caulfield12

Jesse Crain and Santiago or Ohman to the Red Sox for Youkilis...Red Sox eat a decent-sized chunk of the contract. Maybe that would work. The Red Sox really need middle/set-up relief help desperately. V. Padilla can't be trusted with a 3 run lead. DeJesus just hit a GS (his first HR of the season) for the Cubs.

Dunn at 1.030 OPS, Konerko at 986. Tough night for Paulie.

Former Sox farmhand Frank Franscisco gives up two runs in the bottom of the 9th for the walkoff victory to MIA. C'mon Adam, no K here. Make contact against a LHP. Breaks the consecutive games with a K string (hopefully). Gotten on base all four times tonight.

DeAza with an 829 OPS now and going almost as good as in 2011. Along with Santos, the best move that KW has made the last 3 years, and even if Humber never recovers again from this tailspin, he was very useful the first half of last year. Darvish will come back after a long rain delay in TEX. CJ Wilson won't return.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 11, 2012 -> 09:07 PM) Yeah, I'm not worried about them yet. They aren't like Morel, who is hitting the lightest .180 I've ever seen. As far as Escobar goes, you might as well let someone different go up there and hack -- Eduardo isn't producing more, but at least he has a little bit of pitch selection, eliminates righty-righty advantage, and swings like he wants to hit something How does he eliminate the R/R advantage if he can't hit, lol? He wants to hit something, he just can't. We had a similar player a long time ago named Esteban Beltre...although Beltre had a very good arm, but similar defense-first players. Well, I'll give him credit for hustling and forcing something to happen there. Marlins escaping another blown save. Tied 5-5 in the bottom of the 9th.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2012 -> 09:05 PM) Alexei had a good game the other day. Viciedo's had two good at bats tonight as well. Phil Humber definitely should be on the who's not hot list. Reed on the Hot List.

Weird to think our biggest pitching weakness now is a pitcher who threw a perfect game 3 weekends ago.

Okay, triples instead of homers will work, too. At least we're not totally wasting his salary dollars this year, and the fans can again get behind all of our "bad contracts" from last year.

QUOTE (Jake @ May 11, 2012 -> 08:45 PM) Gordon Beckham is POUNDING the ball to right field right now. WOW, this is what I needed to see to believe. I'm in now on the Gordon Beckham gangbang train! I'd prefer to join the bandwagon at some point, but not the Joe Francis gangbang train, lol. Paulino actually was signed as a infielder, moved to OF and then became a pitcher. Sound familiar?

Yay, no strikeouts for Dunn yet. Only one more at-bat in all likelihood for Adam tonight. If he does K, it will tie a record for consecutive games with at least one K dating back to 1918.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2012 -> 08:32 PM) Paulino's been extremely impressive. Great command the past few innings with that fastball. Arguably we should have at least 3 and as many as 5 runs. On the other hand, the Royals had bases loaded and didn't score, so you feel we should be up at least one more run. Doesn't feel like a comfortable lead at all, but Gavin's been dealing going on 4 starts in a row now. Pretty surprising Houston and Colorado both gave up on Paulino with his stuff. That ends the string of 9 batters in a row...let's hope this isn't one of the walls that Gavin hits where he just falls apart and gives up a crooked number. Okay, an out there after the leadoff single by Dyson.

What's the weather like tonight? Only 19,129 in attendance. You'd have thought with 2 wins in a row, the news about Chris Sale, May's here and college students are getting out now...that we could at least manage 20,000 for a Friday home game.

Alright DeAza, get ready to run again. Why not? If he gets a good read. Should have sent Viciedo there, but oh well, DeAza's not quite the contact hitter that AJ is there. White Sox only averaging 2 runs per game in Floyd starts, second lowest of all ALL American League starters, last year he was among the best-supported. Included in that is 2 times the White Sox offense was shut out with Gavin on the mound. A little like John Danks from 2009-2011.

Ugh, once again Escobar showing he really doesn't belong in the major leagues at this point in his career. And, in other news, the Marlins have blown yet another save in the early season, this time Mujica in the 8th against the Mets. Chisek blew one in his first opportunity but the Marlins ended up winning in extra innings.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2012 -> 08:22 PM) Isn't Youk a FA after the year? Yep. Or maybe there's a big option for next year that's not guaranteed with a buyout like Peavy's. If they're going to do that, they might as well go after a real impact player in David Wright, but I don't see what pieces they would have to make that work without crippling the major league roster or giving away our few remaining prospects. It would be tempting for KW with a talent like Wright out there, but JR would have to sign off on it and you'd have to think we'd need some sort of attendance uptick.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2012 -> 08:20 PM) Hawk said tonight that Morel's back was in much better shape today than it had been recently. Johnson has played more games in his major/minor league career at 3B than Lillibridge. Just sayin'. There are no good options, seemingly.

Greg, I've heard of state budgetary desperation, but the State of Missouri selling specialized "Jayhawks" license plates? That really takes the cake.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ May 11, 2012 -> 08:09 PM) Yeah, that will be never. Well, they have to do SOMETHING about Morel/Escobar. They can't bring up Kuhn or Corey Smith. Lillibridge I guess is the only option, but he hasn't shown much offensively, except for his stolen bases. Someone in Texas royally screwed up. Darvish and CJ Wilson both started and then that game's in danger of being a really long rain delay (in the bottom of the 1st) and both starters scrubbed.

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ May 11, 2012 -> 08:07 PM) Fixed Okay, it was hard to tell what happened from the Royals' feed there...Lefebvre was going crazy, surprised he caught it and expecting it to fall in.

Could easily be 5 or 6 to nothing if not for the very good play against Viciedo by Escobar and then Gordon saving two more runs with the leaping grab...plus, he's piled up so many outfield assists and kept baserunners from advancing numerous times. Floyd on cruise control again the last couple of innings. Don't stop now boys. Need to get AJ and Rios going again, as well as the Cubanos.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 11, 2012 -> 07:58 PM) So caulfield, was that Beckham stat about fastballs saying he's hit well against fastballs or hit poorly? 676 against fastballs, about 100 points lower against all other pitches. For Dayan, I'm sure it's the opposite. I don't really think it's a question of Dayan's bat speed, it's the fact that his swing path is so long (like Dunn's or Lillibridge's) that he's just been in between and always a split second behind, like Dunn was seemingly all last season. He's got to go up there sitting dead red...whereas it seems like he's waiting for the offspeed pitches but can't quite dial it up for the fastballs. Great play by Gordon in LF saves 2 runs and keeps it a game.

Bad luck for Adam Dunn there, should have had two RBI's. So much for Dunn's bat speed. If Paulie can pick up the final runs, it would be huge to give Gavin four runs to work with an add another 2 out RBI.

Beckham nearly got called out there and got the benefit of the call. FOXTRAX says the pitch b4 to Gordon was clearly a strike...meanwhile, great improvement from Gordon considering he was at .153 just ten days ago.

Wonder when/if they'll consider moving Dan Johnson back to 3B? Great play by Alcides Escobar there. Dayan really needed to get a hit there for his confidence. DeAza with a current 6 game hitting streak coming into tonight's game. Make that 7 games now. Run, run, run.

Paulino's got a nice arm. Pretty easy 95-97 MPH stuff. He was 1-0 against us last year, the game he won, gave up 3 ER's and had 9 K's, 9 hit surrendered. The other was a ND in September. So we don't have the excuse we haven't seen him b4.