AND THAT'S A WHITE SOX WINNER!!!

[scenario]

Well this is the way I was looking at it Friday night...the Mariners came to town 9-7, probably feeling pretty good about themselves. We were 5-11 and really down in the dumps - hadn't even won a series yet despite a few first game of the series wins to our credit.

 

The Mariners leave town now just a few days later and they're 1 game ahead of us in the standings.

 

Do we all see how quickly things can change now?

 

And when the Mariners rolled into town, they had won 7 of their last 8. While the Sox had lost 6 of their last 8.

 

Funny how quickly things can turn around.

 

 

 

[knightni]

Great win today.. 1st series win and no less 1st sweep!!

Holy s***! Your avatar's trying to poke my eyes out.

[witesoxfan]

Yeah, you're right...the chances of Griffey getting the job done there were probably in the 5-10% range. But when we're trying to get some momentum going and stay away from getting buried, I would have brought in Thornton. The chances of Griffey getting the job done against Matt were probably 0-3%.

 

You have to have some faith in your closer. If you take him out right there, it hurts his psyche and hurts the club's psyche and even if you win, it may be detrimental to the team overall. Putting Thornton in right there would have been micro-managing, and it's something Manuel would have done.

 

No matter the statistics you can throw out about a situation like that, these athletes are still human and their confidence within their abilities will fluctuate depending on what you do. If it's a computer simulation, I bring Thornton in to get that final out, but it's not and leaving Jenks in to win it or lose it was the right move.

 

Well this is the way I was looking at it Friday night...the Mariners came to town 9-7, probably feeling pretty good about themselves. We were 5-11 and really down in the dumps - hadn't even won a series yet despite a few first game of the series wins to our credit.

 

The Mariners leave town now just a few days later and they're 1 game ahead of us in the standings.

 

Do we all see how quickly things can change now?

 

Standings and records are really irrelevant until Memorial Day, and even at that point you still have like 2/3 of the season to make up ground. People freaking out because the Sox looked like terrible and were 5-11 are just on the early season roller coaster that happens every year. Had the Sox started out 11-5 rather than 5-11, people would be looking at moves to give the team that extra edge, when really, a bad week and half puts you back under .500. As is, a good week and a half puts the Sox back over .500.

 

Baseball is a marathon, and should be treated as such.

[Greg Hibbard]

I can't recall a three game sweep on the winning side where the White Sox have looked worse.

 

I'll take being 8-11, and I hope we can hang around .500 until we can get something fixed with this offense, but this is still a dreadful team with the bat. Homer or nothing. In any park like Comerica you might as well put a zero up on the board.

[dielac]

Great performance from Danks and Konerko. So-so win but I'll take it. Ozzie needs to move AJ down. I can't stand to watch him hit 5th. He has been absolutely terrible. There is no reason for him to be batting behind Jones and Konerko with Rios and CQ behind him. I would rather have Teahen if you need to have a lefty there.

[elrockinMT]

Got to see the game on WGN. It is certainly fun to see a win and three in a row at that.

[chw42]

I would like to see this lineup from now on from Ozzie, and this is not unrealistic by any means.

 

1. LF Pierre

2. 2B Beckham

3. DH Jones

4. 1B Konerko

5. 3B Teahen

6. CF Rios

7. RF Quentin

8. C Pierzynski

9. SS Ramirez

 

Please drop A.J. down and stop wasting Teahen's bat.

 

This way, your 3-6 has 4 bats that are posting OPS above .850 with a decent bat in Quentin and then a big black hole of A.J., Alexei, and Pierre. It's not like those guys were going to hit anyways. Why sandwich them in between guys who are hitting?

Edited April 25, 2010 by chw42

[southsider2k5]

At least they didn't wait until the 9th inning to get the winning run today...

[macsandz]

I would like to see this lineup from now on from Ozzie, and this is not unrealistic by any means.

 

1. LF Pierre

2. 2B Beckham

3. DH Jones

4. 1B Konerko

5. 3B Teahen

6. CF Rios

7. RF Quentin

8. C Pierzynski

9. SS Ramirez

 

Please drop A.J. down and stop wasting Teahen's bat.

 

This way, your 3-6 has 4 bats that are posting OPS above .850 with a decent bat in Quentin and then a big black hole of A.J., Alexei, and Pierre. It's not like those guys were going to hit anyways. Why sandwich them in between guys who are hitting?

 

Swap Quentin for Rios and I'll bet that's exactly what we're gonna see in Texas.

 

 

[Quin]

Paulie is being awesome this year, contract year or not.

[iamshack]

You have to have some faith in your closer. If you take him out right there, it hurts his psyche and hurts the club's psyche and even if you win, it may be detrimental to the team overall. Putting Thornton in right there would have been micro-managing, and it's something Manuel would have done.

 

No matter the statistics you can throw out about a situation like that, these athletes are still human and their confidence within their abilities will fluctuate depending on what you do. If it's a computer simulation, I bring Thornton in to get that final out, but it's not and leaving Jenks in to win it or lose it was the right move.

 

 

 

Standings and records are really irrelevant until Memorial Day, and even at that point you still have like 2/3 of the season to make up ground. People freaking out because the Sox looked like terrible and were 5-11 are just on the early season roller coaster that happens every year. Had the Sox started out 11-5 rather than 5-11, people would be looking at moves to give the team that extra edge, when really, a bad week and half puts you back under .500. As is, a good week and a half puts the Sox back over .500.

 

Baseball is a marathon, and should be treated as such.

Yeah, Blake, I'll agree with you about 95% of the time there, and even still, I may be wrong here this 5% of the time. Had we been 11-7 and really playing well, with Bobby struggling, I would have said leave him in. But at 7-11, and needing this win to get some momentum going, I make the move. The overall health of the group is more important to me than that of Bobby right now. But it's certainly something reasonable minds can disagree about, considering the percentages were probably pretty similar here.

 

As for the season as a whole, absolutely. We're not even 20 games into the season. Baseball is a marathon, but you have to break it into manageable sections to keep your sanity. This section kind of sucked, but we've got 7 sections left to go. Let's get better.

[caulfield12]

8 sections.

 

LOL.

 

We've played two football games in the regular season, basically. And started 1-1 (if not for those two Indians' series that will haunt us for the rest of the season, unfortunately).

[BigSqwert]

1. LF Pierre

2. 2B Beckham

3. DH Jones

4. 1B Konerko

5. 3B Teahen

6. CF Rios

7. RF Quentin

8. C Pierzynski

9. SS Ramirez

I'd go with:

 

Rios

Teahen

Jones

Paulie

Quentin

Beckham

Ramirez

AJ

Pierre

 

Pierre is a terrible leadoff hitter so just bat him last. Beckham needs to prove he deserves to bat in the top of the lineup. Teahen is making the pitcher work so I like him 2nd. And f*** the L/R/L/R crap. It's pointless with a lousy hitting team.

 

At least with this sort of lineup you clump your best hitters together and give the team a chance to have multiple run innings when they're up without the rally killers.

[Quin]

I'd go with:

 

Rios

Teahen

Jones

Paulie

Quentin

Beckham

Ramirez

AJ

Pierre

 

Pierre is a terrible leadoff hitter so just bat him last. Beckham needs to prove he deserves to bat in the top of the lineup. Teahen is making the pitcher work so I like him 2nd. And f*** the L/R/L/R crap. It's pointless with a lousy hitting team.

 

At least with this sort of lineup you clump your best hitters together and give the team a chance to have multiple run innings when they're up without the rally killers.

 

You know, I like that lineup most.

 

It takes pressure off of Quentin and Gordon, allowing them to sort themselves out.

 

[Kalapse]

You have to have some faith in your closer. If you take him out right there, it hurts his psyche and hurts the club's psyche and even if you win, it may be detrimental to the team overall. Putting Thornton in right there would have been micro-managing, and it's something Manuel would have done.

 

No matter the statistics you can throw out about a situation like that, these athletes are still human and their confidence within their abilities will fluctuate depending on what you do. If it's a computer simulation, I bring Thornton in to get that final out, but it's not and leaving Jenks in to win it or lose it was the right move.

I agree with you 100%. Watching the game it didn't even dawn on me to get Thornton in there vs Griffey, you just don't pull that s*** especially in April, it just wreaks of desperation and humiliates your closer. If Jenks had just thrown 3 fastballs down the middle of the plate between Griffey's belt and belly button Grif didn't have a chance in hell, it's not like he had to retire Chase Utley, Griffey shouldn't even be in the league right now.

 

Of course I also think game to game momentum is a tremendous crock of s***.

[iamshack]

I agree with you 100%. Watching the game it didn't even dawn on me to get Thornton in there vs Griffey, you just don't pull that s*** especially in April, it just wreaks of desperation and humiliates your closer.

 

Of course I also think game to game momentum is a tremendous crock of s***.

Speaking of crocks of s***, I am shocked, that you, of all people, would put any support in the ridiculous concept that is the closer in MLB.

[chw42]

I'd go with:

 

Rios

Teahen

Jones

Paulie

Quentin

Beckham

Ramirez

AJ

Pierre

 

Pierre is a terrible leadoff hitter so just bat him last. Beckham needs to prove he deserves to bat in the top of the lineup. Teahen is making the pitcher work so I like him 2nd. And f*** the L/R/L/R crap. It's pointless with a lousy hitting team.

 

At least with this sort of lineup you clump your best hitters together and give the team a chance to have multiple run innings when they're up without the rally killers.

 

Ozzie won't put Pierre 9th though. I'd do that if I could though.

 

[Kalapse]

Speaking of crocks of s***, I am shocked, that you, of all people, would put any support in the ridiculous concept that is the closer in MLB.

I don't like it but much like the "leadoff hitter" I have to learn to accept it as a part of the game that will not be going away any time soon. And since the people who run and play the game of baseball are so set in their ways Bobby Jenks is going to be in the game just about every time we have a 9th inning lead this season so like it or not the manager needs to show faith in the fat man and not embarrass the hell out of him on 19 games into the season.

[iamshack]

I don't like it but much like the "leadoff hitter" I have to learn to accept it as a part of the game that will not be going away any time soon. And since the people who run and play the game of baseball are so set in their ways Bobby Jenks is going to be in the game just about every time we have a 9th inning lead this season so like it or not the manager needs to show faith in the fat man and not embarrass the hell out of him on 19 games into the season.

Well, fair enough.

I guess Ozzie's having Matt up and ready was a nice compromise, serving Bobby notice that we're not going to allow him to just wistfully blow games, but at the same time, he didn't have to come off the field in the middle of the inning.

[daggins]

Ozzie won't put Pierre 9th though. I'd do that if I could though.

 

Yeah, i'm more concerned with AJ batting 5th than Pierre at this point. Pierre is lousy but AJ is abysmal right now and he NEEEEEEDS to hit #8 in front of Alexei.

[NorthSideSox72]

I can't recall a three game sweep on the winning side where the White Sox have looked worse.

 

I'll take being 8-11, and I hope we can hang around .500 until we can get something fixed with this offense, but this is still a dreadful team with the bat. Homer or nothing. In any park like Comerica you might as well put a zero up on the board.

Worst. Sweep. Ever.

 

[fathom]

I love that we went 4-2 on the home stand and got outscored by like 15 runs.

[southsider2k5]

Worst. Sweep. Ever.

 

 

No joke. Why follow a team if you can't even enjoy a sweep? I'll never understand looking for the lightning bolt in a rainbow.

[Jordan4life_2007]

Worst. Sweep. Ever.

 

 

It's funny. But Greg has a point. I've never been less impressed with a 3-game sweep by the Sox in almost 20 years (yes, I know I can't recall every sweep of the last 20 years). But you get the point. I just don't feel like we're playing any better now than we were before Friday. BUT I'll take the wins anyway we can get them.

[southsider2k5]

It's funny. But Greg has a point. I've never been less impressed with a 3-game sweep by the Sox in almost 20 years (yes, I know I can't recall every sweep of the last 20 years). But you get the point. I just don't feel like we're playing any better now than we were before Friday. BUT I'll take the wins anyway we can get them.

 

And if we had been on the Seattle end of it people would be screaming about not accepting moral victories.