almagest

This always seems to happen against the Orioles.

Sherrill sure is worried about Dye.

Hawk made a good point in Mora's at-bat. He was obviously trying to go the other way or up the middle, and seemed to be looking offspeed. Why they kept throwing him breaking balls over the outer half, i don't know.

QUOTE (juddling @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 10:41 PM) Oh Boy....as the downward trend for Hollywood continues...here comes....Fast and Furious 4 It should be called, "The Fast and the FOURious"

QUOTE (G&T @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 08:28 PM) Mark will be lucky to make it through 7. I wouldn't exactly say that 2 runs allowed through 6 innings is a bad start. Also, since when is 6+ innings bad?

QUOTE (YASNY @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 01:29 AM) Maybe the fact that we have dominated the Tigers is more indicative of the strength of the Sox as opposed to the suckiness of the Tigers. Well, we lost 2 of 3 vs. Cleveland, and split with Minnesota. Both teams are at or below .500. That doesn't bode too well, though I suspect we'll find out more about this team in the series vs. the A's.

I don't think I've seen Toby Hall hit a ball hard in any at-bat during the regular season with the White Sox.

Not sure why Dye was swinging 2-0 when Grilli had walked Konerko on 5 pitches and technically walked Thome. Bad decision there.

Game is on regular Comcast Sports Net now, meaning HD for non-Comcast customers.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 10, 2008 -> 09:11 AM) Under $1000 would be nice, less would be even better... Anything. Seriously. Most any laptop you buy nowadays is more than good enough for ANY task besides gaming. Just make sure you have 2 GB of RAM or more, and you're set.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Apr 9, 2008 -> 12:30 AM) So one of the links on the right side of the page is "McRoll'd". So I clicked it. It's...interesting. I prefer the myself.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 04:32 PM) Lower the WHIP the better in my opinion over anything. Both walks and hits are the worst thing that can happen to a pitcher. Outs are outs, but the K-rate is considered very important, but can also be modified by less walks. I've always thought walks were worse, because they naturally lead to a higher pitch count, and it seems harder to string enough hits together to generate a run, than it is to draw a walk or two, then get 1 hit. I think this is one area where that conventional "walks will always kill you" wisdom is completely correct. QUOTE (jackie hayes @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 04:45 PM) But that gets back to the issue of sustaining whip from one year to the next. Take two pitchers who walk exactly the same number of batters. If one gets significantly more strikeouts than the other, that means fewer balls in play. The low-k guy could get lucky one year and have a very low babip, which would give him a lower whip, but that doesn't mean he can sustain it. Except for certain types of pitchers (especially strong gb pitchers), babip tends to revert to the league-average, meaning the next year he'll probably have a higher whip. In that sense, whip is more a measure of success than a predictor of future success. Which is why I mentioned Carmona originally. Pitchers like Brandon Webb and Carmona and Maddux in his prime and Garland to an extent can get away with pitching to contact, because they keep the ball on the ground. Being a flyball pitcher and pitching to contact is a recipe for disaster.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 11:47 AM) This reminds me of this comic: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png Which reminds me of me... XKCD is great.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 02:54 PM) I don't know how anyone can think a strikeout is the same as any other out offensively but important for a pitcher. I happen to think they are important to a certain extent for a pitcher. Its situational. While there are good pitchers that don't get many strikeouts, there aren't a lot of bad ones who do. Usually when pitcher's k rates drop significantly, their ERA's and other bad stats rise significantly. I think it's already been said, but basically, if a guy has a good OBP and SLG, you don't mind the strikeouts as much. Taking lots of pitches and being selective naturally leads to more strikeouts. It's the same for pitchers, you'd like someone who has a great K rate, but if you've got a pitcher like Carmona with a power sinker who induces lots of weak grounders, you're not going to complain.

Looks to me like Cuzzi is starting to go for the reach-around.

QUOTE (Texsox @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 10:22 AM) Nothing like having something to look forward to, a Sox player having a slump, that's a fan Rooting for my favorite team takes a back seat to being right on the internet. Everyone knows that!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 11:41 AM) Think about this example...which team is a strikeout more valuable to. The Rockies or the Tigers? The Rockies have a ridiculously good defense. The Tigers defense looks like a disaster area. If I'm pitching for the Rockies, I want to pitch to contact. If I'm pitching for the Tigers, I don't want Miguel Cabrera or Magglio Ordonez having to make a great play, because they wont' be able to do it. Actually, Coors Field is an extremely hitter-friendly park to ALL batted balls, to the point of making strikeouts more valuable there, even with a good defense. Even the humidor they're using now doesn't help all that much. QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 12:17 PM) If you look at sabermetrics I'm pretty sure they will tell you that Javier Vazquez is a much better pitcher than Mark Buehrle because Javy strikes guys out, but when you watch both of them pitch without seeing the numbers, you know Buehrle's more reliable. That's pretty selective use of evidence. As a previous poster showed, the pitchers that lead the major in strikeouts are almost always above-average to great.

Just wait until Crede has a slump. We Fields supporters will have our day!

QUOTE (rcpweiner @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 12:49 AM) Well, Borowski certainly sucks. Maybe Kenny wasn't so crazy to spend some extra money fortifying the bullpen in a division where Borowski and Todd Jones are two of the closers. As brutal as the top of the 9th was, I'm glad I watched the rest of the game. What a terrible loss for the Indians.

I'm not upset with 6 IP+ 3 ER from Vazquez. I also like that we have Blackburn over 90 pitches through 5 innings, even though we haven't broken through.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Apr 7, 2008 -> 07:44 AM) How about the sixth inning yesterday? One error, and the Sox just jumped on the throats of Detroit, turning a one run game into a laugher, against one of the best young pitchers in baseball. It reminded me of '05, when we would make teams pay for each and every little mistake they made. Of course, our offense is way better this year (so far), so we REALLY made them pay. I'd imagine it has to be rough for teams to know that one little dropped ball or wild pitch or HBP could lead to a big inning against us.

We're leading the AL in OBP (.370) and HR (10) according to mlb.com. It's so nice to see a team that can make these pitchers work and drive up the pitch count. We've gotten some good pitchers out of the game early against us. Also thank you to the Diamondbacks for having so many good young outfielders that they can afford to trade Quentin for an A-ball DH/1B.

Awful relay by Cabrera. 1-0 Tigers on the double by Inge.

Detroit looks to be trying to hit a home run every at-bat. They do that a lot, it seems.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 5, 2008 -> 02:06 PM) The quote was strikeouts are the same as any other out. I took any to mean any. Silly me. BTW, did you see how the Astros got their go ahead run baserunner on base yesterday. A groundball "out" to second, bobbled for an error. Toronto tried to play the "fantasy baseball" style not caring about strikeouts or steals or hit and runs and failed miserably. And the Red Sox have done the same and have 2 World Series titles in the past 4 years. I'm also not sure how you can take one play in one game and cite that as decisive evidence.