caulfield12

That's two times the Tropicana Dome has cost the Rays a game. This just sucks...they were set up for a demoralizing loss after blowing a 6 run lead. Seems like the White Sox are always victimized by domed stadiums somehow.

Combined with Charlie Lau, George Brett and Ted Williams.

Not to mention Viciedo. He's the perfect DH candidate for this team...but Teahen and Lillibridge would be better, too. Jayson Nix would be better. Heck, DeWayne Wise, Aaron Cunningham and Wilson Betemit are arguably better.

QUOTE (J.Reedfan8 @ Aug 4, 2010 -> 09:32 PM) One thing everyone knows about Jackson... he always had the arm. Only one walk (last hitter.. and it was Miguel Cabrera who you can't even argue to not walk) is fantastic for him. Although to lead off an inning, it's automatic death to walk someone, even Cabrera. It costs the Rays dearly tonight in the 13th. It just breathes life into a dead offense, and if Thornton allows those two runs to score...Jenks gets the game in the 9th with a one run lead and God only knows what would have happened.

QUOTE (Vance Law @ Aug 4, 2010 -> 10:33 PM) That's not a valid argument, and I assume you know it. Kotsay was 0 for 7 with 1 walk in those two 1-run losses. By the "logic" you use here, Kotsay could strike out in every single plate appearance all season, and yet he wouldn't be "responsible" for any loss the team had. If the pitching had just not given up any runs, the team would have won. It's not Kotsay's fault. His batting line shows that he's helping the team toward losing every time he's in. And every game he plays, there were 3 better options to be DH sitting on the bench (4 if you include Castro). The White Sox will live or die with their pitching, both starters and their usually formidable pen. The offense is irrelevant. (That's what Ozzie or someone might say).

I just thought I would play Devil's Advocate, Ozzie style. We've lost 13 games since June 9th. Kotsay hasn't played in four of those games (June 13th, July 16th, July 25th and July 31st). Therefore, he can't be blamed for those losses. In those 9 losses which he could have had an effect on, he went 5/28 but deserved better, hit a number of line drives and balls to the warning track that MIGHT have gone out in SOME MLB stadiums had the win been blowing out with gale force wins. However, he only came up two times with RISP during our entire stretch of 37-13 ball (that's right, with Mark Kotsay on the active roster, we're winning 74% of our games over a 50 game stretch!!!! Conclusion, if he's NOT on the roster, we won't play very well, and perhaps the prophecies foretold in the movie 2012 will come to pass as White Sox fans will have to stock up with survival gear, gas masks and a year's supply of Mike and Ike's...basically, if KW took Kotsay off the roster, it would be like Armageddon and December 31st, 1999 all over again.) On June 28th against KC, he pinch hit with runners on 2nd and 3rd and only one out against the Royals when we were trailing 3-1 and popped out. That hurt, although Alexei also didn't come through. And you can't really expect a pinch hitter to come through more than once every 4 AB's, right? On July 18th, with Quentin on 2nd base after a double against the Twins, he failed to move him. Of course, let's just blame that game on Bobby Jenks, right? Because any lead against the Twins in Minnesota is pretty safe, yes? We didn't really need some insurance runs! And there's no more MetroDoom jinx anymore...the Piranhas are almost all dead. On July 21st, he went 0/3 against the Mariners, but that's another one we can pin on Jenks, the game we came back to lead against Felix Hernandez (Vizquel RBI), only to have Jenks blow it once again. We lost to the A's on the 24th, but Mark actually got on base in front of Castro's homer, we lost 10-2, so you can't blame Mark there, either. And then against Bonderman this week, that's a Hawkeroo "hang wiff 'em" right? Conclusion, Mark Kotsay was 0 for 2 with RISP during 9 losses in the span of almost 2 months, he really didn't hurt us that much. In fact, Bobby Jenks had more of a negative effect than Kotsay. If we had reliable closer, we'd still be 4 1/2 games ahead of the Twins. Conlusion 2, more fans come to games to see Mark's wife in the scout seats when he's on the team, thus creating another revenue stream...and Lisa Dergan had to be replaced somehow.

The response to the WAR stats for Thome and Kotsay would be something like this: If Bobby Jenks hadn't blown those two games against Minnesota and Seattle, we'd also be up 4 1/2 games on the Twins, and most of the losses during this stretch of games since June 9th were those "Hawk's cliched 54-60 games you lose every year...no matter what."

Young giveth and taketh away. He had really struggled in the first two games with RISP...and gave up the beautiful start by Baker with his typical defense, on a ball 80-90% of LFers catch. But he did come back to get his 82nd RBI, and the game winner, after the dreaded leadoff walk. Interesting choice by Gardenhire to go with Guerrier for the "save" when they could have used Rauch...and it's nice to make Capps think saving games in the AL will be much more difficult.

That's the ONLY logic of not demoting Kotsay. We are winning with him, so therefore he can't be hurting the team. (If it's not broke, don't fix it, right? In which case, KW should have kept the 2005 team together...since he completely obliterated the "chemistry" of that team by taking Everett and Rowand out of the clubhouse, too. Not saying I necessarily believe that, just the theory out there.) It's almost like they are afraid to let Teahen's glove back anywhere near the clubhouse again, also. And actually, although Viciedo's missed a lot of AAA at-bats, I think he's gained a tremendous amount of confidence in his ability to be a big league player, and this hopefully is one of those situations where sitting and observing for most of 5-6 weeks has really helped, even he's accumulated less than 70 at-bats.

Maybe it's the American Idol problem. Really big celebrities don't feel comfortable criticizing because they might get booed or criticized themselves for being critical. OTOH, you feel your position is a bit more tenuous if you're in Rongey's job...part of it is simply you're forced into a position where you're "representing" the organizational viewpoint because of the nature of criticism in the post-game shows is quite over the top. In all honesty, it's a pretty cool job that 98% of Sox fans would love...and I'm sure were I in that position, I would do everything I could to protect it, too. It's just human nature. I remember looking back at the tape of a broadcast I did (color) of our minor league team and I actually said "we pride ourselves on our concecessions." When you're pretty close to the team and the players, it becomes very difficult to be objective. You have the choice to go the Stone and Skip Caray route and be out there with your criticism, or you protect your relationships at all costs and always "have their backs." The clubhouse is a close-knit community...it's even harder to get respect if you don't have a background as a former MLB player, at least a minor leaguer. I've seen quite a few people who didn't know where to draw the line because they wanted to feel like they were "part of the team," where it's almost that "in the bunker" mentality of taking it personally when your "friends" are being criticized, especially when you perceive it to be unfair or overly biased. In the end, it's easier to be "loved" than feared, so to speak. Writers like Cowley and Mariotti have gone out of there way to be critical, and it has resulted in a cut off in access or makes it much harder to do their jobs. Someone like Gonzales, who's with the team everyday, it's very very rare that he would be the type to write a negative/hit job on Mark Kotsay. Rogers can be more critical as a baseball writer and not a beat writer, but he's not as respected because he really doesn't have a finger on the pulse of the organization. Maybe it's because Brian Anderson (2006) and Beckham (2010) were cockier, and their situations were each quite different from Kotsay's, but I think it's just harder for a writer to blast someone who's failing...rather than simply underachieving. Everyone can see that it's the end of Mark's career, and he would be DFA'ed by 25 teams, it's just that he has played a role with our team, we're in first place, so the perception is that it would be cruel or heartless not to let him stay with the team...the closest thing I can remember is the controversy over Josh Paul/Chad Bradford sticking over Mark Johnson in the 2000 post-season. And I don't remember much being written about Wise, Erstad and Mackowiak either...it was obvious they were being overexposed or not the correct fits for how Ozzie was trying to use them. If nothing else, it was more of an instigation to look at possible controversies between KW and Ozzie, as we've seen the ongoing DH discussion for seemingly a year now, yet no solution in sight. Finally, I think many of the players/clubhouse people look at all the SABR and Roto League stuff, anything but the most basic statistics (now including OPS) with a bit of disdain...it's like the age old argument in Moneyball between Grady Fuson and Beane's lieutenants. I used to really be a "stats geek" and it's funny, the older I get, the more I rely on observation with baseball and the more I resist being told I'm wrong about a player because of their UZR number or something a bit esoterically-derived (although I certainly can understand the desire to quantify defense).

Quentin loves to hit in Detroit...

I thought Konerko was flexing his elbow after the throw to 2nd.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 4, 2010 -> 06:41 PM) Jackson just needs to go after these guys with the fastball on the 2 strike pitches. He's hung probably 80% of his sliders so far. His slider for the strikeout was close to the perfect pitch. Didn't that last ball that hit the bag...wouldn't Konerko have fielded it for an easy out? Or was it going to get past him for a double and possible runner scoring from 1st?

When was the last time we had a starter who could throw 97-98? Colon in 2003 is the only one I can think of in recent memory...it would take him until the 4th or 5th to get up to that speed, though. And it seems he threw more often at 95-96-97 when he was with the Sox.

Can they haze Kotsay by putting a fake line-up card in the clubhouse and making him think he has the day off?

Are you Dave Martinez?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 3, 2010 -> 10:22 PM) The Ranger seems to think that Teahen and Viciedo are not good enough to take Kotsay off this team. I think I made this point clear in a post of mine back in a game thread a couple of days ago. Mark Teahen will produce 7 more runs than Mark Kotsay given the same number of PAs for the next 58 games. Dayan Viciedo will produce 11 more runs on offense (and this is based on a conservative guesstimate). Both of those guys can play 1B, maybe not as well as Kotsay, but they sure as hell hit a lot better. That's crazy. I mean, sure, he can echo the viewpoint of the players, nobody wants to see him DFA'ed when the White Sox are playing so well...but the only way anything will happen is if the White Sox fall out of first place. We heard the same arguments in 2006 while the White Sox were hot in the first half with Anderson hitting in the 100's...that his defense more than made up for his lack of offense, that we had plenty of hitters and could carry one superior defender. Except now the argument is not based on his actual ability (at this point in his career), it's based on these mysterious words like "chemistry," "moxie," "grinder," "he's the best pure baseball player on the team," etc. Well, if he was actually the best baseball player on the team, he'd figure out how to take outside pitches the other way and not roll into 4-3 and 3U put-outs over and over again. Even Jim Thome could do that OCCASIONALLY. He has warning track power at this point in his career, but, if he hits the ball on the ground, Viciedo's a lot faster getting to first in a foot race. So we're left with he hits left-handed, can play first base pretty well, has a hot wife and he tries hard and everyone in the clubhouse is pulling for him. You would think we were running a "team building/motivation" workshop and not a major league baseball team. They've even got KW buying into the fact they shouldn't change anything. We'll see.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 3, 2010 -> 10:17 PM) It's not that there has to be a whipping boy. If there were no crappy players on this team, nobody would be complaining. We'd all be happy happy joy joy and I think almost everybody would want that. I don't know how you can't complain about Mark Kotsay. He sucks at hitting and he's is DHing the most games on this team. Chris Rongey brought this point up on the post game show, how there always seems to be one guy the Sox fans hate...well...let's run down this list. 2010 Mark Kotsay 2009 Dewayne Wise 2008 Javier Vazquez 2007 Darin Erstad 2006 Rob Mackowiak 3, if not 4, of the past 5 most hated people on this team are terrible baseball players. Kotsay is a even worse version of Darin Erstad. Ozzie keeps running this guy out there even though he hasn't proven he could hit in the past 4 months. Don't blame the fans for pointing weaknesses out, blame the players for not performing and blame Ozzie for trotting him out there. For 2008, you could add Nick Swisher to that list... If Brian Anderson was capable of hitting the baseball, the name Rob Mackowiak wouldn't be there for 2006. The funny thing is that Andruw Jones is actually hitting for a lower BA, but he adds defense and power, so nobody even complains about his complete inability to hit sliders or almost anything coming up to the plate these days.

I think the only argument left now is 1) he HAS to get hot again, he can't be cold forever, 2) the White Sox are in first place with him playing a significant role, so he can't actually he hurting the team that much and 3) superstition, if Guillen changes something in the line-up radically, the Sox will start to lose because Kotsay's not there. I'm not saying ANY of these are logical, but they're the reality we're left with...

Why didn't we just start Pena? We just gave this game away before it even started, based on the way Torres has shown ZERO control in Charlotte his last 3.

Can we sub Viciedo into that game now for Kotsay? Thanks. Ozzie.

At least the Rays came out ready to play again tonight.

The White Sox are the only team in baseball with a pitcher who throws 87-88 MPH with absolutely zero control. Somehow, we miraculously escaped getting run out of the ballpark that inning. Which shows how bad DET is going now...they really are begging to be put out their misery this season.

Maybe we should have started Miguel Asencio instead.

You would think we don't teach our minor league pitchers how to throw strikes. UGH! Just asking for trouble. 7, 5 and 5 walks in his last 3 AAA starts for Torres...Harrell couldn't throw strikes consistently (but survived) same with Hudson.