greg775

I love how Thome's popularity has increased about 150 percent on here just by not being on the Sox this year. I remember him getting crucified on here in many game threads last year. I remember my stance as being positive toward him, but agreeing it was time for him to move on. Since we had nothing better going on, I agree it would have been the right call to bring him back. But it's not like he was beloved on here a year ago before we let him roam to LA.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 03:18 AM) AJP is showing massive signs of regression. He has no power left, as even hard hit balls by him die at the warning track. He's probably due for a change of scenery. He was with the White Sox a long time. Seems to be the kind of personality who probably could use a new team. I was wondering if something might happen yesterday when for no reason AJ threw the ball into center, letting the runner go to third. Oz didn't look happy. Stone sounded pissed. Hawk even was annoyed. Had Oz said something to him, I wonder if we'd have had a Zambrano type incident (on a much lower scale tho). Judging from some of his mope-like taps when he doesn't run hard at all and pop ups, my guess is he by next season will be ready for a change of scenery. Back to the NL for AJ? Hope we can get somebody at least as good as Castro to go with Castro though.

Big Jim has more than 15? Nice.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 04:19 AM) Changing the closer for the first time this season after about 20 saves...big deal. Changing the closer for the 2nd time after only 2 more saves...not as big of a deal. Welcome to the closer's job, Mr. Thornton. Hope you can last longer than Putz.

This is BY NO MEANS praise of Andruw (I am not very good anymore) Jones, but doesn't he have more homers than Thome this year?

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 04:02 AM) The offense blew the Orioles series. Some of the worst pitchers in the game and we pretty much looked like it was Cy Young in his prime. Sure Putz blew the game tonight, he had the lead and coughed it up. He gets the L. But it is a bit myopic not to see the elephant in the room with what our offense has been doing a lot this year. I can see the elephant in the room; I just think it's funny all of a sudden there are a LOT of reasons we lost the game and not just the closer implosion. I mean, cmon, not to you specificially, but it's pretty obvious there would have been an explosion of the worst kind on here had a certain ex-closer blown this one. That bomb he gave up in Baltimore was tied for the first hardest hit ball I've seen all year. That shot and the one by Teahen yesterday. Both were crushed.

I have nothing against Putz's complete body of work. I just think it's ridiculous that anybody is pointing to other reasons for losing tonight's game when if Big Bobby blew tonight's game there'd be ONLY one reason we lost. Big Bobby Jenks. I'm sad we lost. But Putz blew the game in Baltimore and blew the game tonight. The other reasons are fine and dandy, but you have to use those same reasons in the games Jenks blew. I loved the writeup on the site. That correctly identified the reason(s) we lost tonight. Nice article. I must remember to read those summaries more often. They are well done.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 02:34 AM) Yes the massive 2-1 lead. How could we have coughed up that one. We should put our hands together for our offense for grinding it out against the mighty Rick Porcello. Too bad the damn pitching staff can't keep throwing sub 2 run beauties. At home? Against Detroit? Yeah it is not shocking our closer blew that one. Sure. We had the game won. We couldn't close it out.

And Ozzie puts in a defensive replacement in RF where everybody insists Carlos sucks and gets ripped for it. I repeat ... you can second guess the manager in any win, much less any loss. We led 2-1 in the ninth and lost the game. Guess who deserves the blame? First and foremost the closer. Then yes, I agree IF we hit better earlier, etc., we coulda also won, so he's not the ONLY goat. But just as some blame my favorite White Sox for losses, one could blame tonight's closer for the loss in Baltimore and tonight' implosion. Oh and it's shortsighted to blame tonight's beloved closer and not shortsighted to blame the fatter closer when he sucked. ...Right, that makes sense.

Good article! I can't believe some of the Oz haters are overlooking the reason we lost tonight's f***ing game. We led 2-1 in the ninth, folks!!!

with all due respect Balta, we led 2-1 in the ninth at home and couldn't close it out. The DH thing or no DH thing, we blew this game because of our relief pitching. I won't say his name lest somebody think I'm blasting him and wanting my favorite reliever back.

QUOTE (TomPickle @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 02:50 AM) Seriously? You'd be b****ing if Quentin was left in the game and misplayed some ball hit to him. Just read the thread. Best post in the thread. Where's the outrage about Putz? He gave up the bomb vs. the Orioles and tonight's implosion.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 14, 2010 -> 03:31 PM) The White Sox are actually one of the more expensive ticket/game experiences in the league, IIRC. Most people I know in KC would say f*** it to 23 dollar parking and no way in hell would they go.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 14, 2010 -> 09:59 AM) In those situations, 90% of the time, the teams know the game will be delayed so they don't warm up the pitchers before it starts. Even Stoney and Hawk were talking about the difficulties of pitching after a long delay. The Marlins had all sorts of injury issues relating to this when Girardi was their manager, as I believe this is how Josh Johnson suffered a major injury. And greg, you have to judging the severity of issues by how much the media writes about something. If there was a correlation, then tonight's Bears game would be the most important game of the season. true, but if it was such a travesty then i'd think it would be mentioned severely in the press. maybe not.

I agree with the sentiment, but we are not going to go into Minnesota and suddenly turn it around against them. Somebody said we have six games remaining against them. I assume it's three in both parks? I think a split would be a miracle. I think 2-4 would be the upside and 1-5 likely. They still have our number. Don't know when it's gonna change.

I was thinking about starting a thread on it, but I'll just do it here. Congratulations to Teahen for sparking us in his first game back. After watching Kotsay's weak s*** for so long, Teahen looked like a real hitter. He attacked the ball. Hopefully, I say hopefully Teahen will feel this pennant race, his first-ever, and it'll bring out his best. He is by all accounts a nice guy, and he definitely is in a good situation right now. Sox fans despise Kotsay and Teahen hopefully will get most of his at bats. If Oz gets over whatever is making him love Kotsay and just give Teahen his at bats, that would be splendid. One game is not going to make me like Teahen, but I give him major props tonight. I think he'd be in a perfect situation if Oz gave him Kotsay's at bats. Teahen would be playing with the house's money with nothing to lose, cause Teahen sucked in April and people wanted him GONE. Now they want Kotsay gone. It is a win/win for Teahen if Oz gives him the at bats and sits Kotsay. Of course, Teahen is gonna have to do a lot more to make me really like him. As one Royals fans told me tonight, "Enjoy it. He won't do that often."

I would say the Twins will win five of the next six against us. We'll get one, maybe two, but I'd figure one.

He called it absolutely inexcusable so I'd like an explanation if anybody has one. Me thinks there was an overexaggeration there.

Props to Teahen for proving haters like me wrong tonight. His home run was smashed. It reminded me of that bomb Roberts hit off Putz the other night. He got all of it. One of those special bombs. Hope he keeps it up. It would be nice to see him simply take Kotsay's at bats but we know that ain't gonna happen.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 14, 2010 -> 04:23 AM) It's a big no-no health wise Not flaming, just wondering how you know this? No way Cooper would let one of his guys go out there if it was a health risk. He would fight Ozzie on this to stand up for his guy. Is it a proven health risk? Any doctors out there? If it truly is a health risk, I'd hope we'll be reading some long articles from the beat writers questioning the move. It's not worth risking a player's health for a victory.

You guys win. I hope we start a fight before the next Twins game like the Cardinals did and see what happens. It's all cliche. Just play hard, pitch, hit, field and win, baby.

That's actually a pretty good column about our attendance and fans' faith in the team. The reader comments were interesting, too, especially the dad who couldn't afford to take his daughter to the game. It truly is amazing what it costs to go to a baseball game unless you go on the promotional nights. It also is amazing the Cubs sell out every game and the Sox don't come close. Oh well. Lots of reasons for the bad attendance. Not a bad story.

Or the Royals or Indians or ... sometimes the Tigers. Brawls are overblown. What the guy on the Reds did/said really fired up Cincy, didn't it. We just have to play the game of baseball hard every night which is hard to do in a long season. I'd settle for just playing great hard nosed baseball against teams in our division. Many baseball purists would argue with you that momentum is the next day's starting pitcher. The Kansas City Chiefs brawl a lot at practice. They lose almost every game. Brawls don't matter. Just play better in your own division for a change, White Sox! and we'd all be happy and not having this disussion if a few white sox hit with men on base last night when the game was not out of reach.

Wouldn't just playing hard against our inner-division foes accomplish what you want? It's a 162 day grind and our team sleepwalks against its divisional foes too often. If it's not Minnie, it's Cleveland or KC.

Yeah that's a good point. I guess in order we could have Linebrink hit a guy, followed by Pena, Bobby and Sale. Four straight ejections.