Frankensteiner

Billy Beane really assembled a gem of a lineup for that team. Going through that lineup's OPS numbers is down right pathetic: .663, .686, .809, .878, .707, .700, .791, .659, .624.

Absolutely HUGE game from Jose given the way our starters have been pitching. Jose has to avoid any prolonged slumps because our 3-4-5 don't look like they'll get out of their incosistant ways any time soon.

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 07:54 PM) The hard part is not who you trade for. The hard part is which highly paid player do you try and convince to move to the bullpen? You shouldn't have to "try and convince" them of anything. We shouldn't have to handle these guys with kid gloves if they're underachieving like this.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 07:40 PM) We've invested too much in this rotation. We have money to spend. There's no way KW's pride should get in the way of winning.

Are people finally getting ready to admit this staff needs a shake-up? Freddy's ERA now at 4.72. With Boston in town next, it won't be too long before we have 3 pitchers with 5+ ERAs.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 07:41 PM) Widger's been bad with basically every pitcher we have. There's a reason his CERA is over 5.5. What was his CERA last season?

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 07:36 PM) First post in a while, but Widger's game-calling disgusts me. He has a 2-2 pitch on Patterson, one of the worst breaking ball hitters in baseball. What does he call? A Garcia 86 mph fastball! Same thing with that last pitch to Millar. The only pitch he can hit in an inside fastball. I think Garcia's 86 mph meatballs are a bigger problem than Widger's game-calling. I don't think Widger changed much from 2005, and we didn't hear complaints about his game-calling then. The pitching has been awful lately plain and simple.

Don't you dare complain about our rotation. We're 53-28.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 02:11 PM) My mistake if it was sarcastic. Well, I made the avatar last year when the Sox were struggling to score runs, so it wasn't entirely sarcastic. However, fitting "I don't think Greg Walker is doing a very good job" on a picture of that size is somewhat of a problem.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 01:49 PM) Symptomatic. How is Greg Walker worthless? Maybe you shouldn't take things so literally? Calling the original post (or pretty much any of the supposedly negative posts around here) "devoid of any factual support" is exactly the type of snobby tone with wich many of these concerns are met. This is why I agree with Milkman with his assesment of the board.

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 01:40 PM) Let's start with your avatar... What is that have to do with anything?

QUOTE(RibbieRubarb @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 01:27 PM) :headshake Have you been reading the threads here? I mean Jesus, just start with this one.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 11:13 AM) You don't understand. There is no middle ground on Soxtalk. You're either completely optimistic 100% of the time in people's eyes, or you're completely negative 100% of the time. I'm very pessimistic admittedly, but a lot of other people catch tons of s*** just for mentioning one negative thing. Then, you get all the people saying they're overreacting or saying the sky is falling. That right there is soxtalk in a nutshell. You can't voice legitimate concerns about the team without someone jumping down your throat.

Can we have Smoltz as a throw-in?

He'll get my vote of course, but with the exception of Ramon Hernandez, all the other players are more deserving.

Next time Hawk and DJ are "interactive" someone should email Hawk and ask about... "DJ, this is the best 5 man rotation I've ever seen."

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 04:31 PM) This better be one of those "one bad start a year" occasions. It's more like one of those "one bad start out of the 5 bad starts a year" occasions.

This is a bad loss, but we also had our share of bad losses last season. It's no biggie. On the other hand, our starting pitchers absolutely need to stop f***ing around. We need quality starts from Garcia and Count these next 2 days.

If whoever is running the O's settles for anything less than B-Mac, he should be fired immediately. And if I'm KW, I don't trade McCarthy for anything less than a young, dominating starting pitcher (if there even is one out there, and Willis is really the only one who would fit that criteria).

I really can't get all hot and bothered over Politte because we've known he's sucked for quite some time now and we weren't going to rely on him for anything meaningful anyway. Our starters blowing chunks is the real problem here.

QUOTE(CWSOX45 @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 03:49 PM) One problem, who is out there that is ACTUALLY a drastic improvement over what we have. The guys that we have now have proven they can shut down offenses in the past, maybe our pitching is just having a down year, just like how we had offensive struggles last year. Let's face it, there's not that many significant upgrades to what we already have for a starting rotation. That's a good point and there may not be anything out there that dramatically improves our rotation. However, I'm just hoping KW approaches it with an open mind instead of thinking "well, I'm paying these guys a lot of money, we have to give them time..." If we can get a top notch starter, I wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 03:37 PM) Um, he's definitely one of our biggest problems. The mop up guy is a bigger problem than 3 starters with ERAs above 4.50? The mop up guy is a bigger problem than a starting CF hitting .170? Not to me.

QUOTE(shawnhillegas @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 03:31 PM) yeah, and i love being in second place too. I was being sarcastic. I know this team has holes, but too many people hide behind our record. Still, I don't think Cliff Politte is even close to being our biggest problem.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 03:27 PM) If Politte isn't out of here after this game We're 53-27. Get off the ledge.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Jul 2, 2006 -> 03:27 PM) I've seen enough! Angel f***ing Pagan? Politte is done! Kenny needs to get us another reliever. ASAP! There's at least 1 or 2 in our starting rotation. We need starters.