caulfield12

That's pretty familiar, Joe! It will be interesting to see, I guess Wise will be back in CF tomorrow, I don't think Ozzie will use this line-up two days in a row, although Corky and Betemit had hits, Lillibridge got on base once and had a good sacrifice...

Let's keep scoring, please! It seems that every time we have the Twins down, we don't step on their throats and put them away, but slowly let them fight back into the game one or two runs at a time. If BA would have picked up those final two RBI's to expand the lead to 7, this game would feel a lot more comfortable. We've seen too many Twins' comebacks to think any game is over yet.

Colon was supposed to go six innings, that's what Cooper was expecting. Hopefully those last two runs don't come back to haunt us...thanks, BA. Dotel/Thornton/Linebrink/Jenks. No MacDougal for sure...he might never pitch again for the Sox, at best, he has one more shot. What has Colon's velocity been today? They're not showing any pitch speeds at MLB GameCenter.

Is Wilson Betemit really a better option than Thome against LHP??? I guess his OPS against lefties is around .650...but Thome just doesn't hit Liriano. The decision to start and lead off Lillibridge, well, we shall we how it goes. Doesn't sound too promising, but stranger thing have happened. It can't be any worse than what we've seen so far, that much is for sure. If we do manage to win, there will be a huge logjam near first place and then the Indians at 0-5.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 11, 2009 -> 12:56 PM) Quite the exaggeration. This lineup isn't good today, but that's the problem when you have a terrible back-up catcher and utility player. I'm as pessimistic and passionate as anyone, but people seem to be in freak out mode way too early right now. Of course the White Sox line-up is better...but our AA line-up actually might be capable of putting up better numbers against Liriano today, simply because some of our players are really starting to press a little bit. I'm just looking forward to the day we havea more balanced line-up, more athleticism, better defensive ability...this just seems to me like a bridge or transition year, with no real solid degree of confidence that we can compete with the teams from the AL East.

That means they now have to go to Zach Jackson, Aaron Laffey or Sowers as their fifth starter. Things are getting ugly already in CLE, they could be 0-5 after today...right now they are down 4-1 in the bottom of the 6th. 4-3 Tigers over the Rangers...Rodney with a 1-2-3 ninth. The Tigers have officially awakened, 3-3 record now. We will be facing Miner, Galarraga and Porcello.

TOR up 3-0 early on the Indians with Doc Halladay pitching. (White Sox fans have been joined by Indians fans booing their team as well). Indians just blew a 2nd and 3rd, no outs situation....two strikeouts in a row by Halladay, then a flyout to Vernon Wells.

Shelby, Beckham, Flowers, Allen, Cook, Viciedo, Gartrell and Retherford would generate more offense against the Liriano/Twins than our major league line-up. Very sad.

Well, with our starting line-up as comprised today, the game might not be worth watching except as a comedy track and MLB record for strikeouts being threatened by Liriano.

For some reason, I was so aggravated with our performance last night I was thinking they could trade current prospects and a future #1 overall pick in the 2010 draft for #1 this year, because most of those teams at the bottom won't be able to meet his demands...of course, that's not reality. Isn't there a pretty good choice he will sit out this next year if the "wrong" team (according to Boras) drafts him or doesn't meet his demands, which are looking to be like Dice-K numbers?

Did KW tell Ozzie to abandon this season already and fight with the Indians for last place and Strasburg?? Well, I was going to get on Ozzie last night when he left Wise in against Duensing, but then Wise actually ended up getting 2 hits (of course, the more important one, when the game was still in doubt, ended up in him getting picked off, thus it was nullified). Our chances of winning this game must be about 10-15%. To get swept at home by the Twins before playing the Tigers, Rays and Orioles on the road has 2007 written all over it. Prediction right now is is 5-11 or 6-10 start for the White Sox. Looking back to 2007, we were actually 9-7 at the same point in the season. We were 24-20 as late as May 25th. Of course, then we went into a patented lifeless 5-22 stretch that left us dead in the water for the rest of the season at 29-42 on June 24th.

Not even regional!!! Here in the Quad Cities, approximately 177 miles from USCF, they still show Cardinals games on FOX over the White Sox, even though the Cardinals/Astros games is not really a "rivalry" game like the White Sox one...and even though St. Louis is almost twice as far away from the Quad Cities as Chicago. They would never show a Cardinals game over a Cubs game here...

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 10:28 PM) Nobody has started a game thread yet, but looking at the pitching matchup tomorrow, can you believe we are looking at a 1-4 start with all the games played at home? My god. Even with our team last year, we were pretty bad on the road. Here's a pretty realistic scenario for the next 10 days. 1-1 versus Minn (2-4) 1-2 at DET (3-6) 1-3 at TB (4-9) 1-2 at BALT (5-11) The way things are going now, 6-10 or 5-11 isn't going to surprise me very much at all. Maybe 7-9 if we're being REALLY REALLY optimistic. Luckily, CLE is 0-4 and doing worse than us so far, but DET is really getting some good starting pitching so far, with the exception of arguably their best pitcher, Verlander.

QUOTE (EvilJester99 @ Apr 10, 2009 -> 10:00 PM) What happened to Franklyn German? German would have been an option 8-10 years ago when he was still a prospect...he just doesn't have an explosive fastball anymore. MacDougal did go to Clemson, lol....any pitchers who went to university in South Carolina should be rejected, except for Roberto Hernandez (USC-Aiken)

Jeff Nelson? Aug. Montero? Sean Tracey? David Aardsma? How can MacDougal have a 95-97 MPH fastball and have NO confidence in it at all??? We'll never figure it out I guess....he just throws slider after slider.

Is there anyone in AAA or AA that would be clearly better than MacDougal and Carrasco? I think MacDougal is about one more appearance like tonight from getting released unconditionally for the good of the organization...but Carrasco might have been "lightning in a bottle" for one-half season and we probably will need to look somewhere else for the dreaded 6th and 7th spots in the pen. Egbert? Russell? Broadway? Are there any relievers who were DFA'ed at the end of ST that are worth a look?

Beckham, 2/4 tonight, two singles....6/10 on the season so far Viciedo with a single and 2 runs scored 2/9=.222 Stefan Gartrell and Gordon Beckham led the Birmingham Barons to a 4-2 win over Chattanooga at Regions Park in front of 2,578 fans Friday night. The Barons improved to 2-0. Gartrell went 2-for-3 with a home run and an RBI double as the Barons improved to 2-0 on the season. The right fielder's two-run shot in the second tied the game at 2-2. His double in the sixth added an insurance run. Beckham, a shortstop, followed his 4-for-6, game-winning-hit debut with a 2-for-4 night with another game-winner performance in a brisk 2-hour, 11-minute second outing. The 2008 eighth-overall draft pick poked an opposite-field single to right with one out in the fifth to score C.J. Retherford and give Birmingham a 3-2 lead. Kyle McCulloch (1-0) allowed two runs in six innings for the win. Derek Rodriguez earned his first save of the season. Chattanooga's Scott Elbert (0-1) suffered the loss. www.al.com

Did they not vote him a full playoff share though?

What did Crede do? I know that Ozzie was really frustrated with him in the second half of last season (was he playing or not playing, was he hurt or okay enough to play but advised by Boras to sit/rest?)...and he really lit into him a couple of times, but Ozzie has been nothing but chivalrous since the offseason started about Swisher, Cabrera and Crede.

Yeah, there aren't really any catchers on the horizon for the HOF. Mauer, if he stays at catcher....maybe McCann, but it's way too early to start discussing him or Soto in that way. Same thing with Russell Martin...those are probably the top four guys today.

I think you might be underestimating how many former HOF players really dislike Bonds and don't want him anywhere near Cooperstown. I agree with you, if Bonds went down in a plane crash (Clemente, although he already had 3000 hits) or lost his vision (like Kirby Puckett) around ten years ago, then there would still be no question that Bonds was a Hall of Famer. Right now, Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire and Clemens are all on the outside looking in...which isn't exactly fair to Sosa, because it was never proved that he did anything wrong, although everyone suspected and there were the obvious physical changes from his "Panther" days with the White Sox. Not even sure what to make of Ivan Rodriguez...I guess he'll make it just based on the defensive impact he made on the game, but how much of his offensive output was HGH/steroids-related? He was in that same clubhouse with Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro for many seasons, too.

The Tigers offense against Ponson, Benson, Horacio Ramirez or RA Dickey is a different animal. Wow, that's so sweet!!! Nick Swisher is personally wrapping Xavier Nady in towels to keep him warm on the bench since Nick Wally Pipped his position. FWIW, I think I would rather watch the Hannah Montana movie than see Swisher's mug...and the female Yankees' radio broadcaster has a crush on him already. I wonder how long that love affair will last?

First time we've had two potentially good Venezuelan pitchers in our pipeline since the days of Wilson Alvarez.

There's a rain/weather delay in CLE right now, too. Very convenient, as the Blue Jays just took the lead in the last inning, 4-3, now with one out in the top of the 5th...oh, well. Adam "Chico" Lind already has 3 homers this season. BTW, Asheville is one of the prettiest settings of all minor league baseball...make sure to check out the Biltmore Estate while you're there, too.

Well, the Yankees are roughing up Ponson, and I'm sure Sabathia will beat Horacio Ramirez tomorrow (not to mention that Guillen is now injured)...but if Bannister and Hochevar ever got their heads out of the a--es, they'd be a legitimate contender in our division.