JUSTgottaBELIEVE

statistically we are nearly equal of the royals when both hitting and pitching are considered and they are something like 3-11 i think

its hard to believe the sox are even 5-7 at this point. ranked last in MLB in runs scored and 17th in MLB in ERA. so on the positive side things can only get better from here. right?

QUOTE(JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 06:42 PM) who's your pick to have a big series? I'm thinking jermaine dye blows up in a big way this series. on a sidenote, it's great to see the yanks lighting up ponson's s***ty ass. unfortunately that could actually be a bad thing in the long run as they will be quicker to pull the trigger on releasing him and bring garza back up thata boy JD!!!

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Apr 10, 2007 -> 07:48 AM) Would you be happy with 1 of 3? Not anymore. haha yea. anything short of 2 of 3 at this point would be a big disappointment.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 10, 2007 -> 12:25 AM) How do you win those games? You pitch You are agreeing with me and you don't even realize it. dude i realize you need to pitch well to win games i dont know where you are going with that but i still say that division games mean more than non-division games QUOTE(JUSTgottaBELIEVE @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 06:10 PM) now I know a lot of sox fans on here would say yes, and I also know the recent history of the Sox in Oakland, and I am still going to say I would not be happy with less than 2 of 3 from the A's. I think Jose is going to come out strong tonight and I just hope we can scratch a few across against harden. game 2 I feel good about Garland as he seems to throw pretty well in California in general. game 3, well that's a toss up, if any of the three games I feel least confident about it would be this game. for some reason i see kennedy giving us trouble. all in all, i gotta agree with ozzie i'm feeling 2 out of 3 thoughts? so far so good. jose came out and battled in game 1!

QUOTE(Whitewashed in @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 09:41 PM) You could also tell anyone that divisions are not won in april, but can be lost and they would agree with you. The fact is we cannot be happy or even content with taking 1 out of 3. The goal is to win at least 2 out of 3 everytime. i agree if you looked at my opening statement..so ur not arguing with me

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 08:54 PM) And if they get swept by Minnesota, they can still win the division. I dont understand your argument And, regardless of the record against the division, the reason they won was pitching, period. They beat teams within the division because they pitched well. 3.61 is a hell of a lot better than 4.61, and that's why they won in 05 and they didnt in 06. Period. ask anyone what games are most important and they will tell you divisional games, take care of business in your own division and you have a GREAT chance of making the playoffs sorry if you dont buy that argument but thats the truth

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 08:28 PM) And tonight's a great day to gain a game, so no, these are just as important as divisional games. my point is that even if we lose these 3 games we can still compete for the division. the easiest way to do that: win your divisional games. why do you think the sox won the division in '05? they had a ridiculous record against AL central opponents.

QUOTE(Whitewashed in @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 08:04 PM) 1 out of 3 is worse case scenario. 2 out of 3 is good. The bad history in Oakland has come far enough. If we expect to compete in this division we need to win. Not make excuses every time. We need to create our own breaks. Every year it's always a bad call, errors, sunlight, whatever. i dont think these next 3 games will really have an impact on whether or not we compete for a division title. in fact we could even drop these next 3 but take care of business against division rivals and win the central that way. those division games are more important than these.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 07:18 PM) There is no series this season where I will be happy with 1/3. Period. It is guaranteed to happen obviously, but when it does happen...you should be unhappy about it. You should go into Yankee Stadium when the Yankees have won 15 in a row wanting to take 2/3 or better. You should go into Minnesota with both Santana and Liriano scheduled to pitch wanting to take 2/3. You do not win championships going 1/3 and being happy about it. You win championships by winning 2/3 and being pissed off that you didn't sweep someone. well yes from a players perspective this is how they should be thinking. but we arent playing, i am just asking from a fans perspective when considering the recent woes in oakland its hard to be overly dissappointed with winning 1 of 3 out there. happy? no, but terribly dissappointed? probably not

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 06:52 PM) If you're happy with 1 out of 3, you must like the Sox chances at a top 5 pick in the June 2008 draft. 2 out of 3 should be what makes you happy and giddy with a sweep. yes and no, when you consider the 4-23 record (0.148 winning pct.) in the last 27 games 1-2 (0.333 winning pct.) would actually be a decent series historically speaking

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 06:47 PM) Juan Uribe. Despite being historically terrible at the Coliseum, Juan is slimmed down, taking pitches and has been the most effective hitter in the lineup for the Sox thus far this season. On top of that, in his career he's 1-2 w/ a HR vs Gaudin, 2-5 vs Harden and 2-6 vs Kennedy. I picked Juan and Javy as my breakout players this year and I'm thinking this will be one of those series that Juan takes over. yea i agree that juan looks like a man on a mission this year and i think hes gonna put up some nice numbers lets hope he keeps it rolling because he can carry this team on his back when hes hot

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Apr 9, 2007 -> 06:42 PM) I know the Sox are 4-23 in the last 27 games in Oakland, but I'll be happy with 3 of 3 and content with 2 of 3. 1 of 3 or 0 of 3 I won't be happy about. wow aiming high i like it

who's your pick to have a big series? I'm thinking jermaine dye blows up in a big way this series. on a sidenote, it's great to see the yanks lighting up ponson's s***ty ass. unfortunately that could actually be a bad thing in the long run as they will be quicker to pull the trigger on releasing him and bring garza back up

now I know a lot of sox fans on here would say yes, and I also know the recent history of the Sox in Oakland, and I am still going to say I would not be happy with less than 2 of 3 from the A's. I think Jose is going to come out strong tonight and I just hope we can scratch a few across against harden. game 2 I feel good about Garland as he seems to throw pretty well in California in general. game 3, well that's a toss up, if any of the three games I feel least confident about it would be this game. for some reason i see kennedy giving us trouble. all in all, i gotta agree with ozzie i'm feeling 2 out of 3 thoughts?

now thats what im talking about javy! lets see that all season long

QUOTE(FlaCWS @ Apr 7, 2007 -> 10:26 AM) I was one of the few who thought re-signing Contreras was a mistake. I realize it's easy to bring it up now, after that disastrous first start, but if you think about it, the extension was based on a great 2nd half of '05 and 1st half of '06. Other than those two half-seasons, Contreras hasn't done much at all in the majors. I obviously hope I'm wrong on this, but I think we may see some more brief stretches of greatness, but never again will we see the consistency that he showed at the end of '05 and early last year. I do think he's done, and I wish the money we gave him (and Vazquez) was used to extend Buerhle and Garland instead. i think alot of people forget that contreras was great in his first season with the yankees http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/stats?playerId=5373 people only seem to remember the next year when boston lit him up time and time again which forced steinbrenner to want to rid himself of the cuban when he was then traded to the white sox halfway thru that second season. take out the 2004 season and he has actually had a solid career up to this point 48-28 4.37 ERA career numbers however, that still doesnt answer the question if he is done or not because i think only he knows the answer to that question and maybe guys like coop and ozzie have a good idea too

QUOTE(RockRaines @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 12:44 PM) Ok OK, please dont go down the path of comparing Rocco to one of the best ever, please. just cut that convo off and start again. thank you

QUOTE(BearSox @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 12:15 PM) Did I say Baldelli has the power to hit 46 homers and ability to hit .382??? NO! I said that they play similar games. Their swings are similar, and they play(ed?) a similar CF. Like I said, Baldelli doesn't have the talent of Dimaggio, but their games are similar! no, i realize you did say that he is a lesser version of joe D but i still disagree that they are comparable tools wise. joe D had much more power and was a much better contact hitter than baldelli (joe struck out 39 times as a rookie in 637 AB, while baldelli struck out 128 times in 637 AB as a rookie) so i wouldnt even say their swings are similar at all. i guess that ends that discussion

QUOTE(BearSox @ Apr 6, 2007 -> 12:04 PM) actually, this is a common comparrison. Not only do they look alike and are both from Italian decent, they both play a similar type of game. Of course Baldelli is no where near the talent of Dimaggio, but there are similarities in their play. once you get past the same position, same ethnic descent thing i really dont see a whole lot of similarities. i didn't realize baldelli has the power to hit 46 homers in a season or the ability to hit .382 for a whole year. maybe im missing something?

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Apr 5, 2007 -> 11:17 PM) Baldelli might be oft injured but he's still only 25, has a very affordable contract and has all the same tools as Joe D. In other words, if they choose to trade him they're going to get a valuable piece to add to their rotation. Plus the whole Sean Tracey incident in AAA, Dukes is a crazy son of a b****. did you really just compare baldelli's tools to joey D? wow

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Apr 4, 2007 -> 05:57 PM) Just off the top of my head, what about what he did with Thronton? like i said yesterday im not quite ready to anoint thornton as a huge success until he has another good year this year. masset looked awesome though and thats great to see he should be a huge bonus to this bullpen.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Apr 5, 2007 -> 12:06 PM) There's a big difference between the consistency of a long-ball or slap-happy offense. A long-ball offense might put up 12 runs one day and spread out 4 hits over the next 2 games. A slap-happy offense is less likely to do that. They will also be better at driving in crucial runs one or two at a time and taking advantage of opportunities. A long-ball club is just going to try and pull everything into the stands and hope that someone managed to get on base ahead of them. The slap-happy offense also won't get mowed down by bad pitchers who just go low-and-away the entire game. that is probably one of the most overrated theories in the game of baseball. just for kicks i went back and compared the twins "slap happy" offense of 2006 and the "long ball" offense of the chicago white sox in 2006. For a quick and dirty evaluation of consistency with a given offense i chose 5 runs as a benchmark. every game that the white sox and twins scored 5 runs or more last year i kept a tally. white sox-85 twins-77 so...the white sox scored 5 or more runs in 52.5% of their games while the twins scored 5 or more runs in 47.5% of their games and AGAIN why did the twins win the division and the white sox finish third? PITCHING and DEFENSE, the two most important aspects of the game of baseball QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Apr 5, 2007 -> 12:12 PM) Yes there is a HUGE difference between spreading hits around the lineup and relying on three guys to jack one to save our asses. REMEMBER? This is how we pretty much played first half of 2005. Sure we hit tons of homers but we were not RELIANT on them for offense. If somebody pulls the stats for '04 or second half last year you can see what percentage of our runs came from homers... and that's not what we want. Sure a run is a run, but it's the difference between being a piranha or living on feast-or-famine, which I never want to go back to. i bet the percentage of runs scored off homers last year was very comparable to the percentage of runs scored off homers in 2005. on top of that we scored alot MORE runs last year compared to 2005. and once again, what was the difference between those two teams?

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ Apr 5, 2007 -> 11:52 AM) You win the thread. You're exactly right about the offense. And yes, Cleveland beat our asses by playing like... the 2005 Chicago White Sox. come on guys does it really matter how you score the runs? whether its via long ball or slap-happy twins style 7 runs is 7 runs. i agree that the appraoch and lack of exectution at the end of the game was poor from the offensive standpoint but, really, how many times can we expect the offense to cover for crappy pitching? i mean the offense puts us up 3-0 in the first and the next inning we are already down 4-3. then the offense puts us up 7-5 and in a matter of a couple innings we are losing again. at some point in the game the pitching needs to get it done and hold a damn lead. and anybody that thinks the twins offense is a bunch of slap hitting singles and doubles hitters better think again. they have guys that can drive the heck out of the ball and guys like morneau, hunter, and cuddyer come to mind immediately. heck, i think mauer is going to start putting up some decent power numbers too as he gains more experience. i hate the twins as much as any other sox fan, but i respect the hell out of them at the same time

QUOTE(GoSox05 @ Apr 5, 2007 -> 10:17 AM) yeah after a 0-2 start he will be fired. Probably in a day or two. You just can't go 0-2. Not in a sport with such a short season. i wish people would actually read the thread before they make comments like these. this whole thread is based off speculation and the assumption that the pitching staff continues on its recent performance (which includes the second half of last year, not just 2 games). it was never stated that he WILL be fired, big difference.