caulfield12

Oh, I forgot the Tigers' rookie Boesch or Borsch or whatever the heck his name is... Why can't we produce more than 3 position players (Crede, Rowand and Beckham, maybe!) in a generation? Well, I guess you can count Sweeney, Chris Young and Chris Carter for other organizations.

You just have to tip your hats to that great Kansas City Royals bullpen... Great baserunning from AJ and Ramirez. Routine fly ball that fell in from Aviles in the 4th when the Sox were up 2-0 was the turning point of the ballgame. That and the Teahen/Pierre outs in the 7th with RISP against the, at best, erratic DUSTY HUGHES.

Great job, Teahen!!!! Billy Butler, by the way, was off 1B. Betancourt continuing to be the defensive player of the series for BOTH teams this weekend. Quite a talented enigma, he is. Sorry, heard the announcers saying Mark and forgot it was TMK and not TMT, both devastating offensive presences

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ May 16, 2010 -> 02:22 PM) Really? You must have a really low opinion of major league GM's don't you? You expect them to overreact immensely and give up a huge price for a guy who has a few weeks of real good power, then the moment he has a bad series all trade value vanishes? We were never going to get anything for Konerko without subsidizing his contract, unless he went on the type of tear he started the season with from June 15th through July 31st. Then we MIGHT have been able to get away with another team just taking the contract (like the Sox did with Rios). You can't get that type of coincidental timing...it's about as likely as timing the stock market, buying low and selling high.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 16, 2010 -> 02:18 PM) Sending Beckham down won't help us win games. He's old enough and mature enough to be in the majors. He has to ride it out up here and show what he's got. Team is going nowhere either way. Going down will not help him or the team. Playing Omar and Nix is no better. This isn't like Robin Ventura when he was a rookie and 0 for 41. There's a ton of pressure on Beckham because of the struggles of the rest of the line-up. Everyone's acting like the only solution is to let him continue to struggle in Chicago with Walker. What's the WORST thing that could happen if he had a different voice in his ear instead of Walk? I mean, every game he's getting bombarded by the media, it's like Brian Anderson (and we were winning in 2006 when he was hitting similar to the way Beckham is right now from April-June that year).....

Well, the window when Paulie Konerko was great trade bait has quickly closed. No way you can move him anyway in mid-May, heck, we should have been 5-6 GB and right in it, now we're back where we started before the first game of the Twins' series, which is not good.

This news just in KW, the Tigers have done more than put themselves in a position to compete with you. They've not only gotten younger and cheaper (Austin Jackson, Scherzer, etc.), they've proven that a city in the worst economic decline in the country has the balls to go out and add Valverde and J. Damon while the White Sox sit on their hands and knees praying for everything possible that could go right to break that way offensively (Quentin and Ramirez returning to form, along with Jones and Rios, Teahen actually being a decent starter, Pierre not being washed up and at the end of the line, Beckham not being a fluke, AJ not having all the wear and tear of catching sneak up on him). Kudos to DD. He backed himself into a corner with the Robertson, Bonderman, Willis, Renteria, Sheffield, Ordonez, Carlos Guillen and Granderson deals...but he's back out of it quickly enough. Miguel Cabrera was like sarin gas if he tried to trade him this past offseason and get anything in return. And the Tigers have brought 2-3-4 regulars (rookies) up too, like Clete Thomas, Rayburn, Sizemore, Austin Jackson, etc. Heck, they're winning with Adam Everett and Brandon Inge playing a lot, and both those guys are pretty sucky offensively.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 16, 2010 -> 02:05 PM) Teahen is one of the worst hitters in baseball against LHP this year. With the tying run at the plate, you have to go to your bench. There's no excuse to have a game where you're facing a righty starter, and then have a situation where you have 4 lefties face a lefty reliever in the same inning. It wouldn't make sense to use Nix,Castro or Quentin there. You don't want to ruin Teahen's fragile confidence!!!! Just like using Vizquel as your DH with Teahen playing in the field....these are obvious, "no brainer" calls the kid from LITTLE BIG LEAGUE would have no trouble distinguishing right from wrong on.

Somehow Randy Williams has 17 walks and 13 strikeouts. And yet he still isn't held accountable by KW. Great!

Would have been a huge RBI opportunity for Gordo. We just seem to get "breaks" ONLY about 10-15% of the time this year. Maybe it's "make-up" for everything breaking right in 2005? Teahen had a 3-0 count, jeez.

Bases loaded. Ball hit him on the right forearm instead of his bat. Shades of JD in 2005, haha?

Ramirez finally reaches the 240 mark, 600+ OPS. Teahen, our scary 220 corner IF with 2 homers, 7 RBI's and a mid to low 600's OPS from 3B. One of the five worst infield defenders in all of the ALCD.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 16, 2010 -> 01:51 PM) Caufield this team isn't good enough to say we've "wasted opportunities." I would call a combined 4-8 against two of the truly terrible teams in the AL (along with BALT and SEA) very much a "wasted opportunity." They don't get any more wasted than that, this weekend of games was set up on a silver platter for us to make up at least ONE game in the standings.

HOW MANY OF US SAID Thome would be getting a ton of DH at-bats (playing with Kubel against RHP and D. Young on the bench)?

Thome walked on a 3-2 count with the bases loaded right before Kubel's AB. Couldn't locate the cutter inside against either of the two lefties. Thome 3/14 lifetime against MO with 2B, HR and some big RBI's now. Yankees' stadium just deathly quiet, it will be their first victory in NY in something like three years if they hold on. Twins were only 8 for 51 with the bases loaded before that AB. Just over the RF fence down the line. 8 GB. I was just about to post how we wasted a HUGE opportunity this weekend to get to 5-6 GB and it's now like we basically just wasted a HUGE opportunity to make up some ground with them playing the Yankees.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 15, 2010 -> 11:46 PM) Great win. Don't like when Peavy gets all mad when replaced. It was the right call to bring in relief. He gets taken deep and he's a loser tonight. Gotta trust the bullpen at that stage. Glad to see us get five runs after looking like s*** early. Is Beckham coming around slowly I hope? Oh and I forgot. Nice job, Peavy. Good effort again. Peavy is the highest paid player on our team. That's what we got him for... Do you trust Jenks over Peavy in that situation? Not I. And we can't pitch Thornton in 90-100 games, he already was suffering from muscle spasms and it's only mid May.

There was a brief scare when Thornton's left triceps muscle suffered a spasm tribune.com seems to be just a muscle spasm and nothing more serious, fingers crossed

I thought Teahen was supposed to be our smartest baserunner? UGH. Jenks and Thornton really enjoy 1 run leads, so 2 would have been a bit nice/r.

How much time has Retherford played at 1B in his college and minor league career? The thing is, Kotsay is a very good defender at 1B and also better than CJ in the OF...according to Farmer, he and Vizquel are the "best baseball players" on our team. Whatever that means, Farmio. In all seriousness, I'd like to see the kid succeed, just because of the odds against any NDFA are simply incredible. He's had to prove himself every step along the way, and his promotion would give hope to all players who scouts don't grade highly but who just play the game and get everything out of their talent/ability.

Peavy at 83 pitches. Obviously he has the 7th, then it gets interesting when the line-up turns over and you have Peavy at 100-110 pitches probably. Undoubtedly, it will be Thornton against Pods/DeJesus. Just hoping Butler or Guillen don't take Jenks deep, or Callaspo/Betancourt.

Gift hit from Gordon to make up for last night's scoring reversal. I think he's guessing too much. He's thinking curveball or offspeed, he swings at it, no matter what the location. He should have really drilled that second pitch, hanging slider up in his eyes with "hit me" written all over it.

Not really. If I wanted to play Devil's Advocate and argue, a case could be made, but I would list at least 6-8 teams below us in this category. Pirates, Astros and Royals for sure, and the Orioles and Jays, you just have no chance with those three teams stacked at the top of the division. Oakland, I don't really worship Beane and that stadium might be the worst now in the majors...very boring offense, too. Padres, MEHHHHH.

Okay, why would you rather have CJ Retherford than Jayson Nix on your roster as the 25th man? Nix has proven (in limited exposure to RH pitching) major league power, and is a "plus" defender at 2B, "pretty good" at 3B and "adequate/average" at SS. CJ could never play major league shortstop. Maybe you can argue he's the 3rd catcher, but how often does that factor into a game??? And you would pick Nix over Retherford as a pinch-runner as well.

I voted for the Pirates. Tempted to vote for us, though. At least the Astros made the World Series in 2005, and they had a pretty good run of playoff appearances or at least competing year in and year out for much of the last 20 years or so. Plus, their park is new(er) and they draw pretty well, all things considered. Royals fans, with the exception of April-July of 2003, haven't had anything to get excited about since George Brett retired. Well, I take that back, there was Bo Jackson.

Has anyone seen the WGN TV ratings? I would imagine that if Nielsen did a survey at 10 pm EST, it might be under 1,000 viewers in the entire US.