Greg Hibbard

Mojo.

TEAHEN DH

My first ever game thread. Been savin' up the mojo, boys.

August 8 through 23, 2005 was pretty bad.

they really gonna go ahead and start game 2 at 10:10pm CDT?

And this season is ova.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 20, 2010 -> 12:22 PM) Yeah, its also unsustainable. There is almost they play like that for 6 more weeks - that would mean they'd go 51-16 to close out the season, which would be just unreal. They don't need to play like that...21-20 gets them 91 wins...which would mean the Sox would have to go 25-16 just to tie.

I looked back...21-6 is their record over the last 27 - that's a pretty unreal clip against AL competition. It's a miracle we aren't further back.

The differences in schedule: Sox play one more road game in detroit than the twins, they each play 3 home and 3 away in addition. (edge to twins) We play 6 games @ LAA and Oak, Twins have 6 against them at home (big edge to twins) They play Texas for 7 (3 home /4 away), we play Boston for 7 (4/3) (slight edge to sox) We host NYY for 3, they host Toronto for 4. (edge to twins) We both play 15 games vs. bottom feeders (they play Cle, KC and Sea, we play Cle, KC and Bal) - but we have 9 home games, whereas they have 6. (slight edge to sox) I think we need a sweep at the Cell to have a shot...

As noted, I do not think we make any more stupid plays than any other team. I thought last night the Twins did as many stupid things as the Sox. The #1a issue for me is the lineups. Ozzie Guillen consistently fields a lineup that gives him a lesser chance to win than he should. Putting AJ in that lineup last night was inexcusable. Do you realize he has 27 TOTAL home runs in his career vs. Left handed pitching? This year he's hitting .211 vs. left. And you put him up against one of the best left handers in the league? He has a .654 career OPS vs. left. Where is the logic? He cannot help you. Obviously we all know about Ozzie's undying love for Kotsay, which has been constantly predicated on him being left-handed and breaking up a series of rightys. If the right/left matchups are so f***ing important, Ozzie, why do you choose to ignore things like batting splits when filling out the lineup card? This has been something that has just killed us all year. The #1b issue for me is that we are almost exclusively a fastball-hitting club. Almost no one on our club hits offspeed pitches well, particularly Ramirez and Konerko. Every key out pitch recently seems like a change or slider out of the zone that badly fools one of our hitters.

The Twins have made a couple of stupid plays this series - one of them was Kubel inexplicably trying to stretch a single into a double last night and running into the second out with a man on third. Liriano also tried to start an impossible double play with a clear out at home.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Aug 18, 2010 -> 07:54 PM) That slider is nasty to ALL righties, its just not Alexei. The last four outs I've seen Alexei make were on essentially the same pitch. Didn't Baker get him twice last night on low offspeed stuff out of the zone

So how long til the rest of the league figures out that low off speed stuff well out of the zone will get alexei out 100% of the time

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Aug 18, 2010 -> 02:36 PM) You mean something like rallying from behind 2x in the same game? I've seen a lot of evidence that this team can almost win a game against the Twins.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 18, 2010 -> 11:54 AM) hahahaha, a done deal before we even play the next two games? This is a message forum; I was expressing an opinion. You have confidence that the White Sox will win the next two games, I take it. Is this, perhaps, setting up one of those "real fans" rants? I have seen nothing from this team to indicate they are capable of doing what it takes to beat the Twins head to head, outside of a pure fluke.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 18, 2010 -> 09:28 AM) It's too bad they're not filming The Club anymore. I'd love to hear Ozzie in the clubhouse after last night. Kenny too. I'm pretty sure they would have led the team in a rousing round of applause for their beloved Twins.

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Aug 18, 2010 -> 10:47 AM) This isn't little league. They won't become afraid of the ball. Of course not. However, they won't live on the inside of the plate and you take the bat out of the hands of their best hitter, which gets frustrating.

IMO, put it at a 6 game lead because it is a done deal. The most important thing is to LEARN something from this, but I don't know that that's possible with this organizational structure in place. Stubbornness is a hallmark of Guillen's tenure, and until his tenure is over, we have to live with "his way". Our only hope (and it is a slim one) is that they lose 6 of 7 vs. Texas and we are able to beat other teams and make it a race during the last two weeks of the season.

I've been calling for them to throw at Mauer for the last 3 head to head games. If there's two outs in the first and nobody on, I'd do it. I'd do it the next time he comes up too if there was no warning and the situation warranted it. The White Sox desperately need to find a way to intimidate that team.

This team is built to be about a .500 AL team, like it is built to be every single year, and an awful lot of that is because of the division we play in. Year in and year out, 87, 89, 91 wins does it in the AL central. Sure, there are exceptions, but that's the general level. In the AL east, year in and year out it's a 100 win division minimum, with 95 usually getting the WC. We always construct this team to be competitive in this division. Gammons had an interesting thought going into the season - he said the entire organizational strategy is predicated that they will be built to be competitive every year, to always have around 80 wins minimum, and that the organization plays for that one "lightening-in-a-bottle" swing that takes us the 10 games over we need to be in order to ultimately win the division. He said that's been the M.O. going back to the end of the Schuler days. Look at the late 90s - we were still hanging around 80 wins year in and year out. We happen to generally dominate the NL because of the style of play that the GM and manager have agreed to build the team around. If we were playing in the AL east, we'd be a 70-75 win team, as built. An interesting note is that the Toronto Blue Jays might just be running away with the division if they played in the Central.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 12:02 PM) The Rays took 2/3 from Houston, 1/3 from the Marlins, 1/3 from the Braves, 1/3 from the Padres, and 1/3 from the Diamondbacks. They had two series with the Marlins, going 2-4. Certainly the D-backs are as bad as the Nats, Cubs and Pirates, but I don't know if the Marlins are in that bad of a class.

Check this out: August records, 2010: NYY 6-9 TBR 8-7 BOS 8-7 TOR 9-5 BAL 10-5 MIN 10-4 CHW 7-8 DET 6-9 CLE 6-8 KCR 5-9 TEX 6-7 LAA 7-6 OAK 5-9 SEA 7-7 There is something to be said for the dog days argument. The Twins have been hot, winning all six of their home games against two pretty bad teams (oak and sea) and going .500 on the road. All the other competitors are slumping this month.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 11:46 AM) There is currently 1 other AL team legitimately in the race for a pennant this season with crap as their DH. The Rangers, Yankees, Twins, and Red Sox all have OPS's out of their DH spot at around .800 or above (the lowest, the Yankees, is .796, and part of that is probably Teixeira's godawful start). That team is the Rays. The Sox have a .703 OPS out of their DH spot, the Rays have a .701 OPS out of their DH spot. The Rays went 7-11 in interleague play. The Sox kicked the NL's ass in part because they played 4 series with three of the very worst teams in baseball.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 11:33 AM) More proof that Ozzie just needs to go manage in the NL where his style is more effective. No matter who was managing the White Sox, we would still kick the NL's ass, and our team would still be constructed with holes in it because our GM tells us we have to live with choices like Mark Kotsay for budgetary reasons.

We always play interleague in the first half.... Check out our AL only 1st half vs. AL only 2nd half since 2008. Obviously, in 2004-2007 the story is different, but over the last three years the AL only records are nearly identical splits. 2010: 37-38 / 16-15 2009: 33-37 / 34-40 2008: 42-35 / 35-33 Total: 112-110 (.505) / 85-88 (.491)