can still maybe stop it now. A few years from now, it'll be too late.

QUOTE(ScottPodRulez22 @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:39 PM) Noe the box score says hermanson didnt give up and earned run his era is at 1.00. Rowand got the #4 web gem Excellent. ArRow earned that. I'm happy.

QUOTE(nvxplorer @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:36 PM) The error was for taking the extra base, not the whole play. Single, second on the error. I don't think there's anything ArRow could have done to avoid a double on that play other than give up on the ball. I don't like the error call there at all.

QUOTE(ScottPodRulez22 @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:33 PM) Agreed noway was that an error arow could done a better job but that still wasent an error. But if you look at it the other way atleast it dosent affect hermanson era. Good point, and no matter what ArRow will not be winning the center field gold glove, so I guess that's a nice thing. Lefties are hitting better than .300 against Hermy right now...that's a bit of a concern for me going forward. Especially if Marte's down for more than a day or two.

QUOTE(knightni @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:29 PM) I can give ARow one But he made an error too. That play was not an error, no matter what the official scorer says.

QUOTE(knightni @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:25 PM) Cotts Crede's D timely hitting!!! Don't forget ArRow's diving catch in the 7th to save the win for Jon (otherwise he leaves the game with it tied 3-3)....

1 or 2 more of these, and we'll have the 2nd Sox pitcher in 3 years starting the All Star game for the AL. Might have the 2nd guy to come into the game also. He pitches tomorrow.

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:25 PM) Crede gets defensive mvp of the game. Now its time to cheer on the dodgers for the rest of the night. Hate to say it...but even with that miss in the 9th, that play by Rowand in the 7th gives him my Defensive MVP. Saved 2 runs with one dive. Now that's a web gem. We better have somethin in the web gems list on ESPN tonight.

QUOTE(ScottPodRulez22 @ Jun 10, 2005 -> 09:24 PM) AND THATS A WHITESOX WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 wins for Big Jon Garland, Garland Y-ES! Oh, and Uribe, Crede, and Rowand on Defense -

Man, that 2-1 pitch has been called a strike all night. Full Count...

Did ya know that lefties are hitting over .300 against Hermy, and righties are hitting less than .200? He's past the 2 tough lefties. I like where we're at.

MY GOD THE LEFT SIDE OF OUR INFIELD IS DOING AMAZING! JOE AND JUAN...Y-ES!