caulfield12

Time for Mahay, Farnsworth (probably not) or Juan Cruz.

And here's another reason why Matt Thornton is not a closer. Gavin Floyd (6.29 ERA) and Bartolo Colon thank you for your efforts. He's great when there's no pressure or nobody on base...but those situations make me more nervous than when Jenks is in there in the 9th or a tie game.

Crisp is dangerous...he just broke out of his hitless streak tonight. Be careful here, Matty.

Hopefully we'll get the 06 and 08 Thornton and not the 2007 version...or we'll be in trouble this season. Let's get this 3rd out, please!!!!

Konerko really seems to have sustained his approach of taking the ball up the middle and to RF into the season. The home runs will come.

Sometime, those surrendered without even a glance stolen bases by Gavin are going to bite him in the butt when he throws a wild pitch.

QUOTE (Jenks Heat @ May 5, 2009 -> 06:19 PM) Pods offense has never really been an issue it is the defense. With the power in the line-up already. Pods at DH makes sense to me. He seems to be more aggresive than when he left. You really want to sit Thome for Pods? More likely, Pods would be splitting time with Anderson...although some here won't/wouldn't like that.

Strange that Gavin is getting about 7 1/2 runs per game of support, just like last year. If we hold on, then team will be 4-2 in games that he's started, but obviously you'd like to see the ERA below 5 at least.

Guillen used to have a great arm...ten years ago, Cox doesn't dream of sending him. Good job getting the ball into the air, Scott. He's been better offensively than I expected at this point in his career...as long as Ozzie doesn't try to play him in RF.

Would have been nice to get an "easy" win for once, but so much for that. At least the offense finally showed up, although Dye coming back has a lot to do with it. Not having to play Lillibridge really improves the line-up, although Alexei is still really in a funk.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 5, 2009 -> 10:10 AM) The Greg Walker stuff is crap. There is not and there has never been a "lift and pull" philosophy. He works with what he has. The White Sox have been constructed with guys who hit home runs for years. These types are very streaky. When they aren't going well, no runs will be scored. The balance management has tried to create has never really worked out. Hopefully guys like Getz and Beckham will correct that. Why is it when the Sox don't score, its all Greg Walker's fault? Why isn't it Don Cooper's fault when Contreras and Floyd fail to hold runners on base or when a pitcher gets lit up? When a Sox player swings for the fences and pops up, Walker must go. When MacDougal throws another one to the screen, no one is calling for Cooper's head. Why isn't it Joey Cora's fault when another rundown goes awry? The Walker stuff needs to stop. Its time to blame the guys walking up to the plate with a bat. These are major league players. They are supposed to have some sort of clue. So many around here hate the "all or nothing" approach a lot of White Sox hitters supposedly have, yet love Josh Fields and also said Ryan Sweeney was garbage because he didn't hit enough home runs. Well, as Harrelson said on one of the broadcasts, it's fine if you are so good and so confident that those runs don't score once they have stolen 2nd and 3rd, but Floyd and Contreras (since 2006, and early 2008) haven't been very effective with RISP. I think Floyd led the majors in unearned runs last year, so he definitely wasn't pitching over or around mistakes. Jenks is more comfortable pitching (and allowing stolen bases right and left) into and out of trouble. We are definitely the worst team in the majors at rundowns...the one last night was almost comical, with Getz chasing after Olivo and almost not getting there in time. That goes back to Ozzie, the bench coaches, the entire minor league system. Of course, the other part of the problem is that players like Konerko, Nix, Betemit, Ramirez, etc., didn't come up through our system...but there SHOULD be no excuses for that. Cooper gets more credit because of where the following players came from and how they progressed: Marte, Thornton, Loaiza, Contreras, Garland, Jenks, John Danks and Gavin Floyd, among others. He also gets a lot of the credit for 2005...because of the team's amazing pitching that year, especially Politte/Cotts/Hermanson. I guess the answer to your question is also to be found in the..."Coop will fix him" statements proliferating on the message boards. You don't ever see "Walk will fix him," it's more like, "hopefully, Walk won't mess him up." Traditionally, we have fired hitting coaches in this organization as "scapegoats" and the replacement didn't do any better than Gary Ward or Ron Jackson...it's just that belief it's easier to change the hitting coach than the manager or GM, just like coordinators in football.

QUOTE (chisox2334 @ May 5, 2009 -> 09:48 AM) w sox have already committed 5 errors this month with 2 on sat, 2 on sun, and one last night. Anyone got stats where w sox rank in errors up till now? 4th (worst) in the majors in errors committed with 20.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 5, 2009 -> 09:39 AM) You mean no hitting coach would want every player to be a HOF-caliber hitter? Huh? Your desperation is clouding your judgement. Take some time off from obsessing about the Sox, go outside, meet some girls, buy a thai hooker (no penis), do something else for a few days. Hmm...no, I would not tell our young hitters to watch Ken Griffey, Jr., or Thome. It would be as illogical as telling them to imitate Willie Stargell's or Joe Morgan's "chicken wing" or Roberto Clemente stepping into the bucket on most of his swings, or Hank Aaron holding the bat cross-handed. They were Hall of Famers, but they won't be getting there largely because of their accomplishments with the White Sox. Just to answer your concern, there are no Thai hookers in Iowa, and my g/f is in another country...but I would gladly frequent voodoo doctors, witches and a Native American shaman if they could turn Brent Lillibridge into Lenny Dykstra.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 5, 2009 -> 09:35 AM) ? So we have alot of depth? How's the view from the ledge? There is no ledge this year. It's not 2005 at the end of the season, the end of 2006, the beginning of 2007...or the end of 2008. Having a ledge means having a degree of expectations, and White Sox fans (most) realize this team is a 76-84 win team that will look great at times and horrendous at times...like now, when we're the worst team in the entire AL at scoring runs. Obviously that won't continue.

It's just the prevailing term (it might as well be Corpseball) for the tendencies of MOST of our offensive players over the last decade...of course, no hitting coach will say something like they prefer their players to all be like Thome (unless it's a ball hit to the OF). That would mean a major league record for strikeouts and balls hit off the end of the bat because of not covering the outside 1/3rd of the plate.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 5, 2009 -> 09:27 AM) OK, PLEASE find me one time where Greg Walker has emphasized "lift and pull" anywhere to a player. This keeps getting repeated ad naseum, but I swear everytime I hear him speak about hitting, he is always talking about up the middle, and the other way. I'd love to see a video clip or article where he ACTUALLY talks about turning hitters into uppercut, dead pull hitters. So it's the hitters simply tuning him out and not listening that usually results in the "secondary/role" players never following this philosophy? The Big 4 will get their share of K's, HR's and RBI's. You live with it...and the home park you play in. But that doesn't explain the other 9-10 players on a roster.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ May 5, 2009 -> 09:03 AM) This thread is more embarrassing that anything Kenny has done. Nobody can argue that we have no quality depth among position players...we don't even have ONE that's pretty good offensively AND defensively (unless you want to put in an argument for Jayson Nix based on a couple of games). Charlotte is the biggest joke in the minor leagues. It's not about whether we will win this season, it's simply that there's no excuse to be in this position in the first place with our budget/payroll. Our bench was always a strength, and now it's perhaps our greatest weakness, after Contreras and the ongoing CF carousel.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ May 5, 2009 -> 08:48 AM) Why do people blame Walker all the time? Its not like he is being given prized hitting spects who have amazing ba, obp and ops in the minors and then turning them into crap. Most of the players Walker has to work with, are what they are. But no one even mentions the fact that when Dye came to the Sox he was brutal at first(can anyone remember the "Dye Raise from the Dead"). He has since become more productive with the Sox than any other team he has played with. I think the Sox hitting suffers from talent, not from coaching. If he had players like Carlos Lee, Ordonez, Thomas, Ventura, coming through the minors our offense would be fine. Its not like CQ has done horrible with the Sox... Well, then we're back to the argument that Ozzie is a miracle worker/master motivator to get anything out of this threadbare talent, and Walker and Cooper should have lifetime contracts. In the middle lies the truth, as usual. It's not as if our payroll hasn't been in the Top 4-8 in the major leagues over the past three seasons. We're writing checks to someone besides Contreras and MacDougal, last time I checked. For Quentin (who seems to have regressed into strictly a lift and pull hitter with 110% swing velocity on almost every pitch, much like Thome), there are/were puzzles like Rowand, Crede, Borchard, Brian Anderson, Juan Uribe, Josh Fields, Ryan Sweeney, Swisher, Cabrera, etc., that failed to fully reach their potential here. (Yes, an argument can be made about each player...that they weren't that good in the first place, bad development/coaching in the minors, Dave Wilder, Ron Schueler, drafting, Shaffer, getting older, bad fit in the clubhouse, etc.) You (Greg Walker) can hang your hat on Quentin, Ramirez (although what Walker's done with him this season doesn't seem to be working so far) and Dye. Konerko has been wildly inconsistent. Thome has been as expected, simply because he's had pretty good health compared to 2005. AJ has seemingly regressed a bit in his hitting approach and has often wandered into the "lift and pull" school of influence as well. I'll just put it this way...there are a lot more question marks about Walker's tenure than Cooper, whose main failures could be counted on 2-3 fingers, and almost never with our most valuable "commodity," a starting pitcher. My biggest concern is simply that the rest of the players are too influenced by playing in USCF and the Big 4 in our line-up...everyone just makes the assumption it's better to take wild swings that miss down and away sliders by 3 feet than by trying to put that ball into play to the right side. 2005 might be something of an anomaly that we had a more balanced club and our pitching was so incredible...I'd almost prefer to see the White Sox move the fences back in 2010 or 2011 and force the natural doubles and single hitters to stop thinking about hitting HR's. The stadium would still be small enough for hitters like Quentin, Flowers and Viciedo, but would also enhance the abilities of Getz, Jordan Danks, Allen, Beckham and Shelby by giving up more doubles and triples.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 5, 2009 -> 05:00 AM) I agree with this 100%. There's really no other explanation for a guy like Brent Lillibridge being on the major league roster. He talked him up when he acquired him saying he's been after him for a couple of years. He didn't hit in the majors last year. He didn't hit in the minors last year. He didn't hit in spring training, and he hasn't hit so far this season. Its not like he's a 20 or 21 year old kid. Then to make him even worse, you put him in CF where he is on a good day average defensively. Check the ego at the door and get baseball players. There is no reason this team should have been 2nd in all of baseball in slashing payroll after last season. Sometimes you get what you pay for. Too bad that hasn't held true for White Sox ticketholders, the people who pay more per game than fans of any team other than the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Cubs, yet this year. This is beginning to feel like the late 80's and late 90's. We're in a transition year. It would have been much better if they kept season tickets at the same prices, admitted they were going to cut payroll (using the downturn or Tucson as excuses, lack of revenues from ST ticket sales, etc.) and been MORE honest with the fans about the realistic goal being to compete in 2010-12. Now there's the danger that we have a season somewhat like 2007, except not quite that bad, because nobody will run away with the division and we'll sort of be in the race for most of the season...but we'll lose a lot of the walk-up crowd that only comes out when we have good teams. Those casual Sox fans that don't show up until mid-to-late May won't come out and spend their hard-earned dollars on this. Having lived in KC for 10 years, it's nice to see the fans finally coming out to support their team on a Monday night and really getting into it. Of course, it helps to have the best pitcher in baseball, but I can't remember going into a Royals game in my lifetime (well, since the mid 80's) where you felt there was about a 5-10% to win the game, especially without Dye. Almost 22,000 sounds like a disappointment, but not when you look at their average Monday night attendance in April/May over the last decade. Royals fans are a lot like White Sox fans. They simply refuse to turn out for bad or average baseball, but they'll start filling that park in May and June if the Royals continue to be in or near first place. With Hochevar tearing up AAA now, they have a legit chance to compete when they add him to their rotation again. As far as checking the ego at the door with KW goes, I think it all depends on Flowers with that trade (and, of course, we never know how Gilmore and Rodriguez will turn out 3-5 years from now). If he can catch in the big leagues with that type of power and plate discipline (above the level of Victor Martinez at least), then the trade will be a huge success, but certainly not in 2009. It's hard to name more than a couple of catchers in baseball who give you that type of offense.

QUOTE (joeynach @ May 4, 2009 -> 11:43 PM) This team is carrying 07 style dead weight, just not major players at all. 07: Pods Erstad Mackowiak Andy Gonzalez Luis Terrero Alex Cintron Danny Richar 09: Pods Wise Lillibridge Betemit Nix Contreras (sorry to say it) You're forgetting Corky Miller and Jerry Owens...not to mention MacDougal, Egbert and Broadway. Although, FWIW, Betemit is a good/effective hitter with regular player time against RHP.

She's sort of cute, I guess, but I'd have to agree with TRU. As far as female tennis players go, Daniela Hantuchova is much hotter. Barbara Schett, Carling Bassett-Seguso (going old school), Kournikova, Sharapova is okay, too. Then there's Ivanovic, she's cute but certainly not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. Maria Kirilenko and Tatiana Golovin aren't bad either. http://www.beyondhollywood.com/gallery/spo...&Qis=M#qdig

QUOTE (scenario @ May 4, 2009 -> 09:27 PM) Hmmm... looks like your right. I wasn't sure a 5-inning rain-shortened game went in the books as an official no-hitter. Melido Perez did it too, I think against the Yankees. That was either five or six innings.

HUC(K) FINFANTE

I would even rather have Nix in CF (after watching him handle RF tonight for the first time) than Pods. At least Nix has instincts and a pretty good arm.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 4, 2009 -> 09:01 PM) Where do you get this information on where the minor league guys hit the ball? From listening to most of the Barons games this season...all four of those guys have sprayed the ball all over the field. I would say there might even be some concern that Viciedo is hitting 75% of his balls to RF and RCF. Flowers' greatest power is to CF, although he can hit the ball well out of the stadium in any direction...he's had quite a few doubles to both CF gaps. Beckham usually homers to LF, but he's a tremendous hitter to the opposite field and up the middle when down in the count. And Gordon has simply been a doubles machine so far this season.