pcullotta

No runs for Arizona in their half of the second. After 1 1/2, DBacks 2 - Sox 1

Valido does a nice job moving Owens to third. Thome then gets the runner in on a ground out.

Owens safe on error by second baseman, then steals second

Is it just me or does that sound exactly like Rick Vaughn in Major League 2?

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Sep 21, 2006 -> 09:01 AM) Instead BA gets to play against all the tough left handers when he hits righties much better. That is not protecting him. I agree, Ozzie does play the Righty/Lefty matchup game wrong a lot of the time (Especially with Iguchi). I was just wondering whether or not BA would have done as well as he did in the second half if he had to face all the pitchers he was spared from. Direct quote from Ozzie - "Right now, Mackowiak is going to be in against tough righties until we see Brian start swinging the bat better." From the Tribune - White Sox OF Rob Mackowiak may play more against right-handed pitchers due to the struggles of rookie OF Brian N. Anderson in center field. I'm not saying BA didn't face tough pitchers. Every Major League player does. I am saying Ozzie did try to protect him from pitchers he didn't think BA could handle.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Sep 19, 2006 -> 01:04 PM) Little bit of fun here. Brian Anderson hit .161 in April, .167 in may, and .191 in June. Post All Star, he has hit .285. In the 2nd half, Rob Mackowiak has 80 at bats. He has hit .250 in those at bats, almost Podsednik territory. Just for fun, I figured I would like to know what would have happened had Ozzie shut up and Played Anderson almost every game in CF after the break except for the occasional day off or late inning pinch hit situation. So if I were to give Anderson another 80 at bats in the 2nd half...if his 2nd half numbers were to go unchanged (and not improve with even more experience), here would be his season line: .245 batting average, .300 OBP. Considering how bad he started off, that wouldn't be a bad season at all. It is true that BA's average climbed extremely well in the second half but it is also true that Ozzie did not play BA against a lot of tough pitchers (especially tough right handers). I wonder if his average would have continued climbing at that pace if he had to face all of the pitchers Ozzie protected him from. This is also why we had to put up with Mack in CF for all those games. Everyone yelled "why is Mack out there when BA is hitting .300 this month" but no one wanted to mention that BA was doing it against pitchers Ozzie thought would be easier for him. Of course no one will ever know what BA could have done against those tough pitchers but I just wanted to throw that out there.

From Elias - Bobby Jenks recorded his 40th save of the season in the White Sox's win over the Angels. Jenks, who was a rookie last year, is the third pitcher to notch at least 40 saves in either his first or second season in the major leagues. Kaz Sasaki had 45 saves in his sophomore year, 2001, and Chad Cordero had 47 saves last year, his second season.

QUOTE(AbeFroman @ Aug 31, 2006 -> 03:14 PM) Jumping totally off topic, My comcast bill is outrageous. I get Cable and Internet. I subscribe to HBO, DVR, and OnDemand. My monthly bill is 143 bucks. That seems like a lot. I'm thinking about calling them to tell them I might switch... see if they will lower the rate. Anyone have any success with that type of thing? Thats about right. I have every cable channel, on demand, internet, and DVR and mine is like 154. Plus the Hockey package in the winter.

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Aug 31, 2006 -> 02:46 PM) Yo what's going on!? Some of us can't see a TV right now! top of the sixth, 1 - 1, runner on third with one out

Our 7,8,9, and 1 hitters (AJ, Cintron, BA, Ozuna, and Pods as PH) went a combined 0 for 16 yesterday with no walks and 11 left on base. Ouch.

That was absolutely awesome!!!! Incredible Job!!!!

QUOTE(JimH @ Jul 25, 2006 -> 11:36 AM) Regarding yelling at Garland and Tracey, heck I would prefer it didn't happen in public but believe it when I say there is a lot worse stuff that goes on in every dugout in the major leagues. He is trying to protect his players from getting plunked, he is tired of it and so am I. But one thing I will say is, if he's angry about baseball's rules, that's his problem because he isn't gonna change them. Therefore maybe he needs to take the initiative instead of getting all worked up when one of his guys gets hit. I agree with most of what you're saying. One thing I worry about though is that when he pubically states We will strke back or We won't take that crap he is almost asking for the other team to bean our guys by acting like such a tough guy.

QUOTE(JimH @ Jul 25, 2006 -> 11:06 AM) The point being, the players are the ones who perform and get the job done, or in the case of the White Sox recently, don't get the job done. Regarding his "rant on the manager" thread yesterday, every single point he made blaming the manager is actually a case of a player not performing. He is a guy who shows faith in his players, he showed tons of faith in Garland last year, in direct contrast to what Manuel did. Guess what, Garland blossomed. Coincidence? I think not. He has shown faith in Garcia this year, Garcia has been mediocre at best but he pitched extremely well his last outing. Start of a turnaround? Who knows. Buerhle has been awful lately, should he yank him out of the rotation or show faith in him? He'll show faith in Buehrle. Vazquez pitched into the 6th last nite on a relatively low pitch count, personally I saw no reason for him to come out for the 7th even though he made two decent pitches and got beat on the two HR's. I suspect they will go to 12 pitchers shortly, KW will acquire someone and it wouldn't surprise me if they were showcasing Gload (that didn't work out either, he went 0-4 I think). Talk about losing your team, losing your clubhouse, etc. - ask any fired manager who didn't show faith in his players and they'll tell you it's the quickest way to lose the clubhouse. And at the end of the day, if the manager shows faith in the players and they don't succeed, that means they need better players. As for misusing players, that can be argued all day and all nite. If the guy succeeds it was a good move, if he doesn't, it's a bad move. Personally I think the manager gets too much credit and too much blame. Players around the league want to play here, he gets credit for that. But ultimately, to me, it falls on the players. It is their job to perform. I trust that's adding enough to the thread pcullota. It is, that's much more entertaining to read then your previous post. Very well thought out as well and it displays your opinion much better then just taking a jab at someone's post. And if you didn't mean to take a jab, I'm sorry. I don't intend to start arguments. Anyways, It truly is hard to tell whether or not the manager is distracting the team or if the players are just off. Right now, I believe the players are causing the problem more then anything. I just don't want to see Ozzie making even more negative headlines for us.

QUOTE(JimH @ Jul 25, 2006 -> 10:26 AM) Where is your rant thread about the players? You know, the ones who haven't been getting the job done? Maybe you already did one a month or two ago and I apologize if I missed it. If so, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before you bump it up from oblivion. Boy, you sure did add a lot to this thread Vafan brings up a good point. When this thread was started, we were optimistic and really controlled our own destiny. If we would've played well during this stretch, we'd be in great shape. However, we have played like crap and it really is annoying that all you hear about are Ozzie's issues. I mean Jon pitched an unbelievable game and afterwards all you see on the highlight shows is Ozzie slamming a water bottle and yelling at Jon in the dugout. We won the game and the top story is Ozzie flips out again because his pitcher didn't bean someone. I agree Ozzie should be focusing on getting this team turned around right now. Not on starting fights with reporters or other teams.

For what it's worth, ESPN didn't break the story. The story was reported first by the Associated Press. Not necessarily ESPN. Every story from that point was taken from the same AP source. Even the story on ESPN's front page said "Information from The Associated Press and SportsTicker was used in this report."

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Jul 21, 2006 -> 10:53 PM) Even after Russ Ortiz's no outs, 6 run night? According to ESPN, yes

Since July 2nd, Mark Buerhle is Dead Last in MLB in ERA with a 13.81 and also dead last in Hits per 9 innings with 18.9.

QUOTE(hammerhead johnson @ Jul 13, 2006 -> 01:37 AM) There are 21 players with 15 or more SBs, and Pods ranks dead last in percentage. 21. Scott Podsednik 70% (29-41) That was a great post. Here is a link to the Baseball Prospectus article that goes over the "Stolen Base Percentage has to be over 75%" argument. BP Article

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 11:36 AM) Then why did you feel the need to throw this into 2 of your posts? Because I am not a BA hater and I didn't want people to just start posting "Yeah, Anderson Sucks" replies. I just don't think that his recent play is anything to get excited about.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 11:30 AM) Keep this thread to Andruw Jones, you say you don't want to make it into another Brian Anderson bashing thread? Then don't, quit talking about him and stick to Jones. I'm sorry man but we are talking about replacing Brian Anderson with Andruw Jones. Obviously Brian is going to have to be brought up.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 10:57 AM) His overall number will not look good at the end of the year, that's just the way it is, he's dug too deep a hole. Do yourself a favor and see what he's done it his past 12 games instead of being so incredibly dense. First off, I don't know why you have to come off like such an asshole. I have been nothing but extremely polite in this thread and your post is an example of why I don't normally post. Moving along, in his last seven games, BA is hitting .154 with 0 HR, 0 RBI and an OPS of .522. Furthermore, here is a comparison from May 26th. Juan Uribe was batting .193 then and BA was batting .163. Since then, Uribe's AVG has gone up 45 points while BA's has gone up 13 points. I know BA isn't gonna hit .270. However, I need to see more then 13 points improvement. I like BA. If you read my other comments you would see that. I was just pointing out that his recently improved offense has been taken way out of context. In the horrible movie Little Big League, a bad hitter gets one of his rare hits and the manager gets excited. His Asst. Coach says "kid , don' t you think something's wrong when you get this excited over a seeing eye single." It seems like every time BA gets a hit, everyone thinks he's turned the corner. I hope he does but I haven't seen it yet.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 09:10 AM) Might not, but I know that Garland, Rowand and Crede were given more than half a season to get their s*** together. I understand what you're saying but I'm not sure those are fair comparisons. In 2002, Joe got into 53 Games and hit .285 with 12 Homers and an OPS of .826. In his first full season, 2003, he hit .261 with 19 HR, 75 RBI, and an OPS of .741. For Aaron, in 2001 he got into 63 games and hit .293 with an OPS of .816. Jon's first full season came in 2001 when he was only 6-7 but he had an ERA of 3.69. Currently Brian's OPS is at .579 after 62 games this season. Again, I don't want this to turn into a BA bashing thread but I don't think you can compare BA to Garland, Rowand, or Crede. All three of them performed much better early in their careers.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Jul 3, 2006 -> 08:24 AM) When BA comes around on offense, all this Jones talk will die. And when do you anticipate that will be? I don't want this to turn into a BA bashing thread because I like Brian, but how can you just assume his offense will come around?

Didn't see this posted anywhere. From ESPN: CF Jeremy Reed broke his right thumb attempting to catch a sinking line drive in the 11th inning of the Mariners' 4-3 loss to Colorado. His current numbers are not very good: AVG .217 | HR 6 | RBI 17 | OBP .260 | SLG .377 | SB 2 in 67 Games

QUOTE(Steve9347 @ Jun 29, 2006 -> 01:02 PM) wow, Chris Singleton just announced the single-least excited double-play call in the history of baseball broadcasting. I totally agree. That was a pretty big double play and Chris announced it like the score was 20 to 2.