caulfield12

This is everyone's chance to BEAT Ozzie as bullpen manager? Assuming NOBODY would go with Linebrink next inning (assuming we don't score in the top of the 9th), who would you use? Pena? Dotel? Contreras? I really would seriously think about giving Jose a shot over Linebrink, as long as he's starting the inning. The odds are it wouldn't work, but I'd rather try that than our usual fail scenarios with Jenks/Linebrink/Dotel in tie ballgames. Rivera with an ERA below 1.00 in save situations this year.

40 pitches now for Thornton. We might have to rest him two games in a row. And Quentin's plantar fasciatis is getting a test with all those foul pop-ups down the line. Cano and Matsui have never had a hit against Thornton coming into this AB.

Game over next inning if we don't score. Linebrink warming up. Who else could you go with if you're GUILLEN? Jenks? That has disaster written all over it with all the FB hitters the Yankees have...same with Linebrink, same with Pena. We might be starting Carrasco tomorrow, correct? Or has it already been announced?

Someone will wonder why Thornton sucks in the last two weeks of the season and it will be all those games like this where he's had to go 30+ innings because we no longer have any other legit bullpen options. But it will be Ozzie's and now KW's fault that our bullpen is horrible, even though we spend more money on it than 85-90% of the teams in baseball (Dotel/Linebrink/Jenks).

QUOTE (DonkeyKongerko @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 07:24 PM) http://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/...l-batting.shtml We're 7th from last this year at 49%. League average is 51 and WOW Jim needs a break. Do they have this statistic for 7th inning and later (same situation, "clutch," etc.) ??? Because in those situations, it seems we HAVE to be worst or bottom 3.

White Sox versus CLE/KC/BALT 20-20 DET versus CLE/KC/BALT 21-11 There's one of the most glaring and obvious reasons we're cooked this year...along with our subpar play at home for almost the entire season, typified by only going 3-3 in our last homestand against KC and BALT.

If we lose this game and then inevitably tomorrow, we're staring six games back in the standings right in the eye and still five games, including THREE at Minnesota and the Cubs' game. It just doesn't seem with how well DET has played at home this year that our chances now are any more than 10%.

The White Sox have to be leading (worst in) the majors in two categories, or three: 1) BA with RISP, 7th inning or later 2) Lowest percentage of runners scored from 3rd base with less than 2 outs 3) Runners thrown out at home plate This Yankees' line-up is like our 2000/2006 (first half) versions, but better...no weaknesses except for Cabrera and Swisher....and Swisher has a much better OPS than our best hitter, Beckham. Posada and Jeter are very close to giving them 8 hitter with 20+ homers this year.

Two runs on FOUR hits. Typical. Still have ABSOLUTELY ZERO belief the bullpen can match-up against NY. Beckham finally woke up at least. Thome is basically 4 for 27 lifetime against SABATHIA, but all four of them are homers. Would have been nice to have had him come up, because a tie game doesn't do us any good. At least we'll see Thornton now instead of someone like Pena or Linebrink.

Ramirez should have just bunted. Castro, all he had to do was hit a ball to 2B or SS and the game's tied. Basically, WE SUCK. This is the worst, clutch-hitting White Sox team in late situations that I've seen in my lifetime. Not even close.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Aug 28, 2009 -> 05:28 PM) and JD It's not about "balls," that is the only thing he IS pitching with when he doesn't have his command, stuff and he has to rely too much on the cutter/FB. One can never question that aspect of Mark's game, and JD just had a very solid swing that would have been a homer 9.5 days out of 10.

Lucky not to be down 3-0....that ball to LF was a homer and was brought back by the wind. And then we just got a double that was caused by the wind. Buehrle's problem is very simply...he doesn't have any location/command with the change-up and he's over-relying on the cutter. Now DYE just lost a sure homer due to the wind...so they're even I suppose.

Who can EXPLAIN why this team, with INARGUABLY more talent than last year's squad (post June version with Beckham, Pods, Rios, Castro, etc.), isn't able to dominate at all in home games like we did in 2008? Is that Walker? Guillen? Sheer luck or chance? If anything, from 2005/06/08, you could count on this team being very dominating at home when the weather finally warmed up, but we're just a slightly above average team at home, and most of our offensive statistics are much better on the road. Why? Just bad chemistry on this team, like the 01-04 White Sox teams (also injuries) or coaching failure?

To Dick Allen... You're right, there aren't many counterexamples past Swisher and Cabrera has played a tick better this year than last. None of those, alone, are enough to condemn Walker. With AJ, has he adjusted to the new park (from MINN) or simply changed his approach because of his team or Walker? He's having his best season (although RBI's will end up way down) statistically in terms of OPS and AVG. Of course, the core of the line-up's getting older. Dye's career was resuscitated here. Can we blame Walk for Dye falling off the face of the planet along with Konerko the last two months? It it conditioning or age? Better competition/scheduling? The Dog Days of August? Konerko, Thome and Dye have all been accused of having slow/er bats over the past two seasons. Can WALK really do anything about Mother Nature and Father Time? Ryan Sweeney has been about what was expected...a starter on a below average team but probably a 4th OFer or poor man's Aaron Rowand....with Rowand being a poor man's Hunter. If Brandon Allen or C. Carter tears it up somewhere, it has no conection to Walker really. So we have to look at some of the players who failed and why they failed....Joe Borchard, Josh Fields (and he might get a second chance), Brian Anderson, those 3 names come to mind right away. Borchard was more of a scouting FAILURE...as he did nothing when he left here and is out of baseball. Did we fail with Fields and Anderson...we'll see? How much of it was Walk, we'll see again. On the positive side, you have Nix, who nothing was expected of coming into the season. But the problem is that Nix and Quentin have been hitting in the 220's and 230's, so you have the whole OPS versus BA argument again. I tend to agree with Fathom and many others that a change CERTAINLY couldn't hurt or make things any worse in terms of our approach and preparation. In terms of handing Quentin, Rios, Beckham, Nix, Getz, Viciedo, Flowers, Fields, Alexei Ramirez (if he's not traded, personally, I'd put him back at 2B and move Beckham to SS and either find another 3B or give the position to Nix/Fields to fight it out, Getz has been too injury prone and sports a low OBP for his rate of production)....that's a young core of players that will need a lot of instruction and tinkering/guidance (except for Beckham probably, stay out of his way, just let him collect doubles and RBI's please). This thread made me wonder where we'd be had we taken a flier on Andruw Jones as our CFer with Rudy Jaramillo as our hitting coach as well...would be be any better off than a .500 team? Maybe, maybe not...with all of our talent, though, I'd like to think we should at least be 8-12 games over .500.

Well, the funny thing is we should be leading 4-1 and Jose was throwing 95 MPH tonight at age 40+. But not to be...this whole season just feels like one big missed opportunity.

6 UNEARNED RUNS.... OZZIE actually SPIT as soon as the contact was made by Lowell on that center-cut FB.

Thanks for handing this game and probably the series right back to the Red Sox...you know Garcia's going to get lit up like a freakin' Christmas tree against this line-up. GAME, SET, MATCH.... End of his career as a White Sox starter and maybe about to be released...sad to see, OZZIE, you suck not to have yanked CONTRERAS out of this game earlier. Too late.

Contreras has NOBODY to blame but himself. Classic meltdown at Fenway for him...it's like the White Sox as a whole play against Minnesota, but 10X worse for Jose in BOSTON.

Welcome DJ Carrasco to the game soon.

Jose....thanks a lot for helping out. God, our defense SUCKS. Two gift runs, and the Red Sox are right back in the game.

QUOTE (daa84 @ Aug 24, 2009 -> 06:09 PM) Jose's performance against the red sox is basically what punched his ticket out of new york....his first two starts he got lit up like a Xmas tree IIRC....that was a different boston O back then though...not that this one is bad, but they had some ridiculous offensive teams in the middle/early part of this decade And the two starts in the 2003 playoffs sealed the deal. By the way, AL umpires, even the Boston homer announcers called PETEY Pedroia out at 3B and admitted Beckham tagged him in the chest...thank god that run didn't score or Hawk would be b****ing all night long.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 24, 2009 -> 06:08 PM) Contreras is relying a lot on his fastball so far, and Boston seems to be getting good swings on it. The second time through the order is going to get ugly. Is he dropping down more tonight or going over the top? Kind of a strange decision to play Pods in CF because Rios has a ton of experience playing in Fenway, but Rios just hasn't been hitting much better than he did with the Blue Jays.

Contreras 3-5 with an 8.68 career ERA against the Red Sox, but mostly as a member of the Yankees. He did manage to get at least one FB up to 95 tonight, Bucholz has been 94-96 pretty consistently. C'mon Jose...NO WALKS. BTW, how the heck did we manage to let Bay score from 3B on that play...?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Aug 24, 2009 -> 01:47 PM) I've always thought that whoever makes the schedule for the AL central is a twins fan who hates the Sox. Well, yes, it usually seems we are playing them on the road to end up the season... On the other hand, they were really wiped out psychologically and drained by that 20+ game road swing caused by the GOP convention...they actually didn't play horribly, overall, but the it exposed some holes in their short relief and bullpen, Nathan was even human last year. So I guess we should thank McCain, Bush and Gl. Beck, but not the schedulemakers in this instance. (And it's not their fault we are .500 against KC, CLE and BALT, either). Still, they had the Royals the final weekend of the season (those rivals in the division who are mathematically eliminated and playing loosey-goosey are always tough outs) and couldn't close the door, particularly Mr. Liriano, whose career has gone off the side of a cliff.

LOOKS like the Tigers are down 4-1 now after a 3 run CUST jack against Porcello. Yet, at no point in the 9th inning did I truly believe that we were going to come through....the last time I really had faith in our ability to make a comeback consistently was the final series of the first half against the Red Sox and Papelbon in July of 2006. We had our moments last year, but we still were a very much flawed baseball club. Make that 20-20 against terrible trio of BALT, KC and CLE this year...reason enough alone why we don't deserve to go ANYWHERE this season but to the local country club.