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this game is over Madrigal: hold my juice box

Even Yermin asked not to pitch to Grandal

The haters have piped down.

We had all the boomers whining on the west coast 9pm start. Now all the zoomers whining 10am too early.

It didn't look good the second after they made the trade.

Now that Yermin is a two way player and has proven his pitching skills, his salary demands have to be higher

Man, I was so looking forward to a morning baseball game to distract from work. Now I'm hoping for some work to come in to distract me from morning baseball. Lol.

Madrigal is having a better start to his career than Pedroia or Altuve

Nick Madrigal is a very good young player. He makes contact and puts the ball in play and makes things happen. What do you judge a player by anyway? Home runs exclusively? Madrigal reminds me of Nellie Fox

Where Nick was drafted is somewhat irrelevant at this point, but it comes up all the time. Its akin to what you paid for something is somewhat irrelevant once you own it -- all that matters is what it is worth now. We can debate until the cows come home if Madrigal was a good pick with #4. But its pointless. He is here, and he is the 2B. You can not like him because he doesn't have a huge ceiling due to his skillset, but not liking him because of where he was drafted is silly. I still feel like Madrigal is great fit for this roster. We have a ton of free swingers and guys who K a ton. He adds nice balance. I was expecting better defense and I've been hard on Nick at times for his lack of defense so far in MLB, but he's looked much better recently and still feel he's the perfect complementary piece on this roster.

I think from a pure winning standpoint position player pitching is not used enough. With a 6 run deficit in the 8th your win probability in an even match up is about 0.5%. Such a comeback does happen but basically it means you Win less than 1 in 100 of such games and saving the pen 99 times is probably worth more. There are other reasons to not do it like paying people in the stadium and people watching on TV, basically the quality of your product brand, but from a pure winning perspective teams are probably not tanking enough. I wonder if a team like the Rays which has no fans anyway will do that one day and radically tank games with big deficits using position players. That would probably cost you 2 wins over the course of a season but it would allow you to use your pen much more aggressively in the remaining games which would create extra wins.

If we get to the bottom of the 9th i'm gonna go with a big no on that one dawg.

I'm gonna say it, even though I don't want to. Mercedes had a way better inning than Gio.

Pretty soon the entire staff is going to prefer pitching to Collins

Learn to count

If anyone ever gets the opportunity to attend this game in the future, I highly recommend it. There's something unnatural but thrilling about being at an 11am game, like drinking a beer in the shower. The game start time is timed to get out when a bulk of the runners are approaching the finish line. You leave the stadium and walk a few blocks to join the huge crowds cheering everyone on, just a really fun all-around experience.

Yeah, its early so records don't mean much. But the teams the Sox have played are 37-21 in games not against the Sox.

I think that there are people on this earth that are a cut above when it comes to drive and determination. When you are a pro athlete, especially a ball player, you're already in that elite pool, then you try and separate yourself. IMO the same drive and emotional capabilities that led Kopech to throwing 100, to TJ, and to sitting out -- have led him back to this point. I respect the fuck out of that man. It makes me emotional. One day you are on top of the work, the next your forearm is dangling from your elbow and your celeb wife is saying I ain't having no more and COVID is there and there you are. You either shrink, you acquiesce to your weak self or you channel that whatever into becoming a fucking stud at your profession and in life. It's inspirational stuff. This mofo didn't just come back from TJ, he came back with his off speed stuff fully developed, he came back with the attitude that the TEAM is first and that's what matters. Fucking eh, this is the stuff life is about.

Let's keep the win steak going, if for no other reason then so we can keep up these super informative starts to the gamethreads.

Alright boys, after winning today’s double-header the Sox look to take the series tomorrow. On the mound for the Sox is Lucas Giolito. Not much to say about Lucas other than the dude is a total stud, currently ranking 9th amongst all qualified starters with a 1.80 FIP and sitting in the 90th percentile for wxOBA. If he can get his slider back to its 2020 form, he’ll have a legit shot at the AL Cy Young award. Regardless, I fully expect him to continue his strong start to the season tomorrow. For the Red Sox, it will be Nathan Eovaldi making the start. Eovaldi has a five pitch arsenal, relying heavily on a big fastball that sits around 97 MPH but which doesn’t live up to its potential due to poor spin / carry. While most of his whiffs come on his various secondary pitches, he’s been very inconsistent with them over the years. In fact, he actually ditched his slider altogether in 2020 before bringing back a new & improved version for the 2021 season. This pitch in particular has Nathan off to a hot start, posting a 2.41 FIP and a xwOBA in the 87th percentile. It will be interesting to see how the Sox fare against this version of Eovaldi. Only six of our hitters have faced Nathan, but none more than eight times. Grandal, Abreu, & Eaton have all been successful in small samples and should all be in the lineup tomorrow. Moncada does have a bomb off Eovaldi in his only plate appearance, but will be on the bench tomorrow for Lamb who is 0-2 in career against Nathan. No matter who is in the lineup tomorrow, the key for the offense is maintaining discipline and to punish any mistakes he makes. Eovaldi isn’t going to walk a lot of guys, so we can’t afford to do him any favors and chase shit out of the zone. If we can avoid that, I think we’ll score enough runs to win tomorrow and take the series. Let’s fucking go!!!

Yeah same. If only they had some sort of system where they could take clips of the high points of the game and clip them so we could just watch those. Maybe they could even use some sort of social media platform to distribute said clips. hmmmm, maybe a start-up idea?

Any idea if the Sox have started negotiating a long term deal with Mercedes to buy out a couple years of free agency? I’d love to see him retire in a White Sox jersey but I fear we won’t be able to keep him past arbitration years unless we get something done soon.

They have a big game tomorrow and the next day. Conceding was the correct call.

Mendick has tripled Gio’s swings and misses I think.

Yermin somehow pitched better than Lucas today. What a legend.

I feel like Nick Williams is the definition of White Sox baseball for the past decade.

It's also a good thing the season isn't 17 games

Personally, I think it would have to be between Jerry, Kenny, Ricky, or Tony. Jerry's instilled the family culture that makes this organization run top to bottom, Kenny's assembled a WS roster as a GM, Ricky's built a well-oiled machine, and Tony's a God of the game. All have a case to be the "face of the franchise", which is why I prefer a Mt Rushmore to accommodate all 4.

At what point is the Grandal CERA thing no longer SSS? Or do we just continue to downplay CERA as some fluky stat not worth paying attention to?

No depth replaces CY Young candidates like Lynn and Giollito.

Game talk aside what is all the bullshit personal attacks going on here lately? It seems people can't have different views from the rest. Most of them the normal complainers on this board. I get it, we want the team to win after all these years of suck, but personal attacks are weak and total bullshit

Vaughn should play rest of the game for Leury. Let him get more reps in a game you likely use. Also wouldn’t mind an early replacement of Collins for Abreu.

Every pitcher is going to have a dud. Chalk it up to early game, lack of command, w.e but he's the Ace of this staff and he's gotta be better than this

go fuck yourself

lmfao 🤡 gonna be 6-0 before the inning is over edit: 6-1, inning is so bad I forgot we even scored in the first

Jake Lamb has retired himself

So far playing Lamb at 3B is a good idea!

Robert now hitting .297

Dumb 19-23 year old men often turn into better people as they age and mature, go figure.

A good way to get a manager to like you is learning how to play 6 positions. Not his fault that is needed so often.

I think Kopech is a different guy than he was in his early days with Boston. He doesn't seem to me to be a guy that would butt heads with teammates anymore. In any event, he looked great last night. Kopech has and remains the highest upside pitcher we have, and one of the highest in baseball. He has an upside as one the best SP in the game.

Dirt cheap is only valuable if you use those savings to improve other areas of your club. I'm not 100% convinced that would be the case here.

I hope the middle of the movie includes an ass whooping of the Yankees in Iowa.

Not an Abreu hater. In fact, a few years ago when everyone wanted to trade him (to Boston, if I remember correctly) or never resign him, I'm the one that came on here and talked about how he was the only Sox in the top 100 players in baseball (we now have nine, amazing) how he was a repeat all-star and again how he was the White Sox best player. And everyone started complaining about his defense and low way. So any way, just making it clear that I'm an Abreu fan, a big one. But . . . . . . If he can't hit in cold weather, and he admits it, and Steve Stone keeps tell us how he'll heat up when the weather does, but if he can't hit now. Sit him down. Sit him out when it's cold. He was Boston's best player today hitting double play ball after double play ball. The White Sox should have had 2 or 3 more runs but Abreu's double plays kills us. Steve even said the something about the cold keeping him for lifting the ball and hitting so many ground ball. If that is the case, sit him down. Now we hear how he is a team-first player. How Rick R. got on him for his defense and he really worked on it. Also, he has come into the season the last two years in much better shape and the results have been there. Maybe sitting him in cold weather will motivate him to work on hitting when it's cold. But what happened today, can't keep happening.

It may set back the bullpen a little bit in terms of flexibility, but having Kopech available a starter down the stretch is worth that small sacrifice.

exactly. I think TLR was just saying, "well hopefully we don't fucking need him because he's on an inning limit and we need him in September and October more".

Why is that crazy? They’re trying to manage his workload so he can contribute to the rotation down the stretch.

I agree with Jack, though. Abreu is the lead by example guy, the elder statesman that shows kids the ropes and serves as the foundation. But Tim is the on-field/dugout leader that is going to get the team AND the fans fired up. He's my Mr. White Sox.

Jose is the leader by example and Tim is the vocal/emotional leader. You need both guys.