8/9 at KC Royals

[Balta1701]

4-3 Royals after a bloop, bunt, single up the middle. Trayce bobbled another one in CF while trying to pick it up.

[greg775]

Our bad baseball team is so predictable (except for the 7-1 road trip). Sox are a bad bad baseball team that a struggling Royals team swept with ease. Now that it doesn't matter we'll probably hit a Royals batter when we should have hit one in the opener.

[Soxfest]

TT pick the ball up. Ventura never would of bunted in the 5th but KC has no issue doing it.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Soxfest

[fathom]

Trayce not looking very good on defense so far

[L. Ron Paultard]

Hawk saying the hitting coach tells them what to do, and once the game starts, they can't do what he told them.

 

1) Doesn't surprise me. All it means is that Sox hitters may be physically talented, but they are also having problems in selfish attitude, coachability and/or lacking in smarts or the attention-span, to implement Steverson's sage advice in practice.

 

2) It shows the HUGE difference between Batting-Practice... and real games under unforgiving bright lights in front of 100,000 to- million TV viewers, 40,000 fans in the stands, the media corps.... human psychology at work. Pressure is performance-killer.

 

3) It still means Steverson is responsible for his part of overall failure. Part of coaches essential job description is to be a PSYCHOLOGIST and to find customized ways to effectively impart his wisdom in each individual player case. Coop to his credit, used to be strong in that aspect of the game, hence his reputation.

 

 

[caulfield12]

Knew the bullpen war of attrition was coming...hard to come back on KC if the game gets to Herrera, obviously.

 

Had their chances. Eaton getting picked off didn't help much, either.

[greg775]

1) Doesn't surprise me. All it means is that Sox hitters may be physically talented, but they are also having problems in selfish attitude, coachability and/or lacking in smarts or the attention-span, to implement Steverson's sage advice in practice.

3) It still means Steverson is responsible for his part of overall failure.

Re. 1) Also a lot of our players are not that talented. 3. I tend to blame players more than coaches but I do think Steverson is no better than Walker and Walker was the devil to many fans.

[greg775]

Had their chances.

Hopefully when the Sox get good again they learn how to sweep bad teams like the Royals are doing again to the Sox. One of the problems in the Oz era and Robin era was we'd win two and lose the Sunday game. I hope when the Sox get good again they learn how to sweep people.

[caulfield12]

TT pick the ball up. Ventura never would of bunted in the 5th but KC has no issue doing it.

 

And that's a situation where it actually does make sense.

 

High contact rate for KC, basically a singles/doubles hitting type of team...and the win loss percentage for the Royals with a lead going into the sixth is pretty darned hard to argue with over the last two or three seasons, especially at home.

[greg775]

Medlen stinks so the Sox may not be completely buried yet.

[caulfield12]

Cabrera giving Hosmer a high five?

 

Harrelson must be ready to have a coronary...that whole modern day fraternization thing on the field drives him nuts.

[pettie4sox]

I just wish the sox sucked for a draft pick. They are in a horrible position for years to come.

[L. Ron Paultard]

QUOTE (L. Ron Paultard @ Aug 9, 2015 -> 03:41 PM) *

Good!

 

Trying to pull (non-hangers) in June-July is what got him in such trouble. That is not his game and never will be. He is not Gary Sheffield-on-roids or even Alexei Ramirez.

 

Now, does it mean Avi is going to magically solve his woes by just letting the ball get deeper on him? No, that's not enough. He still needs to learn to utilize the advance scouting reports and to "think along" with the opposing pitcher. Avi still needs early pitch recognition. Smaller strike-zone. Shorter path to the ball and a more level swing plane. He is so strong, his line-drives oppo will still turn into doubles and HR in July at USCF.

 

In other words, just making (quality) contact, is paramount. Maybe another off-season + ST will get him back on track.

I continue to think this is 100% wrong. He constantly tries to flip the ball to right field and so he's extremely vulnerable to the pitch in the middle of the plate/in.

 

I continue to think this is 100% wrong. He constantly tries to flip the ball to right field and so he's extremely vulnerable to the pitch in the middle of the plate/in.

 

Balta, again you are mixing different issues (failures) together. I can't blame you because you must be watching so many games, full of so much failure, it all starts to blur.

 

Plus, when hitters are having fundamental break-downs in every aspect of their approach and get that "lethargic in-between look".... it it's easy to just zero in on some opposite-field bloops by a big struck overhyped Miggy 2.0 lookalike like Avi and say why is he slapping at the ball so pathetically the other way?

 

Think back to his oppo HR off David Price in April at Comerica, not an easy feat to say the least. I know that's just 1 swing, but that's his upside. When everything else is right, Avi would still stay back on the ball long enough to TURN on off-speed hanger which about in a league full of bad-to-mediocre pitching.

 

However, try to get him to go against his element, and he will get blown away by 85 mph "fastball" in on the hands, and instead of crushing hangers to LF as he did against Tampa, he will be way too early and off-balance, too. A lose-lose situation.

 

It is what is it Balta. Avisail Garcia is not an elite HR slugger talent, no matter how strong he is. And not only he can't play CF, he may not even stick in Right.

 

I am sorry you and evidently Rick Hahn got fooled by horrible Sox scouts. That doesn't mean that with a some mechanical adjustments & a more humble attitude, Garcia can't become a decent line-drive type of a hitter. Ideally a #6 hitter on a really good team. (Which is the Sox aren't, hence additional problems)

 

Finally, I'd like to see someone other than Todd Steverson work with Garcia before render final judgement. Your Kilometerage May Vary.

[greg775]

Cabrera giving Hosmer a high five?

 

Harrelson must be ready to have a coronary...that whole modern day fraternization thing on the field drives him nuts.

Melky is a clown disgracing the game of baseball. Please, White Sox, get rid of him. He's like the guy on the lousy team trying to get the players on the good team to notice him. Meanwhile the guys on the good team continue to stomp on the lousy players like Melky. He is a buffoon and this series has made a mockery of COMPETITION. Get rid of him!!

Edited August 9, 2015 by greg775

[BigHurt3515]

Flowers blows.

[Balta1701]

Down against the Royals going into the 8th inning isn't a good place to be.

[pettie4sox]

KC owns the Sox.

[Balta1701]

Balta, again you are mixing different issues (failures) together. I can't blame you because you must be watching so many games, full of so much failure, it all starts to blur.

 

Plus, when hitters are having fundamental break-downs in every aspect of their approach and get that "lethargic in-between look".... it it's easy to just zero in on some opposite-field bloops by a big struck overhyped Miggy 2.0 lookalike like Avi and say why is he slapping at the ball so pathetically the other way?

 

Think back to his oppo HR off David Price in April at Comerica, not an easy feat to say the least. I know that's just 1 swing, but that's his upside. When everything else is right, Avi would still stay back on the ball long enough to TURN on off-speed hanger which about in a league full of bad-to-mediocre pitching.

 

However, try to get him to go against his element, and he will get blown away by 85 mph "fastball" in on the hands, and instead of crushing hangers to LF as he did against Tampa, he will be way too early and off-balance, too. A lose-lose situation.

 

It is what is it Balta. Avisail Garcia is not an elite HR slugger talent, no matter how strong he is. And not only he can't play CF, he may not even stick in Right.

 

I am sorry you and evidently Rick Hahn got fooled by horrible Sox scouts. That doesn't mean that with a some mechanical adjustments & a more humble attitude, Garcia can't become a decent line-drive type of a hitter. Ideally a #6 hitter on a really good team. (Which is the Sox aren't, hence additional problems)

 

Finally, I'd like to see someone other than Todd Steverson work with Garcia before render final judgement. Your Kilometerage May Vary.

I still very much disagree with this. His swing is 100% an inside out swing. When he's doing that, his natural process is to flip the ball on the outer half of the plate to the opposite field. He's strong enough that he'll make contact with some of them and hit them as strong line drives, but it leaves a gaping hole in his swing on the inner half of the plate and it robs him of his own natural power. You can make that type of approach work if you are able to cover all parts of the plate and you don't expand your zone, but neither of those are true with him. This approach worked for Derek Jeter because he could do exactly that - cover the full plate, not get jammed, and he didn't expand the zone. It's never going to work for Avi Garcia because he can't cover the inside pitch in the same way, he gets jammed too easily by anything on the inner half when he can't get around ahead of it.

[L. Ron Paultard]

Unless he can pull his hands in and turn on the ball, he's going to get a steady diet of fastballs there.

 

Abreu was able to adjust to that same exact pitching approach.

 

Avi has to either force his hips to open up by changing his stance...or simply rely on feasting on breaking stuff, which isn't going to be enough to get him to even a 1 war with his defensive issues.

 

1) Garcia is not Abreu. Abreu is far more polished. Abreu with a BAD TOP-HAND was putting up near 850 OPS (in case some doubt the severity of a bad thumb in a batspeed/power generating Right hand, ask the 2008 version of Paul Konerko, who admitted to seriously considering early retirement the pain got so bad...)

 

Healthy Abreu can hit 45-50 HR with 140 RBI one of these years.

 

2) Yes, Abreu doesn't have the quickest "trigger" or Bryce Harper's batspeed.... neither did Frank Thomas. Abreu has everything else far better than Garcia, so the comprison is far from ideal, apriori.

 

3) But since you mentioned.... actually what Abreu, Garcia, and even stiffs like Tyler Flowers, Dayan Viciedo and Gordon Beckham DO have in common is that all of the came to the bigs with advanced ability to hit to OPPOSITE fields. And at some point, all of them struggled when forced to change their natural approach in order to please the coaches, the media and the fans.

 

Abreu actually recovered from the pull-happy mode --- and voila, look how dangerous he's become yet again in the last 3 weeks or so. Everything is to LCF-CF-RCF-RF (rather than turning and burning down LF line, which he could never consistently do)

 

 

 

But again, all of this is moot. Garcia is so clueless, so low on confidence, so off-balance, so messed-up mechanically.... that it doesn't matter right now. The contact can't help but by weak or "flipping it" as Balta calls it. It's an optical illusion. Garcia is not trying to weakly ground out to Right side of the infield. It's just byproduct of massive failure. He will look horrible until those other vital aspects of his swing are seriously addressed.

[L. Ron Paultard]

I still very much disagree with this. His swing is 100% an inside out swing. When he's doing that, his natural process is to flip the ball on the outer half of the plate to the opposite field. He's strong enough that he'll make contact with some of them and hit them as strong line drives, but it leaves a gaping hole in his swing on the inner half of the plate and it robs him of his own natural power. You can make that type of approach work if you are able to cover all parts of the plate and you don't expand your zone, but neither of those are true with him. This approach worked for Derek Jeter because he could do exactly that - cover the full plate, not get jammed, and he didn't expand the zone. It's never going to work for Avi Garcia because he can't cover the inside pitch in the same way, he gets jammed too easily by anything on the inner half when he can't get around ahead of it.

 

More confusion. You are choosing to judge someone in a midst of a horrible slump and then retroactively applying/projecting it to his entire career. The guy has regressed big time while batting, what, 150 over month+.... When say Konerko, an infinitely better inside-fastball hitter than Garcia, had one of this long slumps, he too looked like he was "inexplicably" Derek Jeter-ing it up. But it's not just illusion, Balta. That's not really what's happening, or rather it's a SYMPTOM of a much more serious, fundamental break-down.

 

Garcia is not seeing the ball, he is desperately over-compensating, the opposing pitchers smell the blood in the water.... it's a classic vicious spiral. Now you are crying out "Why isn't he turning on those inside pitches"???? HE IS TRIED TO, BUT COULDN'T TOUCH THEM.

 

Hence the effect like he doesn't even start the swing on some of those inside sinkers or cutters... until the ball is in the catcher's mitt. It looks comical. Like his reactions are so slow, it's all in slow-motion. But again, that's simply because his pitch recognition, his "trigger", the swing itself is so slow & loopy that Avi has no prayer on inside pitches unless they are BP quality hangers. And even then, he predictably curls them way foul for Strike 1....

 

it's very much hitter's version of Catch-22. Another hitting coach, another off-season, maybe it'll get better. Prolly not.

[caulfield12]

White Sox just improved one stat at least.

 

Worst bullpen in the AL at stranding runners, only 37.2%

[Balta1701]

More confusion. You are choosing to judge someone in a midst of a horrible slump and then retroactively applying/projecting it to his entire career. The guy has regressed big time while batting, what, 150 over month+.... When say Konerko, an infinitely better inside-fastball hitter than Garcia, had one of this long slumps, he too looked like he was "inexplicably" Derek Jeter-ing it up. But it's not just illusion, Balta. That's not really what's happening, or rather it's a SYMPTOM of a much more serious, fundamental break-down.

 

Garcia is not seeing the ball, he is desperately over-compensating, the opposing pitchers smell the blood in the water.... it's a classic vicious spiral. Now you are crying out "Why isn't he turning on those inside pitches"???? HE IS TRIED TO, BUT COULDN'T TOUCH THEM.

 

Hence the effect like he doesn't even start the swing on some of those inside sinkers or cutters... until the ball is in the catcher's mitt. It looks comical. Like his reactions are so slow, it's all in slow-motion. But again, that's simply because his pitch recognition, his "trigger", the swing itself is so slow & loopy that Avi has no prayer on inside pitches unless they are BP quality hangers. And even then, he predictably curls them way foul for Strike 1....

 

it's very much hitter's version of Catch-22. Another hitting coach, another off-season, maybe it'll get better. Prolly not.

There's no "retroactively applying it to his entire career", that's who he's been his entire career. When he first came up in 2013 he was able to keep his batting average high by blooping the ball in front of the RF. You can see that easily in his spray charts for 2013 and 2014,

 

That's the root cause, the symptom for him was always "the balls he hits are falling in-between the 2b and the RF". He kept his batting average up that way...then pitchers learned to adapt. We've been saying it would happen since 2013 - in fact that might be the biggest disappointment of his 2014 campaign, since he lost so much time he never got into the slump that was bound to happen with his approach. Several of us were saying that as far back as 2013 - his approach would never work longterm, and now he's in exactly the funk that we expected.

[Balta1701]

Run-saving play by Moustakas. Gloved a hard hit bouncing ball by Abreu, kept his footing, kept his face towards the plate, held Eaton at 3b.

[BigHurt3515]

Good job by Melky but we all know how this game will end

[Balta1701]

Melky singles, ties the game at 4.