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2012 White Sox Catch-All thread


southsider2k5

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 30, 2012 -> 01:33 PM)
Buster Olney ‏@Buster_ESPN

 

The 53 sliders that Dylan Axelrod threw at the O's last were the third most by any starter this year.

 

Any surprise this happened with Flowers behind the plate?

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 30, 2012 -> 04:51 PM)
Nicely played.

 

It's funny. If you read about the 60s and 70s, you'll see that players never got off for paternity leave and normally didn't get off for deaths in the family. They would get off for the funeral and that's it. Not bereavement time. How times have changed. But I bet there were a lot of angry relatives back in the day when husbands simply could not leave their baseball jobs to be with their wives and see their young-uns born. I don't know who put up a stink first and when this became common place, but it'd be an interesting story if some publication wrote it.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- In mid-April in Chicago, Tigers manager Jim Leyland assailed the forecasters who said the White Sox would finish near the bottom of the American League Central.

 

"People who made those picks, they know nothing about baseball," Leyland said. "Trust me. If they think the Chicago White Sox are not going to be in the thick of this, they're crazy. They don't know anything about baseball, people who make picks like that ... they know nothing about baseball. Nothing!"

 

Even if Leyland ultimately takes nothing else satisfying out of this often-confounding Tigers season, at least he can know that he was right about the White Sox. For most of the summer, they have led the American League Central.

 

With the Tigers' loss Thursday against the Royals, Chicago brings a three-game lead on the second-place Tigers into Comerica Park tonight for the opening game of a three-game series. The Tigers will have to sweep this weekend to prevent Chicago from leaving town in sole possession of first place.

 

While some forecasters downplayed the White Sox, almost everyone picked the Tigers to win the division. They won it last year and finished 28 games above .500. This year, the Tigers' ceiling has been about 10 games above .500. But Leyland refuses to characterize his team as one that hasn't lived up to expectations of dominance.

 

"The one thing I tell them in spring training -- and so far they've done that -- is, 'Let's get to September and be playing for something,' " Leyland said this week. "It looks like we are."

 

As September arrives Saturday, the Tigers will be playing for the AL Central title, and, as a backup, one of the two wild-card spots. Under the playoff expansion instituted this season, the two wild-card winners will face each other in a play-in game to launch the postseason.

 

The last time the Tigers and White Sox met, the Tigers swept a three-game series in mid-July at Comerica Park to take over first place from Chicago. A look at those three games illuminates a few of the reasons the Tigers haven't been able to catch the White Sox in recent weeks:

 

• In the first game, Justin Verlander received run support and pitched dominantly. That combination has seldom surfaced since for Verlander.

 

• In the second game, Brennan Boesch hit a three-run homer off left-hander Chris Sale. Boesch no longer plays against left-handers and only sometimes against right-handers.

 

• In the finale, Boesch hit another homer. Entering Thursday, that was his most recent homer. He had gone 80 at-bats without one, and he had become a part-time starter against right-handed pitching.

 

Jacob Turner was the winning pitcher in the finale of that sweep of the Sox -- his first win. The next day, the Tigers traded him and two minor leaguers to Miami for second baseman Omar Infante and pitcher Anibal Sanchez.

 

While Infante and Sanchez have done respectably since they joined the Tigers, they weren't the final pieces of a steamroller. The Tigers, it turned out, didn't just need a few better players. They need to play better.

 

Three nights after the Infante-Sanchez trade, Verlander let a late-inning lead disappear in Cleveland, and the White Sox regained first place. They have been there since.

 

"Since 2006 when I got here, this has been one of the best teams in the league every year," Leyland said in April about the White Sox. "And they will be right there."

 

freep.com/sports

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QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 30, 2012 -> 11:58 PM)
It's funny. If you read about the 60s and 70s, you'll see that players never got off for paternity leave and normally didn't get off for deaths in the family. They would get off for the funeral and that's it. Not bereavement time. How times have changed. But I bet there were a lot of angry relatives back in the day when husbands simply could not leave their baseball jobs to be with their wives and see their young-uns born. I don't know who put up a stink first and when this became common place, but it'd be an interesting story if some publication wrote it.

 

I'm sure it's directly related to the increased strength of the players union. The past 10 years or so, players would take off a day or two and the team would be screwed out of a roster spot. So they figured they might as well allow for paternity leave so a team can call up another man.

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QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 30, 2012 -> 10:17 AM)
Good thing the NBA didn't have paternity leave back when Shawn Kemp played.

LOL. You could say the same thing about a few NFL players -- Derreck Thomas, Cromartie.

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QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Sep 1, 2012 -> 02:35 PM)
I swear sox fans have to be the most miserable out there.

 

A win tonight will do a lot for everyone's mood. Even though the Tigers got swept in KC, let's not forget the Sox are 1-4 this week, and now have to face the Tigers best two pitchers. Wins make Sox fans happy, so let's get at least one before they come home.

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QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 1, 2012 -> 01:44 PM)
A win tonight will do a lot for everyone's mood. Even though the Tigers got swept in KC, let's not forget the Sox are 1-4 this week, and now have to face the Tigers best two pitchers. Wins make Sox fans happy, so let's get at least one before they come home.

 

I have no idea how anyone would react if they took the next two.

 

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QUOTE (oldsox @ Sep 1, 2012 -> 11:20 AM)
Sox are still ahead of Detroit, but we are chasing them and are not going to catch them.

 

I'd like to nominate this for "stupid contradicting post of the year"

 

Seriously, just say you think the Tigers will win the AL Central instead of implying the White Sox are trying to fall in the standings.

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QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Sep 1, 2012 -> 02:00 PM)
I'd like to nominate this for "stupid contradicting post of the year"

 

Seriously, just say you think the Tigers will win the AL Central instead of implying the White Sox are trying to fall in the standings.

 

I think that was the point and it was aimed at the dark clouds.

 

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QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 1, 2012 -> 04:34 PM)
Go to MotownSports, they're even more miserable

 

Imagine Soxtalk in September 2005, x5

 

They should be. They added Fielder and are in 2nd place to a bunch of kids. Plus most of their team can't catch a baseball.

 

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QUOTE (Jake @ Sep 1, 2012 -> 05:34 PM)
Go to MotownSports, they're even more miserable

 

Imagine Soxtalk in September 2005, x5

 

They should be miserable. Their team has underachieved all year long. Sox fans are miserable just for misery's sake. Hell, I think many of them enjoy the misery.

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