Balta1701

God I hate it when the Sox do stuff like that in the 9th inning.

Ballgame

2-2 now...down to their last bullet.

2-0 on Alomar

Passed Ball

Tying run at the plate in the form of Sandy Alomar.

QUOTE(Sox Hustler @ May 17, 2005 -> 07:12 PM) That guy needs to go into a dead arm period. If Johan does bad the Twins do real bad. That is if their starters don't step it up which they usually do but anytime Johan is bad its bad for the Twins. It's also not impossible - in April and May last year Santana started off with an ERA over 5.5. He got hot at the end of the season, but I think that reality for him can't be as good as he was at the end of 2004.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ May 17, 2005 -> 01:41 PM) Neifi Perez, Jose Macias, and Enrique Wilson all on the same roster. Good lord. How many crappy infielders does one team need? Is Hendry's main goal of the season to hoard as many of these scrubs as he can? And people think Kenny is a bad GM. :rolly The question is not how many crappy infielders does one team need...the actual question is how many crappy infielders can 1 team put on the DL.

QUOTE(Texsox @ May 17, 2005 -> 03:41 PM) When I visit Cooperstown, and relive baseball history through the players, I want to see and read about Maris. For that reason, he should be in. I always look beyond career stats. Santo should be in also. When Sox fans agree, you know he must be deserving. I was always taught that the Hall of Fame was based on career stats. In order to get in, you had to be great for a long time. If Albert Pujols retired right now, would you call him a hall of famer? I wouldn't. Maris's season should be recognized there. But he should not have a plaque along with the others. 1 season does not make a career.

QUOTE(SoxFan1 @ May 17, 2005 -> 03:15 PM) I wouldn't mess with anything all you Jerry Manuels! Stop tinkering! It's been working, leave it! Those who fail to plan for the future plan to fail...

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 17, 2005 -> 03:26 PM) People said this about Crede last year and Valentin. I hope we arent sitting with Kong at 210 in August in a pennant race. If Konerko is hitting .210 come July, I'll be calling either for a trade or for Gload to take his spot. Supposedly Gload can play some near gold-glove caliber 1b, and if he can pull things together as a .300 hitter like he was last year, even with less power his average would improve the offense. Hopefully Paulie will pull things out. It's not like he's not hitting the ball - I don't know if I've ever seen a guy hit that many hard balls down the left field line that are either caught by the 3b or go just foul.

QUOTE(Steff @ May 17, 2005 -> 02:18 PM) Are you being sarcastic Kap...?? I think it's a good idea to move John or Mark in the middle of 3 & 4. At this point it makes no difference. I hope they keep eating as well.. any wagers one who hits 242 IP first... This year, I seriously doubt that we'll have anyone come close to 242 IP. One of the reasons Mark was so high in IP last year was that for a big chunk of our season, our 5th starter was Mr. "Off Day." In other words...MB almost never got to go on 5 or 6 days rest - he was ALWAYS on 4 days rest. This year, we have 5 legitimate starting pitchers, along with at least 1 backup starting pitcher sitting in AAA. In other words, when there's an off day, the pitchers should actually get an extra day of rest. There shouldn't be much of the ol' 5th starter = off day stuff that we've had to do. This'll probably cost MB a start or two during the year, but on the other hand, it gets all of our guys more rest, so when Sept. comes around, maybe they're a bit more ready to go than previous years.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ May 17, 2005 -> 01:16 PM) Laziness is inexcusable!!!! Either way, I think that Dye, in my eyes, has proven himself worthless. And I would like to see someone try and win that position. I am starting the clock today. If on June 15th, Dye is still hovering around the Mendoza line, I'll agree with you and say his chances to prove himself have expired.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ May 17, 2005 -> 01:12 PM) Well if the number slots are garbage, than that just adds to my point that there is no reason to move up. Garland is our number 1 today. Tommorow it's Mark, next is Freddy. Simply no need to move him. No need to break up the Cuban Connection because both of them have been pitching better than expectations. Even if their pitching better than expectations, they're still averaging about 6.5 innings pitched per start. Garland is averaging better than 7.5, and so is Mark. That means that our bullpen is getting more use in the games pitched by the Cubans, and since they're pitching back to back, that means our pen is being taxed 2 nights in a row. By inserting Garland/Buehrle between them, you get on average an extra inning out of yoru starter, and you make it less likely that your bullpen has to go multiple innings on consecutive nights, thus making it so that your pen is fresher when they are needed to hold games started by the Cubans.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ May 17, 2005 -> 01:09 PM) Let's get this straight. Konerko has never been on fire this year. When he got to 7 home runs after hitting 2 in a game at Comiskey, he was leading the league in that, hitting like .280, leading the team in RBI's. Right after that, his slump started.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ May 17, 2005 -> 01:10 PM) 137 Atbats in AAA. Still not a lot, although I stand corrected as being too lazy to check myself.

In terms of Anderson callups, let's also not forget that he's only had about 50 or so at bats total at AAA. I don't like the idea of trading him, but I like the idea of bringing him up even less.

At the All-star break last year, I was calling Greg Walker one of the better (if not best) hitting coaches in the league. Last year, Juan Uribe came to the Sox, and his bat absolutely went wild the first half. On top of that, Paul Konerko managed to turn around his terrible 2003 season and was on fire in 2004. Thomas was hitting hard until he got hurt, and so was Ordonez, although I doubt Walker spent much time with them. Carlos Lee had a nearly 30 game hitting streak. Aaron Rowand suddenly found the bat everyone was saying he had. And even guys like Gload were hitting .300 off the bench. Last year I was ready to bow down and worship the job Greg Walker was doing as White Sox hitting coach. When guys turn around their entire career with a new hitting coach, I felt that was saying something. This year, my confidence in Walker is rapidly turning into concern, and I want to hear other opinions on it. This year, we started very hot with some of our key bats. Crede was hitting over .300 for a while. Konerko was on Fire. Everett came back from a terrible 2004 and was driving in runs left and right. Podsednik was improving from his dismal .240 average last year. But that only lasted a few weeks. Now what do we see? We see Jermaine Dye mired in a month and a half long slump that he can't seem to find his way out of, despite receiving help from Walker. We've seen the surge from Konerko completely disappear, and both his and Dye's averages have dropped below .200. We've seen Crede lose about 40 points from his batting average with a slump of his own. We've seen Aaron Rowand start off another season slowly, even though it seems he may be hitting his stride this week. We've seen Uribe have his own difficulties, and his average has dropped below .270. And Podsednik has been both up and down - his average was in the .250's a week ago. Not to say there haven't been successes this year. Tadahito Iguchi is clearly one, although I doubt Walker has much input there given the language barrier. My question then is this; how long does this go on before if nothing else, we start considering whether a new hitting coach might get through to these guys better? In 2003, we dumped our hitting coach after a few months of our hitters playing like they are now. I had a lot of confidence in the job Greg Walker was doing after last year. But this year, I'm really starting to wonder. With guys like Dye and Konerko seemingly unable to pull themselves out of slumps, and quite a few comment-writers here saying they have seen decent flaws in their hitting technique, how long should we let this continue before we start wondering what Walker is doing?

QUOTE(kane0730 @ May 17, 2005 -> 10:35 AM) At this point in the season the "#5 spot" doesn't mean anything. Everyone is a #1. I'd like to see someone (Jon or Mark) in between the Cuban Connection. I agree totally. I can't stand this "Starter number" junk that people seem to put some much time in. If your starter is a number "5" starter, half the time he'll probably end up facing the other team's number 1 starter, depending on how many rain-outs and double headers each team has. Paying attention to the "Number" of the starter after opening day just wastes my time. Garland probably should split up the Cubans for the bullpen's sake, because right now John is pulling in more innings than Garcia, Contreras, or El Duque. If Garland is going 7 or 8, he'll give the pen a day of rest in the middle. I think that's a good idea.

QUOTE(marsh @ May 17, 2005 -> 06:15 AM) I think it's safe to say that the pitching domination honeymoon is over. I think the staff will still be good but not 1 or 2 runs per game good. Also I'm not gonna be too quick to jump on the pitching because I think that they have been responsible for like 75% to 80% of our wins this year. It's the offense that needs to wake up. I'll grant you we're not going to have a team ERA of 1, but I still have a ton of confidence in this staff. There seems to be no one on this board questioning Buehrle, and that's how it should be. Freddie Garcia has his good and bad games, walks too many people, etc, but his numbers still seem like they're going to hover around where he has been for his whole career. His career ERA is 3.94, this year it's 4.03. He'll have games where he struggles, and he'll have games where he dominates. He'll usually end up winning you more games than he loses, even though he'll lose some. That's why he's not a number 1 starter. El Duque had 1 bad game. His ERA with the Yankees the last 2 years has hovered around 3. Right now, it's at 2.91. The guy's a veteran. He'll be fine. Last year he was 8-2 on a Yankees team desperate for pitching, coming right off of arm surgery. Without him, that club probably missed the playoffs entirely last year. Every pitcher is entitled to their bad outings. The goal is to get guys who have more good outings than bad. And honestly, I've seen more from Contreras the last few starts that has given me hope for him than It hought I would. Yeah, his start in Tampa was awful. But his start against Baltimore honestly wasn't that bad. He was making good pitches. Baltimore was just an awfully hot hitting club, and when guys are as hot as Brian Roberts, no matter what you do sometimes you can't stop them. On top of that, his start against the Royals was excellent, even if they are the Royals. The pitching hasn't gone very far down at all from where they were earlier this season, even if 3 guys have had bad starts in the last 2 weeks. We were due for a few. The problem on this team is still the hitting.

QUOTE(Controlled Chaos @ May 17, 2005 -> 08:49 AM) I like the lineup. It's similar to one I suggested back when we were playing the A's and I wanted the speed out there. Somebody suggested I was a wacko for having Willie DH, but he has the good speed we need to manufacture runs and we're not losing Everetts bat. I think Ozzie had Willie as DH in a game last week which made me grin with a 'I told you so' smile. I guess you choose your poison with either the Willie in center option or Everett in right and Willie DH. Either way I like that lineup for a few games. I can buy the Everett/Dye in right and Willie DHing more than I can Arow in right and Willie there. With Aaron's range, I just want him in CF, especially if we're tinkering with the lineup at all - he can help cover the gap created by sticking someone else in right.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ May 17, 2005 -> 08:26 AM) Willie in center is a terrible idea in my opinion. Why move A-row from his position to put a below average center fielder in that spot, it makes no sense. I agree. During the pre-season, there was a bit of a discussion between Aaron and Pods over who was going to get to play CF - they both wanted it because lots of guys think it's easier to get hurt playing one of the corners. Aaron won't want to give up CF now that he's got it.

QUOTE(DABearSoX @ May 16, 2005 -> 07:29 AM) Thats exactly what I am saying....but he isnt looking like a #2 right now....but just like the everyday players it shouldnt matter how much you are getting paid if your scrubbin it up you should get demoted and get your head straight Somehow, this guy has always kept his ERA as one of the top 10 best in the league, no matter how bad the team behind him was. His ERA still isn't that bad. Hopefully, he's due for a good start or two to get his numbers back where they should be.

QUOTE(shakes @ May 13, 2005 -> 01:27 PM) I have a feeling who most would pick, but I'm interested to know. Well, at least we won't have to worry about having people work on 3 days rest.

QUOTE(AddisonStSox @ May 13, 2005 -> 11:53 AM) Does anyone else think Roberts and Soriano should be the second-baseman respresentatives before Iguchi anyway? If Roberts keeps this up, he should be an all-star no question. He's putting up numbers like Uribe put up the first 2 months last year. I don't know about Soriano. I've never really liked him as a player, and a lot of other people don't either. He hits a lot of home runs, but has never been great on defense. Iguchi is hitting like 40 points better than him right now and plays much better defense - Soriano already has 6 errors. Iguchi has 1. Their OPS is almost the same, which means Iguchi's OBP is also much higher. I'd call it a toss-up between the two, barring a power surge by Iguchi, which could still happen.