caulfield12

The way TB is playing at home (best record since the 1998 Yankees), it almost doesn't matter if it's the Twins or the White Sox. Yeah, yeah, we COULD get hot at just the right moment...but the odds of that happening are very low. You just get the feeling that the Rays will let up against Liriano after clinching and that Danks will be off with too much rest and Brandon Duckworth will somehow beat us...leaving us up only 1 1/2 games going into Minnesota. And then of course Nick Blackburn will throw a shutout after Vazquez loses YET ANOTHER big game against the Twins...and the season will come down to Slowey versus Gavin Floyd. I don't think any Sox fans would be suprised to see that scenario play out now, unfortunately...not after watching this team for almost an entire season.

Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn and Kevin Slowey will face the White Sox. Then, Francisco Liriano, Perkins and Baker will pitch the final series against the Royals. from startribune.com So it's Vazquez versus Baker, Blackburn (who just got torched by TB) against Buehrle, then Floyd versus Slowey. They moved Slowey up to take Perkins' spot...Perkins will then wait/rest for over a week to start Saturday against KC. I'm really not confident about that first game, so the pressure is definitely on Mark to deliver against a mightily struggling Blackburn. Both Vazquez and Baker are coming off starts on three days' rests, but will have their regular rest before this game. Slowey also figures to be a tough customer, he's one of their Top 3. He has one shutout against us in his home appearance, the other two times this season he was hit pretty hard at Comiskey. The Royals will use Gil Meche in the projected final game of the season against the Twins (Sunday). If Trey Hillman wanted to, he could have Meche and then Greinke pitch the final two games of the season by skipping over Duckworth or Davies, still leaving Zach on his normal rest. Wonder if he would consider doing that after the White Sox/Twins series is finished and the Sox haven't taken a commanding lead or clinched the division? At least we miss their top two and the Twins will get one of them, if not two. Was reading another blog...Twins' top 3 third base targets are Beltre (although he's going to be coming off a thumb ligament problem), Kouzmanoff and Garrett Atkins.

One thing I'm not quite understanding is why they wouldn't want to have Danks face Minnesota. Minnesota has a much better record against RHP's than LHP's, and this has especially been borne out over the last 6-8 weeks of the season. It was the primary reason we used Clayton Richard against them the last time we faced them. Buehrle has the most wins of his career (team-wise) against the Twins, so I understand why he's slated to go, despite how poorly he has pitched on the road most of this season (5+ ERA, 4-9 record after tonight).

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Sep 19, 2008 -> 08:36 PM) Can we give them back Horacio tonight? And MacDougal...and Sisco...and Scott Sullivan!

Who's the first reliever we want to see in this game? Buerhle is at 74 pitches...so he has one or two more innings in all likelihood. I'm really scared to see anyone out there besides Thornton and Jenks, and Jenks scares me with that current four run lead. That's been his bugaboo twice in the last couple of weeks.

Well, a Thome homer that's actually helpful to our winning a game (hopefully). Yay! And speaking of brutal, is there anything worse than being a Brewers' fan about right now? Looks like they're going to let the Mets off the hook. Don't think Sveum will be getting the job after all. This is one move that is sure to be second-guessed by more than Yost-loyalist Bobby Cox in the off-season.

QUOTE (WSoxMatt @ Sep 19, 2008 -> 08:25 PM) 11-1 Rays...man the Twins pitching is emploding, and you thought we had problems Emploding, imploding or exploding...we'll take anything we can get!

The next big question is how long does Guillen stick with Buerhle? He's on three day's rest, and has thrown 42 pitches so far. As tempting as it would be to pull him after 5 or 6, the idea of the bullpen blowing the lead no matter how big it is truly scares me...even though it's a 6-0 lead right now. That darned Aviles would be in the Hall of Fame THIS YEAR if he played every game against the White Sox.

It will be interesting to see how Perkins and Blackburn react to getting knocked out after 2/3 IP and 1 1/3 IP next week...they should be well rested...and both have shown signs of fatigue coming down the stretch, especially Blackburn. So far, it looks like moving Buehrle up has been a good decision...not so with Javy. 6-0 now. Maybe that GS took the monkey off the back of this team. We'll see if they can sustain it the next two games. This team has been so schitzophrenic.

The funny thing is he almost "slowed" down his swing...it was just a perfectly placed fly ball. Wonder if this will be the Crede/Riske shot that puts us over the top and gets us through the weekend? We'll see if MB can go back out on the bump and shut down the Royals in the bottom of the inning. On August 2nd, he gave up 14 hits to the Royals in one of his ugliest starts ever...except one of those opening series at the Metrodome where he was supposedly tipping off his pitches.

If Bannister, Davies and Duckworth don't wake up our bats, then there's nothing Greg Walker can do at this point. If we do miss the playoffs and the offense completely goes south during the final 10 games, if nothing else, it will give everyone something to talk about during the offseason. Although I still doubt Ozzie and KW will pull the trigger.

Didn't realize Buehrle's ERA was well over 5 on the road, and 3-9 record. Well...Ramirez missing the plate is just the way things have been going the last three games. This is starting to feel like the final weeks in 2005, although not quite that tension-filled, of course. Dye, Thome, Ramirez and Swisher have been giving us absolutely nothing on offense...well, except for botched slides.

QUOTE (Flash Tizzle @ Sep 19, 2008 -> 02:02 AM) Either Minnesota or the White Sox go on a three game win streak and it's over. I'm not making excuses if they fail to hold onto a 1 1/2 game lead this late in the season. It's entirely in their hands. I don't care if Quentin is gone and the bullpen is the suxors. If f***ing Kansas City can win seven in a row I'm sure any team, even the Charlotte Knights, can hold this lead this late in the season. What'd I like to see more from the Sox is some confidence. Don't say "I guarantee we're winning the division" but say "I have confidence in our team to do well in Minnesota." If I hear one f***ING person among Hawk/DJ, Guillen, Williams begin this defeatist attitude of giving up those three games before we've played I will have had enough of them this season. We've been over this countless times. I'd rather be overly confident and have our players think less of Minnesota (as we seemingly did every year prior to 05), then this ball licking of Lord Gardenhire and his team. Not to mention the fact that we will miss Liriano, he's pitching on Sunday. We don't have the spectre of Santana/Liriano hanging over us....the "sure" defeats before we even started the games in terms of the team's mentality.

Now back to the negative. The Twins are in MUCH better shape for the future. They have Cuddyer, Span, Gomez, D. Young and Kubel to rotate among four positions (DH/OF) and or use as trade bait (probably Cuddyer). They are much younger and more athletic than the White Sox (sound familiar?) They have five pretty good starters that are 25 years old and very affordable, giving them payroll flexibility heading into the new stadium in 2010. They have only two obvious holes...3B (Harris/Buscher) and SS (Punto). If they acquire a solid, everyday 3B (like Beltre) who goes in line with the Twins' solid infield defense foundational theory and a very good RH reliever (like Linebrink in the first half), then they are close to unbeatable in that Dome, unless Nathan's career has hit a plateau. If they address the holes at 3B and SS, then they are a World Series contender, as long as the pitching stays healthy. They've gotten where they are without an everyday 3B (you could say the same thing about Uribe/Crede I guess), SS, relatively disappointing seasons from D. Young and Gomez (both very young, but raw/talented players), the entire bullpen has imploded the last month, Cuddyer and Jeshek have been injured for much of the season and right now the odds are probably 50/50 they will still win the division. And that was with the inept play of Livan Hernandez, Mike Lamb, Craig Monroe and Adam Everett (although he had a big 2B last night)

Fine, you want positives? Linebrink is back. Konerko is looking better than he has all season. Cabrera is finally hitting like we expected him to at the beginning of the season, he's become dangerous. We face Bannister, Davies and Duckworth, not Meche/Greinke. Our former Michigan QB has put up enough impressive starts to put himself into serious consideration for the #5 spot, so that KW might not have to go out and take a flier on a FA on a one-year deal (like Livan Hernandez) Liriano got tagged last time out. He's pitching Sunday so we will miss him next week. We MIGHT have Quentin back for the playoffs. In 2005, we were looking even worse at this time of the season...or at least playing quite similarly. We'd played poorly against the Royals and Tigers. Brian Anderson and Dewayne Wise are making some positive contributions. We will have Top 3-5 finishers in the MVP and Rookie of the Year race for the first time in a long while. We have a solid foundation with Danks, Jenks, Floyd, Quentin and Ramirez for our future. 80% of that was very unsure/uncertain coming into the year. We have better overall bench depth on our team than the 2005 squad among the position players. Griffey and Thome SHOULD start playing like their post-season lives depend on it. Maybe the Twins finally winning and losing a game in the standings will serve as a needed wake-up call that we can't back or stumble our way into the playoffs and over the finish line. Phil Rogers picked Alexei for ROY over Longoria...who just had a 3 homer game and will undoubtedly win it now. Hope you are happy now. I know all the positives...but I've watched the Sox for long enough (38, have been a fan since last 70's) that I don't want to see the Twins get away when we have them dead in our sights. From here on out, the next couple of seasons won't get any easier in the AL Central. From here on out, it doesn't get much easier. Sure, we can probably rely on Konerko and Swisher having better seasons next year. But there are a large number of question marks as well, especially in the bullpen. Can Quentin, Ramirez, Danks and Floyd sustain their success? Can we find a reliable fifth starter? 3B? Keep AJ, Thome, Konerko and Dye from getting any older/slower/injured? Find any reliable member of the bullpen to set-up Jenks?

"I think we're really missing something," Cabrera said Thursday night after the Sox absorbed a humbling 9-2 loss to the New York Yankees in their final game at Yankee Stadium. "I don't know what it is. Hopefully, we can get it back the next series. We can get that confidence back and we can win the next game." "Horrible," manager Ozzie Guillen summed up. "We don't pitch well. We don't hit at all. We don't have anything going forward right now. If we want to get to where we want to get, we better start playing better. In general, offensively, defensively, pitching, the relievers, it's going to be tough for us to compete. "Everyone has to push as hard as we can and as long as we can. We only have 11/2 weeks left. We fight all the way to now. Why do we have to lay down now? We have to get up and keep fighting because nobody said it was going to be easy, especially here. But we have to realize that. "Right now we aren't playing like we're in the pennant race."

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 18, 2008 -> 08:47 PM) Don't get me wrong, it was a very inisightful post. Assuming this team will win any particular game is difficult considering how bad our hitting is on the road and how much this bullpen sucks. I know we should step back and take a proper perspective. Yay! We always have 2005. Yay! We don't have an ARM resetting at 8% interest or all of our next egg in AIG, Lehman or Merrill Lynch. Yay! We don't have to be in Hank Paulson's unenviable position of trying to keep the entire global financial system from collapsing if he removes the wrong domino from the pile... Yay! Not very many people lost their lives in Ike, compared to Katrina. Yay! There's still a small chance that we can somehow win the World Series against the Cubs and vanquish a lot of chips on shoulders.

So Vazquez, Buehrle and Floyd in that order face the Twins on normal rest...and so we can not wear Danks down any more than we already are. Hence, the week layoff between starts for Danks.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 18, 2008 -> 08:23 PM) This thread seems like such a potential jinx. How or why the Yankees want it more than the White Sox, I'll never understand. Maybe they're simply not good enough. Thome and Griffey, we read about them being so excited to get to post-season play...where are they?

QUOTE (Princess Dye @ Sep 18, 2008 -> 08:20 PM) In the last seven years, the Sox have more to celebrate than the Twins. Consider their side of this thing. No one wants to be the Bills. Cept they're not even getting there. Also i dont see the Royals on an upward trajectory, myself. I don't agree with that 100%. I would rather be a Braves' fan and have a run of sustained excellence than be a Marlins' fan, see 2 World Series win and two teams torn apart due to baseball economics.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 18, 2008 -> 08:13 PM) Caulfield why would you care about that? No disrespect but who gives a f*** about season tix sales. If we do not make the playoffs, it will be a major disappointment that will take us all a while to get over. The injuries will be the excuse that will ultimately pacify us all. CQ might have made a difference. Losing 3 of 4 in NY was not good but hardly unexpected. Losing 2 of 3 or all 3 to KC would really suck but who cares if it affects tix sales. Let Jerry worry bout that. Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life seeing the Twins win the AL Central with inferior talent but better fundamentals. The Twins and Royals are just going to get better and better, and the Tigers and Indians won't be any worse next year either. If they win, that would be five titles in seven years...the White Sox would have just two in nine years. There's simply no excuse for that with the type of budget the White Sox have.

Unbelievable. Adam Everett pulls back on the bunt attempt and hits a double over Zobrist. No way. Well, it's not like the Rays would rather face the Twins than the Sox. They have many things to play for here. The Rays own the Sox, especially on turf. The Rays were 77-1 when leading after 8 coming into that game. Like the 2006 Twins. Now 77-2. Amazing. Funny, too. Because the other blown game was the one against the White Sox on the controversial AJ baserunning play.

Well, fading out of the playoffs after leading the entire season will do wonders for our season ticket sales. I guess there's not much difference with getting swept, except a few fans will buy season tickets for 2009 in order to get playoff tickets. A few. Those extra ticket sales (projected) would give KW a little more room to maneuver in the off-season.

Why can't the White Sox ever put away the Twins??? The only thing that is a small consolation is that this White Sox team is nothing like 2005 or even 2003. You really feel they have no chance to do anything opening on the road in Tampa Bay. The Twins match up much better against them.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 18, 2008 -> 07:59 PM) Leadoff man on for Twins in the 9th. I really don't like that they're not pitching Howell. Now there is one Royals castoff who really has reinvented himself and made a good second career as a reliever. You might see him against Mauer/Morneau...depends what happens with Casilla. OOOPS! Now the Rays are really in trouble...because the Twins haven't used any of their better relievers. Well, assuming the real Joe Nathan shows up.