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Just got home from a week long family vacation in New England. Didn't get to see the last 6 games but followed along on Gameday and the Game Threads. Man, people have to stop thinking the sky is falling every time a player has a bad inning. This team is: 5th in MLB/1st in AL in ERA, 2nd in MLB/1st in AL in starter ERA, 10th in MLB/5th in AL in reliever ERA 7th in MLB/3rd in AL in WHIP, 7th in MLB/3rd in AL in HR allowed, 2nd in MLB/1st in AL in K/9, 1st in MLB in K/BB 5th in MLB in OPS, 2nd in MLB in OBP 2nd best record in MLB by only 1/2 game, largest run differential and largest division lead. Enjoy this team. Yes, they do frustrating and/or stupid stuff often but what you apparently don't realize is that other team's players do frustrating and stupid stuff more often. Oh, and congratulations to ron on being my first ever ignore.

The owner made a good decision.

13 runs already:)

Lol imagine praising larussa bullpen usage over renteria while renteria had arguably the best bullpen in baseball with lesser arms than larussa who's bullpen has under performed mightily. Sox blew one lead after the 7th last year. They hired larussa because the owner told them to. No other reason.

He'll be an everyday guy from here on out, probably deserves a thread. Former 22nd rounder, tools aren't that loud, but doesn't seem to have much of a weakness and is in his baseball prime at 27. He doesn't do a lot wrong. Takes big cuts, has a good upper cut swing for the most part, and has a strong arm and decent range up the middle. You'd like more contact and maybe a few more walks but in today's MLB hitting 270 isn't exactly mediocre, in fact it might be solidly above average. Again, doesn't do a lot to hurt you as a 2B. ZIPS ROS is insanely bullish on him, basically thinks he's a 3 WAR player and will be worth 1.2 over the rest of the season. Not a Rick Hahn thread but take a bow man, whatever process lead to Danny as the 30th is some vidya game dynasty shit. I don't really see a lot to be down about with Danny. He just fucks, as I've said. He is a guy that fucks. Happy for him he's developed into a solid option and a guy that can fill in and keep this winning season going even as a backup now pressed into full time.

Good win

Just remember when we were paying millions for the likes of Emilio bonifacio because we couldn’t produce a mendick.

Same poster who has pages worth of post ripping and ridiculing nick madrigal has now started a thread salivating over Danny mendick. The internet is truly an odd and unique place.

yeah 2nd in the american league in runs scored with one of the best pitching staffs in baseball... yes yes only a good manager could save us... What a seriously shitty post man - that's up there.

With the way he talks about the Sox you'd think they have the Tigers record.

He’s mocking the Madrigal haters

If this lineup makes it happen we are breaking the 100 win mark this year.

Fun thing about mendick was he joined a lot of our radars when he made Fangraphs Carson Cistullis “fringe 5”, which basically looked for low rated prospects whose production indicated a big league future. Mendick was always impressive for his resiliency in the minors to me, felt like whenever he fell back offensively he’d fight like hell for a few weeks and get back to respectable quickly. Cheers to an incredible accomplishment

Mendick is a very solid backup and super sub, and could possibly be a starter at 2B on some teams. His bat won't be as good as Madrigal's, but he's a better defender and his BBIQ is much higher. The dropoff in production won't be too significant IMO. The depth the Sox have been able to scrape together is surprisingly impressive. Everybody pointed to it as a week was, but it is far from that. Yermin, Mendick, Jake Lamb (people hated this, but TLR deserves credit here), Adam Engel, Billy Hamilton, Andrew Vaughn. The front office deserves big time credit for it.

A World Series winning decision.

A laugher but gotta enjoy every W!

The funny part is that there is probably so many contending teams around the league wanting a guy like Leury. He is not THAT bad guys. Cut it out.

Do you mean being next on the injury chopping block? Because yeah that can definitely happen since he's not durable as an every day player. But with all our injuries and being able to play multiple positions, no way he's leaving this team.

This take just shows a complete lack of understanding how baseball works. Which player that is an upgrade over the in-house options was available at the end of spring training and in early May?

fire la russa

We have done a great job of turning late round picks into usable players in recent years . Mendick, Engel, Foster etc are probably 10 million worth of players on the open market.

I will say this much. After a relatively cheap winter, and 100% capacity coming up, this team should have the monetary resources to acquire some contracts and not waste prospects wherever possible.

Sit Eaton

Put down the phone, Rick.

sometimes soxtalk is insufferable

Do you like anyone on the team?

Just to expand on this, imagine this lineup: Anderson, SS Robert, CF Moncada, 3B# Abreu, 1B Jimenez, R Grandal, C# Marte, RF Vaughn, LF Escobar, 2B#

This is just a stealth shit on Madrigal more thread isn't it?

Are the people that chastise LaRussa often really much worse than your continuous blind optimism and approval of anything and everything the team does?

My feelings exactly. We need to chastise LaRussa for not contacting all of us to gain approval for his lineups before game time. Besides that maybe we should never have bench players because they will never be needed or ever play, if we were in charge. Goodwin will most likely be sent down when Hamilton returns, if ever and who goes down when Kopech returns?

Hmm I don't know he looks 100% to me. I mean if he isn't why bother? He runs hard all the time. He sprinted out of the box on the HR that scraped the top of the wall. and stayed alive in the pickle for a bit , robbed a HR and hit 2 HR's. He's got a .750 slg. 1.100 OPS and a 200 OPS+ and .4 bWAR. That hammy's already been tested pretty much and passed with flying colors. That doesn't mean it can't happen again. Hammy's are notorious for being repeated injuries .

Where do you come up with these crazy assumptions? It has never been published anywhere by the Sox that Engel is playing under a 100 percent recovery. Here is a quote from Engel's Twitter feed after the game he took away the home run. "As far as being on the field, I feel about as 100 percent as I can be," Engel said before the game. "I don’t think that my hamstring — from a strength standpoint — I’m not going to be maxing a leg curl in the next couple weeks. But I’m able to run full speed and do everything I need to do on a baseball field, so I’m excited to play." Plus when did anyone say that Engel wouldn't being playing full time? What CF on this team is better than him or deserves more playing time?

Oh, come on. Given the history of White Sox betting on games, this isn't real funny. Anyway, I just rewatched the condensed game from last night. My takeaway was that I'm just thrilled about/for Danny Mendick and Adam Engel. Two players who survived the rebuild to offer meaningful playing time when the team is competitive. Really happy for them. Edit: Throwing games, maybe a distinction without a difference...but you get my point.

I 100% do not support the Sox draining what is left of the interesting guys on the farm just to acquire some guy who is maybe an equal or lesser version that the guys we already have here or who are coming back. E.g. why give up a ton to try to replace Robert? Same with Eloy. Why give up a lot for a RP also who is probably worse than Codi Heuer if/when Codi gets it back together? Etc. Mendick is fine as a Madrigal replacement. Eduardo Escobar is a great add and probably inevitable. Someone who can be acquired cheaply, add pop, cover a few positions, etc. that is a great get. Also a spot starter to replace one of the garbage men is a good call, but only if it is really cheap. Lambert IMO looked good overall last time out in MLB. He might even be an answer. Burr might even be an improvement over Marshall. We already might have some help here It's not like we are playing in a division with the Rays, Red Sox and Yankees. Or with the Dodgers and Padres, etc. The Twins are the guppies and CLE's cheapass FO is still just hoping to hit a swoon and dump salary. For all of the bad fortune with injuries this year, there is a lot of good fortune in playing in a division where 2 teams aren't trying at all, 1 is half-assing it at best, and the other who was supposed to challenge us fell on their faces right off the starting line and still haven't gotten back up. Of all of the years where there is reason to hold onto the better-looking/more interesting pieces, this is one. That said I expect a couple smaller deals. Eduardo will come back here as one of them.

With a very good team and more certainty (ie not a shortened / COVID lockdown season) I am sure he will be more active. As far as what kinds of moves are made, i'm sure he'll give his same speech about "the long term vision for this franchise", but he should absolutely be looking at guys on expiring contracts to patch the roster.

Bowden just throws out names. He has no specific knowledge. I would be careful about Frazier. Lifetime .280 hitter hitting .328, switching leagues. He probably wouldn't hit .250. Escobar is the better choice IMO. Already had success on the AL, a slower start means he is probably due to get hot. He also loved playing for the Sox. I remember when he got traded. He cried.

After reading about the latest muscle injuries and Engels comments I think the injuries are from what the exercise field refers to as the SAID principle. Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. In other words nothing really gets you ready to play baseball other than playing baseball. We've always known this in running. We knew it was unique and you need to run to get your body to run. You can to other thing to prepare the body bit you need to run. We've never thought baseball was that specific as we see running to first base is just running. But coming out of the box and stretching to first look to be specific activities that need the adaptations. Anyway just thought I would share some discussions we've been having in the medical field about all of these injuries.

I like Mendick a lot, but hes not going to replace Madrigal's offensive production. Defensively he is an upgrade however.

Again, I agree with this assessment. Mendick is a serviceable bench player. However, after having lost 3 starters and with World Series aspirations, replacement level production is probably not good enough. There are better options available on the trade market and I'm confident that Hahn will bring is a player who will be better than replacement level. The Sox are winning a lot of close games and luck seems to be favouring them. But luck can suddenly change. The dramatic drop in home run production is eventually going to take a toll. With warm weather approaching, the ball will be flying out of Guaranteed Rate Park, and although this current roster should begin to hit more long balls, there are a lot of teams that appear to have more power. Without Eloy and Robert, this is a chance to add some power. Replacing Madrigal with guys like Leury and Mendick is not the way to go "all in" on a shot at a title. It would be a real shame to waste the best rotation the Sox have had, since 2005, by not acquiring the pieces needed to maintain their terrific start.

I like Mendick as a bench guy but he may be the most overrated player on Soxtalk. His bat is a massive downgrade vs. Nick’s and he’s significantly slower on the base-paths. He’s nowhere near a “3 win guy” IMO but should at least give us above replacement level production. I’d still be exploring 2B upgrades.

It sucks for Madrigal to get hurt right as he was seemingly coming into his own as a player, but Mendick at 2B was probably our best bet to match the production of the starter in case of severe injury coming into the season.

tony said the other day now that Crochett is flashing his full arsenal they want to let him go multi innings. Tony is a keen baseball mind he gets what the Sox are trying to do with Garrett long term and he's not afraid to try it out in real time in a year he has to win to keep his job. That's a key difference from Rickie, who almost certainly would have went to Bummer there in the 8th, which in tonight's game would have been potentially very bad given the rain delay. For better or worse they hired TLR because has has gravitas to make those decisions and not look back.

"We don't need a minimum wage, allow competition to dictate wages" "We can't compete with unemployment benefits"

Madrigal was a perfect fit in our line-up..a high on-base, contact hitter. His spot in the line-up will now be another black hole. If Vaughn and Mercedes don't pick it up substantially Sox will not score enough runs to remain competitive. If the White Sox win the Division with the current line-up, LaRussa will be Manager of the year and he will deserve it.

Looks like Billy is healthy enough to dance, hopefully he can return soon. Is Jose still doing that thing with Tony's breast after a win?

That's the one stat I've always hated in baseball. A pitcher getting the blown save, then the win if their team pulls it out. Always felt they should get the blown save and the previous pitcher of record should get the W. But it is what it is.

This game is the definition of winning ugly. At least, the last few innings were. But I don't know how to win any other way than ugly with this asanine Manfred ball.

It’s a joke that he’s not playing right now.

Totally

I will browse the Internet today.