All Activity

Pope Leo turning into Heisenberg is quite the sequel

It's a fact now. OP got out ahead of this story early.

nvm

Great post. It is probably extremely hard to let a guy like Burke stay in and prove it, it goes both ways a lot. Now Burke will go into offseason prepared to be an ace, but could have also had his moments of losing strike zone right after.

Calf injury. He's another one - his 146 IP is the highest in his career (by 2).

Jaguars were getting mentioned as under the radar AFC championship contender. So hard to 100% trust Lawrence. (Maybe it's Brian Thomas Jr. bitterness from 2025 fantasy football/beating Chiefs last year inexplicably.)

Felt more quixotic, like Seinfeld. At least they made history in many ways. And exposed all the flaws that were inevitably going to show up in the ALCS or even WS. Looking at the entire playoff roster, there are so many players with uncertain futures with the Sox, starting with Mune and Colson. Most everyone agrees on Antonacci (but which position?) Vargas and Meidroth being the core ... but that next level of Peters/Doyle and Teel is even feeling a bit shaky. Braden, too. Hopefully, Kyle Teel will be much better if he can have a 100% uninterrupted healthy season.

He could be something, but he also could be Esteban Loiaza.

His April, May, and June starts had me going, that's why I was thinking injury. I think your take is more accurate.

Calf injury. Prevented him from being able to push off. Was dealing with it all year and it got worse.

Guardians pitchers got 75 Ks in 5 games. Average of 15 Ks per game. 55.6% of the outs came via a K. That’s pretty mind-blowing. They were actually 6-31 with RISP. Still bad. Guardians were 10-37. Really interesting comment from a Red Sox fan at fangraphs... "I am surprised that the fact that the White Sox struck out 21 times is not mentioned in a more significant way but merely just as a side note. ***Organized baseball has been played since 1876 and this is the first 9 inning game in which a team has fanned 21 times. Coming on top of the 19 strikeouts in Game 3 it puts the spotlight on the growing imbalance between pitching and hitting.*** Much has been said about Jacob Misiorowski, Paul Skenes and Payton Tolle, but Gavin Williams showed the world last night that he is a member of that group and there are more and more of these 6’6″ pitchers coming along to only increase that imbalance. It wasn’t long ago that hits exceeded strikeouts regularly, ***in this series the teams hit a collective .199 and there were 112 K’s and just 57 hits.*** I hope baseball opens its eyes and sees this trend as something that needs to be addressed with more than token changes. Very well said...got rid of shifts, but just look at team batting average s and OPS trends. Closing in on the 1930s minus the NYY dynasty. Of course some would argue the Yankees winning every 2-3 years was actually a good thing, much like the Dodgers of today.

Agreed. Might take our bullpen over Cleveland but it gets exposed with our starting pitching problems.

Last night hurt - but Burke pitched outstanding and this team battled all season. I had a lot of fun watching the squad compete this year and it was first season in a while I could say that. This team brought back my passion for baseball.

This. Assuming we have baseball next year, there are three reasons why, like you said, this is sustainable compared with 2021: 1) Diveristy of offense: I know people are annoyed by the strikeouts but Rick Hahn tried to build a home run hitting team and failed miserably. That lineup was incredibly right handed heavy and filled with power hitters who had high ground ball rates and didn't walk. I don't think people understand just how valuable left handed slug is. Especially when most of the league is still right handed. 2) This team genuinely loves each other: That 20-21 team was talented but as soon as the going got tough, they turned on each other. This team loves each other. That is so profoundly powerful 3) We have a GM who knows the importance of building an organization: The numbers between the last regime and this regime, in terms of who is working in it is profoundly different. The Sox are now ahead of the curve when it comes to analytics, both in terms of playing but also clubhouse chemistry. We are starting to put together the same kind of organization that the Rays have. Could go on but we are in such a much better place then last contention window.

f*** you Kyyle

and whatever becomes of Davis Martin

He wasn't that good to begin with and regressed to his mean IMO.

Honestly, I think things just fell apart in the end. I hate that people give a ton of blame to Venable, considering he's trying to perform voodoo magic with a pitching staff that was rough, especially the 2nd half of the season. Not to say he can't make mistakes - I thought he was too trigger happy pulling guys he didn't trust after they gave up a run - sometimes you got to let the guy settle in and/or respect the opponent. For example, with Sean Burke tonight, I think he did the right thing after the Jose HR. Jose gulfed one - nothing you can do but tip your cap. Earlier in the series, it seemed like he was dying to get to Grant Taylor and Hagen Smith, basically knocking them out of the series. I know Taylor would do it again in a heartbeat, but after that Game 1, he looked either hurt or extremely fatigued, having issues finding the strike zone. Same goes for Hagen. I wish Will would've least used two games to go full starters, 5IP and use a Fedde, Schultz, Sandlin or Smith for mop up if guys struggled hard. Hitting wise, after Cleveland made their adjustments to how they were going to pitch the Sox, the Sox had no game plan, or did but would abandon it quickly, which is not unheard of for young hitters. For example, it seemed like the last game, they looked like the approach was to be patient and work the count, but then would swing at garbage in the dirt as they got antsy. Once Gavin was knocked out of the game, they continued to try to be patient, almost not realizing Cade Smith was going to come in the next IP. Two things going into next year - I think they got to hope Colson gets hot and jump off that experience. I think they need to tell Mune to link back up with Shohei to undo whatever they did to his swing. His eye is still there, as he wasn't getting fulled inside the strike zone, but after his injury he would whiff at those pitches. First half he was connecting.

The youngsters showed real promise. What do you think the reason is Davis Martin fell off the face of the earth? Do you think he is injured?

I think I finally figured it out. I have that Sopranos feeling. Show went from nothing to blowing up and catching the attention of the world for its surprisingly done craft. It ended up becoming a must see event for even people from the outside. Then when it mattered most it shat itself harder than people even knew was possible and left a skidmark on an otherwise surprisingly good piece of art. The problem is that it becomes impossible to separate the horrifying ending from its body of work, and that's what it becomes known for.

Just going by the 8 remaining DS teams. Other than NYY, the best pitching staffs all remain. Can't be all that shocking. Cubs/Sox both more powered by offense that can suddenly shut down in the postseason...especially in just 2-3 games. Same with Boston forgetting how to manufacture runs, too. Or SD slumping on offense just when their bullpen being overtaxed finally caught up with them, too. You now have arguably the four best organizations overall remaining. Some might argue the Braves, but all four teams are there for reasons that shouldn't be all that mysterious to the 26 other organizations.

As they should be. I agree and I hope that's the case

If you would have told me that our pitching would hold Cleveland to two runs, I would feel good about the Sox chance of winning. I’m shocked that Sox hitters had so much trouble making any contact.

But did he wear black?

Staff include bullpen. Ours is better then Houston. Probably better then the Cubs as well.