Dick Allen

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Aug 26, 2006 -> 11:03 AM) Pretty pathetic that we couldn't sell out a Friday night game against a division rival late in the season, during a pennant race. The game should have been sold out weeks in advance. I was very surprised by that, considering there were fireworks as well. It was pretty close to full though.

QUOTE(Chet Lemon @ Aug 26, 2006 -> 09:40 AM) I was a Neal Cotts fan as he came up through our farm system and I thought he would be great out of the bullpen even before the '05 season, but he is worthless know. I was in KC about a month ago watching him pitch after a rain delay, and it was a joke. Not to mention ever since then. Is it possible to option him to AAA until he shows he can get guys out? I don't know who to replace him with, but this guy pushes me to the ledge as much as Marte did. He's awful right now no question, but he isn't going to Charlotte. Their season is over in a week, and then they have playoffs.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Aug 26, 2006 -> 09:00 AM) Yeah whatever happens this season, if we don't win World Series it's probably going to be seen as a failure from the majority of our fans. And I just find that dissappointing, especially when you have a look at how many good teams there are in the A.L this season. My dissappointment comes from not being able to play .500 the second half, and the way most of the pitching staff is getting hit hard. If the Sox were just 1 game under .500 since the All Star break, they would be at most 3 1/2 out of the division lead, and 1 1/2 at least over Minnesota Its not fair to compare any season to 2005 whether you're an optimist or pessimist. That was, at least up until now, a once in a lifetime season. If the White Sox finish in 3rd place in the division, I don't think you can think of it as anything but a total failure. If that makes me a bad fan, so be it, because there is a whole bunch of White Sox personnel OG and JR and KW included that would think its a total failure as well. Making the playoffs would be a successful season. DJ had a great point the other day about the theory of the toll the playoffs have on pitchers. He doesn't buy it, and pointed out that most of these guys have played winter ball before and that didn't slow them down. I agree with that. I think the problem may be after you win a WS you get caught up in everything that goes along with it, and you may not be as mentally or physically sharp going into the next season, and sometimes that has a tendancy to snowball, and your season turns into a struggle.

QUOTE(The Critic @ Aug 26, 2006 -> 08:03 AM) or Disco Demolition. or Elvis Night. or Rat Pack Night. Rip 'em all, but leave Elvis night alone. Thank you, thank you very much.

The Sox are having their best offensive season in team history and doing it while breaking in a rookie CF who couldn't hit sour apples the first half of the season, and doing it while having a lead-off man in the line-up for no apparent reason. Walker is fine, and he isn't going anywhere. In fact, I think Ozzie Guillen will be long gone before Greg Walker isn't the White Sox hitting coach.

Did anyone catch Hawk conceding the Central on channel 5 yesterday? It was actually shown on Detroit TV. Hawk said the Sox wouldn't catch the Tigers.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:57 PM) The problem Flash is how our Offense hits in the 2nd half year in and year out. At the point the temps heat up at Coors East, our guys stop hitting and start with a lift and pull thing going on. When we face a good pitcher who has a good changeup we are meat. We will go up there like blind robots swinging for the fences, trying to guess which one of the 2 pitches Santana will throw against us. Konerko didnt see a fastball last game and looked stupid swinging at changeups in the dirt. Other teams put up some sort of offensive attack. There is no reason that he has an under 2 ERA against us in the last 2 years. Outside of us helping him with our attack. 2 strikes, swing for the fence K. Santana was hittable the last time the Sox faced him in Minnesota. I think he only k'd 5. Maybe it was due to a blister, and hopefully that hasn't healed, because if Santana is on tomorrow night, the Sox are going to have their work cut out for them not to be swept.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:56 PM) I was seriously sitting in my car just f***ing pounding my head on the wheel at the retarded s*** he was saying. Hopefully you are okay. If you pound your head too hard, you may start thinking like him.

QUOTE(chisox72 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:52 PM) Worst part is, the people who sit a few seats down from my season seats have a daughter that is about 17 years old and screams CONSTANTLY about how "hot" he is. That alone would be enough to make me hate him even if he was playing like a Hall of Famer.

QUOTE(chisox72 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:50 PM) I WAS a huge fan/advocate of Pods' place on this team. To the point of defending him many times this year when I should not have. I am done now. I hate him and wish for him to go away, fast. I will even volunteer to help pack him and Lisa's apartment if it will expedite his departure. His poor approach at the plate (despite his lookie what I found single tonight), his lack of stealing/baserunning ability, and his PISS poor defense make me want to throw up on myself. The sooner he goes away, along with fat Freddy, the better off things will be. He has no upside what-so-ever and has zero place on any big league roster. Tyner's double tonight fell about 20 ft. away from where Pods set up for him. He inexplicably was no where near the ball when it fell to the ground.

QUOTE(Whitewashed in @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:47 PM) Wow Rongey is just making himself look more like a moron. "Its going to be tough to win tomorrow since we probably won't score more than 3 or 4 runs." "Ross Gload being sent and thrown out looked like it wasn't a bad decision at the time." The Sox have won 5 games all year scoring 3 or less runs. Its also a cardinal rule of baseball not to make the 2nd out of an inning at home plate. I now believe the White Sox will get swept. The Twins seem more into it. They were much more emotional when they scored, and really appreciated the win. I think they may overtake Detroit. They have a much better chance of doing that than the White Sox I'm afraid.

QUOTE(Friend of Nordhagen @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:45 PM) Shuster disagrees with Ronge on waving Gload. Ronge weeps. Little tears, but tears nonetheless. Ronge can't possibly believe its acceptable to make the 2nd out of the inning at home plate.

QUOTE(chisox72 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:43 PM) Uhoh...hold the phone.... Schuster just informed us that Pods "just hasn't been coming through." He must have just gotten the memo.... If Pods isn't going to attempt to steal, he really shouldn't be playing professional baseball. Maybe Widger can get him on his softball team next summer.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:16 PM) I'm trying to confirm the stat, but someone said he had no holds for the Indians last year. And with 10 outs to go in the game, that's a huge situation. He had exactly 0 holds for the Indians last year. They couldn't wait to get rid of him. He's not horrible, but not a guy you should be comfortable putting on the mound when a game is on the line. QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 11:28 PM) As I said in other threads, you could feel the entire momentum of the game shift then. This White Sox team has had more guys thrown out at the plate than any I can remember. Aggressiveness is good, stupidity is not. A majority of the plays at the plate haven't even been close.

I haven't read the thread but how about some blame for Joey Cora. Getting a guy thrown out at home with less than 2 out is inexcusable.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 03:52 PM) This is meant to put the whammy on Radke. C'mon White Sox. The guy is not that good. Get psyched and take care of business. Pitch well, play good d and get to this guy early. He ain't that good. For the love of God, he has a torn rotator cuff that is going to force him to retire at season's end. Put up 6 or 7 in the first inning, just to reinforce his decision to call it quits.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 03:21 PM) I wonder what Ozzie will do with the Pods/Anderson/Mackowiak trio. Mackowiak hit a bomb off of Radke last time, but Anderson has also been playing well. We know Pods will unfortunately be playing though, so I hope we keep our best defensive CF in the game. I think Ozzie is very close to pulling the plug on Pods as a regular. Just from his comments, he seems to be getting little digs in lately.

QUOTE(Drew @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 03:05 PM) On a similar note, I want someone not named Podsednik in the leadoff spot. Ozuna has been hustling his ass off, swinging the bat well and making some solid plays in the field the last few weeks. I think the Sox are at the end of the rope with Pods. I think he needs to start doing something quick, or he'll be riding pine the rest of the season.

There is no need to worry about how Pods will fare against Santana or Liriano, because Pablo will be in the line-up. There is a school of thought, however, to stacking the line-up with lefties against Santana, taking his change away. I don't really know how that would work out. Lets face it, you could have an All Star team facing Santana and Liriano, and if they are on, you aren't going to score many runs. LH batters have hit .263 against Santana this season while RH batters have batted .211. Lefties have had more success, but it could be a little deceiving as most teams would only leave there best LH hitters in the lin-up against him.

QUOTE(cgaudin @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 06:56 AM) You got it backwards, with Thome out we got a better chance. He can't hit lefties if his life depended on it. Last time I looked, Radke and Silva are righties and the only lefty the Twins have starting is Santana, and the Sox really don't have anyone that pounds him. FWIW, Thome has 30 hrs in 247 AB against RHP, and is hitting .324 with an OBP over .440. You're right, he just sucks.

QUOTE(cgaudin @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 01:54 PM) I got a good feelin' that Gooch is going to be the beneficiary of a few cookies left over the plate as a consequence of Radke's caution and preoccupation with Dye. He needs to cash-in those opportunities. I'm feeling surprisingly optimistic. Have you seen Thome's numbers vs. RHP? I don't understand why Radke would be afraid of Dye but not Thome? AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI W HP K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS vs. Right 247 72 80 18 0 30 73 58 0 66 0 0 .324 .445 .761 1.206 Its amazing anyone sees any benefit to Thome being out of the line-up. These are incredible stats.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 09:41 AM) I'd just like to say that it's not a sure thing that Garland will be our best pitcher at the time that series rolls around. That's correct. If Garland is the only Sox pitcher that is reliable at that point, those Minnesota games will probably be meaningless, and the Sox will probably already have their tee times for the following week. The rest of the staff needs to get hot. If they all could, it would be amazing. Hopefully at least 2 of the 4 guys struggling can get on a roll.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 10:19 AM) I've been thinking of going to the clubs next season as well - looking to get a group together (some from my current 27-game group, some new). Hard part is, I want to do 4 seats. I figure 8 people is ideal for that. Do a draft type thing for the regular season games for each of the 8 people, and set the rules for post-season (group A/group B sort of thing). I've been in the Club for 7 or 8 years. I went there before they renovated it, and I loved it then, but after the renovation, its so great. A/C when its hot. Heat when its cold. No bathroom lines. You don't have to worry about the people getting to the game in the 3rd inning arriving at a key point of the game, standing there blocking your view. I think its sold out now. A few years ago, there were games when my friend and I basically had the entire section to ourselves. Also if you're in the infield, the view is the best I think for the entire field. Obviously down below is closer, but I think you have a better perspective and view on balls hit to the OF from the club level.

The Minn/Sox season ending series is another reason Detroit really is in the driver's seat with 6 of their last 9 games against KC, a team they destroy. The Sox really need to take care of business the rest of the season. They can't piss away games anymore. Everything clicked yesterday, offense, defense and pitching, hopefully that will translate into a hot streak, but we've been hoping for that before only to be dissappointed. If the starters start earning their paychecks, the Sox should be in good shape for getting into the playoffs. If they were in the NL, where there is only 1 team more than 6 games over .500, Ozzie would be getting his playoff rotation set.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Aug 25, 2006 -> 08:53 AM) The big thing there is you have the rear view mirror to look into now. Its easy to look back a situation and say they won/lost so it was a good/bad move. Mostly I just wanted to offer up some examples of some of the "great" managers that we hear about so often, of things that Ozzie often gets criticized for himself. When you watch a single team all of the time, and get something specific in your head, when you watch a 162 games you will be able to find tons of examples of it to support your opinion, pretty much no matter what it is. Hell I can't believe people are honestly saying things like we are better off without Jim Thome in the line up?!?!? I can't believe any Sox fan would have a problem with Thome either. My point about Gardenhire is, and its just speculation obviously as I don't follow everything that goes on with the Twins on a daily basis, I really doubt if he had a Widger-like back-up, he would have sat Mauer that day, although it was a day game after a night game, and I don't know when Mauer's last day off up until that point had been. Its a nice luxury to have when you are able to plug the back-up catcher into the 3 hole. It may be the only team in Major League history that does it.