caulfield12

MacDougal was decent last year for stretches with the Nationals. Rauch basically "found himself" as a pitcher in the NL, same with Majewski. Even Charlie Haeger still has a pulse in the NL. What next, Arnie Munoz, Josh Stewart and Mike Porzio comebacks?

At any rate, it's pretty clear the Twins aren't going to be the easiest team in the world for the Brewers to take out. They (Brew Crew) couldn't even manage to hold the lead after staging a huge, what would turn out (for most teams) to be a 5-run crooked number and back-breaking comeback (including 2 off of Rauch) today. Basically, we have to sweep teams or go 2-1 every series and wipe out DET and MIN when we play them head-to-head over the remainder of the season.

make KW and our farm system look any better in your eyes, or do you subscribe to the theory that the NL really is THAT weak? You can also use Clayton Richard, Jon Garland and Jose Contreras to further this argument. Could either Ely or Gio be pitching close to this well with the White Sox, in your opinion?

The problem with feasting on the NL is that the Twins and Tigers are going to do the same thing. Even KC was leading the Rockies tonight, CLE lost to Cincy (not a surprise in the least)...I don't think we can make up that much ground, especially with the Twins getting 6 against MIL, very few games against BOST and we have those Cubs' games we're really lucky to get 4/6.

Oswalt has just announced he's seeking a trade. Nobody in MLB wants El Caballo. Berkman will find some takers, though. What, if anything, the Stros can get back in return is another question entirely.

Yeah, Santana was Rule 5 pick of the decade, I think from the Astros.

QUOTE (knightni @ May 21, 2010 -> 07:55 PM) Tonight is the start of a stretch of great baseball - I can just feel it! Let's get that DH, a stud 3B, and a LH reliever and take this division! Why, we already have TMK and TCQ? They have almost an identical OPS.

Who is blocking Justin Greene in the OF at Birmingham? No reason not to promote him with organizational filler littering the roster of our AA club, besides Morel and Shelby III. I think we really have to say that Hudson and Viciedo are the co-#1 prospects now, and there's not much of an argument. Jordan Danks took the golden sombrero, 4 K's in 4 AB's. May=171 AVG, 496 OPS Tyler Flowers managed to K only 2 times in 4 AB's, his May=133 AVG/559 OPS Dayan Viciedo in MAY, 329 BA and almost a 1000 OPS.

QUOTE (WCSox @ May 21, 2010 -> 07:09 PM) If I'm Kenny, that's exactly what I do. That $4M will help mitigate the financial impact of the lack of butts in the seats later this season. One way or the other, KW's hand isn't really forced. If AJ can get on a hot streak the next 2-3 weeks and/or a catcher goes down to injury with one of the major contenders, we can actually get something back besides salary relief (not Santana, Nathan and Bonser, though, haha). If he's traded, we can 1) play Flowers or 2) play Lucy and Castro. If Flowers is put at DH for 2011, then they'll know exactly what they have in Lucy/Castro/Armstrong at the big league level.

Give Greg Walker a lifetime contract!!!! We're 18th in MLB runs scored with only two players in our line-up tonight with an OPS of over 700. How is that possible?

That's a good sign. Too bad he didn't manage to get another Grand Salami. June is close, Alexei's bat is back, sound like a familiar tune?

Kotsay almost all the way up to a 700 OPS, at .696 Still rather have Thome, of course, but he's done a very good job recovering and not just playing his way out of baseball after the slow start. I guess we should be amazed they're not 10-12 games under .500 though, with only 2 hitters at over a 700 OPS at this point (not including Andruw Jones, who's out of the line-up tonight and seemingly fading a bit).

QUOTE (Thunderbolt @ May 21, 2010 -> 07:15 PM) Great pain free first inning my MB.. Wow, you really have an intimate relationship with Mark, lol. Like "oh, my Lady Gaga!!!"

Wow...two outs to start the game. Break up the White Sox! Every time I see Kotsay's name in the 5th spot, I think....is there any other major league club that would have him doing such a thing? Maybe the Mariners or A's in the AL?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 21, 2010 -> 05:57 PM) I will say KW for some reason was never given any responsibility with the Dave Wilder situation. That's one piece of history for which he should have had some accountablity. The prospects were suspects. He was paying way too much. Wilder was his buddy and he promoted him. That whole thing was really swept under the rug pretty well. I wonder if KW's star is still shining bright for JR. I know JR is very loyal but some bad teams, a scandal, and a payroll a lot higher than the results would indicate, may have JR at least questioning KW from time to time. Certainly Paxson assaulting VDN has to be worse, doesn't it? The Wilder and Dominican scouts situation was a bad (and embarassing one), but it doesn't come close to stacking up against what was going on in the Nationals' front office at that same time with Bowden and Jose "Blame It On" Rijo.

QUOTE (ptatc @ May 21, 2010 -> 03:59 PM) I don't think we are going to alot of player movement from KW. He likes his young players and will keep them. The only trading you will see is: AJ and PK because they will be free agents and he was going to let them go anyway. Jones if he is playing well enough to get the Sox anything. Jenks because KW really likes Santos. Garcia if he continues to do well. Pena, Linebrink, Vizquel should be gone but no one will want them. He won't trade Danks, Floyd isn't doing well enough with the contract to trade Peavy is being paid far too much with his current performance I really can't see him wanting to trade anyone else so there maybe 3-4 trades at the most. Pena's not going anywhere, he was acquired for Brandon Allen...those types of trades, KW doesn't cut bait on very quickly (until he's proven the wisdom of such a move)....Swisher was one of the big exceptions. If you look at all the success of former Sox hurlers around the league, it's not like the guy is chopper liver. He has a very nice arm. Maybe he'll never be the 8th inning RH set-up guy or even the 7th innning Dotel, but he's not the reason our ballclub is struggling. Just read the article. This is the dumbest article I have ever read. It's almost like he's channeling Mariotti, he has this personal vendetta to stir up trouble, he's been waiting all these months (and years) to write this dump on KW and Ozzie story, so the 16-24 record finally justified it. I supposed the biggest "revelation" (and I seriously felt like this was one of those TMZ "hit" pieces or one of the many written about Tiger Woods from November through February) is about Ozney's Twitter tweets and Ozzie simultaneously bolting the clubhouse (they day he had to fire his son) and finally Ibis talking to KW. Maybe there's something to the "rift" in the organization spilling over into a bad clubhouse environment. Maybe there's a split because of the coaches and FO staff that went out on a limb about Teahen and Pierre? Maybe there's also a split over what to do with Beckham and AJ/Flowers, too. I do think it's curious that Cowley goes out of his way to assign "blame" for the roster construction 96% on KW, and the 4% would be Mark Kotsay's spot (and him being retained over Thome, who apparently KW wanted to bring back and changed his mind about spontaneously at SoxTalk under questioning from the fans about the lack of offensive potential with the currently-constructed line-up). His mea culpa isn't owed to the media (especially), to the casual fans, to the message board world....it's owed to the season ticket holders, corporate partners/sponsors and JR. I don't think hearing it is going to have one scintilla of effect, to tell the truth. Will it make us go on a winning streak? Increase the walk up sales? This whole thing is silly.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...,0,235334.story Changing his pre-bat intro song from "Your Love" by THE OUTFIELD to "Seek and Destroy" by Metallica.

QUOTE (SoxPride56 @ May 20, 2010 -> 09:57 PM) That's a good point. They might be trying to hard. There has to be something they can do to make them loose. Nick Swisher Blow-Up Doll Incident 2?

When is the last time we had a "real" brawl? With the Rangers? I was just thinking the same thing, that late April fight with the Tigers (the Jeff Weaver/Rob Fick/Juan Samuel one) really seemed to light a spark and ignite that team (and offense) for the next 3-4 months until they faded down the stretch and into the playoffs.

Was Konerko's ball in the first inning close to going out? Farmer claimed it would have been a home run if not for the win holding it up. At the time, it would have been a 3-2 lead, had AJ not made yet another typical White Sox baserunning blunder....at least very typical for 2009/10.

I can't even start a "half-fake" optimistic thread with the way things are going. On the plus side, there's no way to "paper" or gloss over these embarassing results, something has to happen, the season is too long and there's too much revenue to be lost to stand pat and just try to sell a false bill of goods to loyal/dedicated/committed White Sox fans for four full months.

Reasons to think MINN will come back to us...which also, of course, involve us playing better and the Tigers tanking a bit as well 1) Mauer has a bad heel (lingering problems) and only has 2 homers 2) JJ Hardy is hurt, forcing them to play Punto and Harris more often 3) Jon Rauch 4) Mauer always is a little "touchy" with various injury issues (see 1, had to stretch it out to ten somehow) 5) Liriano is coming back down to earth after starting 4-0 6) Carl Pavano can't really be relied upon for a full season, can he? 7) Nick Punto in the line-up at any time (like our Vizquel/Kotsay) 8) Kubel isn't as good as he has been the last couple of seasons, same with Denard Span 9) They don't have Valentino Pascucci at 1B 10) Because I don't want to be bored the next four months like July-September 2006 and 2007

Bizarro line-up for Charlotte. Hudson, Lucy, Danks, Viciedo and Kroeger...Flowers sitting again. I'm not sure which is more shocking, Donny hitting 2nd or Viciedo finally getting to bat 4th, when they've had him in the bottom of the order (5th-9th) in BIRM and CHA. Lucy down to .258.

There's no reason for this move at all. He's the last player (5th starter) on a team like the 2003 White Sox that puts us over the top, but not a building block or franchise cornerstone like Aroldis Champman, Dice-K or Strasburg.

It was done at the suggestion of the new reality show producer in order to build more drama into this season's early malaise and ennui. Like when Jeff Probst on Survivor tries to get the contestants to go after each other on Survivor in Tribal Council.