caulfield12

QUOTE (WinorDie88 @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 03:47 PM) Wow we scored 4 runs to take a 1 run lead in the 9th??? That's a rarity for us. All with TWO outs, too.

Will Quentin win AL Player of the Week two weeks in a row? Darn that guy...just when you want to give up on him and he's left for dead, pilloried defensively...he resuscitates himself.

Now who closes this game??? I think if we blow TWO leads, it will be more upsetting (almost) than the September 2005 loss when we were up by 7 or 8 and blew it. When I woke up that next morning, I was absolutely stupefied. Really thought we were doomed to lose the division to the Indians at that point. (Despite Mark Teahen making an error....seemingly he's saved the game at least once, and just made another VERY good play in the 11th as well at 1B. Hopefully that's the end of Mark in the OF, but with Milledge as the only other option there, they might have to use Lillibridge more often defensively out there).

What a game. Woke up and realized they tied it incredibly, only to be more amazed that Thornton had actually blown it. And then to escape from the 11th? Wow. Hopefully an encouraging sign for Sale, and a bail-out for Morel (on what would have been an inning-ending double play), for now. Who's the real Carlos Quentin? Can we blow this opportunity to score now? That's why baseball is such an amazing game. Something new every day. The triple play on Sunday, something that hasn't been witnessed in most Sox fans' lifetimes.

Walker won't be gone until Ozzie leaves or he quits. He won't be fired.

Cabrera now 10/17 career against Buehrle. But the Royals' announcers are right...those two runs attributable to Milledge's horrid defense in the 1st really set the tone for this one, along with the 8th yesterday, the triple play and anemic Sox RISP BA since the beginning of game 3.

And the great hitting with RISP continues. With the exception of the early innings yesterday, this offense has been pretty miserable for 2 1/2 games now. It can't all be blamed on Dunn's absence. Typical White Sox. Overall numbers look impressive until you start digging into them a bit.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 01:20 PM) Realize that going "All In" with this rotation is not a wise thing to do. What else do you do then? Trade Floyd and Danks before they become free agents and/or their contracts expire? Dump Edwin Jackson to the highest bidder after he's been traded numerous times already? If the medical staff felt 90% or more confident that Peavy would be a similar pitcher to years past, waving the White Flag would be pretty inexcusable.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 01:15 PM) Calling for coaching changes now is silly for so many reasons. For the Ozzie/Walker haters, they will be long gone if this team sucks this year. Hope for the best, but take comfort in knowing that if they underachieve, there will be wholesale changes. Bouncing back in 08 will give some heart, but what are the odds that KW can find another combination of Danks/Floyd/Quentin/Ramirez to all have break-out/MVP/All-Star/ROY seasons? It's scary. You'd have to think it would take at least 2 and probably 3 years after a complete rebuild. And that's with complete confidence in Viciedo evolving into another Bobby Bonilla. I guess nothing is surprising with the Sox since the first half of 2006...the one thing I'm 98.9% sure of is that we won't be paying Buehrle $14 million next season.

Escobar's ball almost went out, that's all I know...Ramirez missed the tag at 2B, the throw back beat him. Baseball is ALWAYS a game of momentum. The "Danks is pitching" RISP struggles were epitomized by the triple play, which really did seem like a momentum shift in the first week. Now with Dunn out and Milledge's lack of defense leads to an early 2 run deficit. Of course, if the bullpen/Sale holds yesterday, it's okay and we're starting 3-2 on the road. Hard to expect 4-1, but 2-3 is a huge disappointment after the hot start we got off to. But the Royals are playing with total confidence and we're back on our heels now. Now back to the old ways of baserunning gaffes, bad defense and struggles with RISP. Last year, we were 2nd in the AL with RISP, but horrible the first two months and still not quite enough as we were playing catch-up all season, seemingly. Thankfully, we don't see the Royals again until the 2nd week of July.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 01:42 PM) 29 pitches thru 3 innings for Francis. 15 outs before Soria boys! At least it will save me one hour of sleep with Buehrle out there and the Sox new impatient offense without Dunn....3:43 am now, haha.

Pierre was 14/31 career coming into today against Francis....ofc, he's now 0/2.

This is depressing...and the Rays started off so cold, you know they'll be ready for us, their style of play mirrors the Angels and Ozzie usually gets really obsessed with trying to outmanage and out-smallball. Yes, only 3% of the season, I know, I know, but some of the fundamentals mistakes repeating year after year makes you wonder. I'm sure an Ozzie/Cora "baserunning" in-season mini-camp isn't far away if this continues. Which will have virtually no long-term effect on the overall quality of play. I guess the team will get a pass for 10 days with Dunn out by some, but it's so important that we start off decently to have any significant walk-up support in April and May. .500 won't do it. 24-8 is expecting too much, but 18-14 isn't going to get anyone very excited.

Great baserunning the last two games. Guess they forgot Gordon has a 3B's arm.

Pretty funny when the Royals' announcers are describing Buehrle as a bit more of a "power pitcher" than Francis. Surely the kiss of death for us. Well, the 4-1 start for KC is up there with 2003 and 1989. At least it's not the Twins or Tigers, thankfully.

Cabrera 9/15 on his short career against Buehrle. Great defense by Brastings Millibridge. Ugh. It's like the really bad version of Pods out there, paired with Quentin? Not good.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 10:20 AM) For the season though he put up a 1.47 WHIP. More baserunners per inning than he gave up any other season of his career. That ERA isn't telling the story there. He'd come in, get a couple outs, and leave 2 men on for Cotts to clean up. He was better with Milwaukee, no doubt. But you'd have to expect the ERA to elevate a bit after three years in the relatively benign and often punchless NL Central. Before that, in the AL West, even more pitcher-friendly. I will agree he never showed that dominant slider, probably from overuse and overthrowing it for 3 years there and with OAK. And, for most of his post-Brewers career, he's been a pretty consistent 3.40-3.50 WHIP guy. Not much of a deviation. I would bet that ends up trumping what at least 3 of our main bullpen arms do this season.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 08:59 AM) Vizcaino was actually pretty decent that year I thought. I mean he wasn't exactly thrown in a lot of high leverage situations, but his ERA was 3.73. That includes the early 11-inning game vs. CLE where he took one for the team and threw 60 pitches, giving up 6 runs in under 3 innings. An impressive 3.06 ERA for the season if you subtract those 2 1/3 IP and 6 earnies.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 07:53 AM) Really, I'm not sure about that. Vizcaino had his ups and downs too...Pena at least is likely to have some good outings as well, and does the same sorta thing in being the 2+ inning eating guy every now and then. Marte was almost unusable in the 2nd half. Both of them had better ERA's than how they were actually pitching because Hermy/Politte/Cotts would come in and bail them out when they got in trouble. The other problem looming is we don't exactly have another El Duque available to shift into the bullpen anywhere on a Sox major or minor league roster. With the payroll already at $128 million, what are the odds that JR would take on another $2-3 million for a veteran middle reliever/5th starter type at the ASB? Hmmmm....

QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 6, 2011 -> 07:07 AM) Our bullpen looks like dogsh*t right now. Pena and Ohman both suck and have no business being on our roster. Due to their relative lack of experience, it's difficult to tell what we're going to get out of Sale and Santos going forward (though both looked great at times last year). I imagine that Crain and Thornton will be fine going forward. So until these guys get it together, we'll be seeing more disappointing losses to bad teams. We don't have the depth of the '05 bullpen to overcome an ailing Shingo. As bad as Vizcaino and Marte SEEMED that year, they were head and shoulders above Ohman, Pena and Humber/random minor leaguer. Someone's going to have to break through from our system ala Scott Radinsky or Boone Logan (I'd take Cotts or Jenks 05-08 about right now, too). Santos Rodriguez? Doubt it.

Some interesting stats from the 2005 season in the first half (through 86 games)... 57-29 record Sox lost only 8 games during that entire eighty-six game stretch when they were leading after 5 innings, and 6 times when they were leading after six innings. Another way to look at is that the probability was 93% if the Sox were leading after 6 they'd go on to win that game, pretty amazing!!! Perhaps even more impressively, during that same first half, the SOX only coughed up two 7th inning leads and two 8th inning leads (once was against San Diego, a 2-1 game we led the entire time until giving up 2 in the bottom of the 9th, ironically Linebrink was the winner with Hermanson taking one of his few losses that season...the only other blown save that resulted in a loss was Takatsu giving up a 5-2 lead in the 9th, an April 7th game which the Indians ended eventually winning 11-5). So far already, we've managed to blow a 5th inning advantage and then yesterday's 5th-6th-7th inning leads. And the weird thing about that time period is Takatsu was REALLY struggling, enough to lose the closer's spot to Hermanson.

Dammit, Ozzie. You have the AL Silver Slugger struggling to get the bunt down and Vizquel after him. Stop it, please.

C'mon Rios. Only one without a hit still, 0/10. Hopefully he'll get on the board later. Sox 1/4 with RISP.

This was our 5th or 6th win in a row in Cleveland....let's keep it going. Can't afford to let up and give away those series sweeps that mean so much when we're playing higher competition and hoping for splits. Especially since this series is on the road and helps set the tone for a "hot" April hopefully.

5th in MLB payroll entering the season, almost $128 million wow... 36 pitches for Carmona, thaaaats's goooooood