greg775

I've been mentally out since the pathetic showing versus the O's and Royals at home. Way to beat the bad teams, White Sox. NOT. Only a blind optimist thought we could hold our own on this road trip. Our team showed NO sense of urgency for so long against mediocre teams. It had to catch up with us. Only life we've shown was that great 3 of 4 at home vs. the Yankees. We're going to get payback for that this series where we continue our pathetic freefall.

Rios hasn't exactly helped us much. He better be good. We're stuck with him for a while.

Typical Sox case of Murphy's Law regarding Peavy. We acquire him thinking we can keep it close until September and bam we go 3-3 versus KC and the O's at home, which was such a choke job, then play predictably bad (in terms of the bottom line wins and losses) on the road trip from hell. There is no reason to pitch Peavy the rest of the season. Why not just rest him and Buehrle for that matter, too. What is the purpose?

Yes I booed Carrasco in this forum. I've admitted the error of my ways. At least he competes and has decent to good outings most of the time. I also boo (on here) Dotel, Williams, Pena, Liney, who all pretty much suck. Our bullpen sucks. It is a D at best.

At least after this road trip we better see all the young guys the entire month of September. Bring 'em all up. Six in the loss column today ... s*** it could be 10 by the end of this trip. PLAY THE YOUNG PROSPECTS from the minors all of September Kenny. Just do it. They can't do any worse than these guys. And start planning on how to get rid of all these bullpen guys except for Bobby and Carrasco and Thornton.

Nice road trip guys ... 1-4. What a bunch of pussies we have on our team. About as bad a road trip as many of us imagined. 1-4 and counting. What a joke. Each night a different goat from the bullpen. Equal opportunity failures.

Wow, this may be the post of the year. Excellent. People that think Walker is the problem need to keep a journal and write down the times of year they are mad at Walker and times they are neutral. It's all a cliche. Blame the guys with the bat in their hands. And while you are at it ... boo until your team finally plays the backup quarterback. Cliche city to blame the hitting/pitching coach. And I don't care if they fire him or not. I just know the next coach won't be any better.

Don't people see the "fire the hitting coach"is such a damn cliche? Why do reasonable sports fans fall for these cliches. The hitting coach doesn't mean a darn thing except for getting tapes ready for the hitters to watch and getting them extra BP scheduled, etc. I am all for firing Walker just to silence everybody. I couldn't care less if we had him or not, because the position doesn't matter to big leaguers. They are the ones swinging the bat. Other cliches: Play the backup quarterback (until the backup sucks; then it's clamoring for the No. 3 guy; when he fails, finally apathy sets in). "Fire the pitching coach": Yes, Cardinal fans were on Duncan earlier this year. I read the column in the St. Louis paper to prove it. Now they love him again. "Why did Ozzie put in Linebrink?" Uh ... we can't pitch Thornton and Bobby only every night. "Why did Ozzie put in Dotel?" Uh ... we can't pitch Thornton and Bobby only every night. "Why did Ozzie put in Pena?" See above plus the fact KW was dumb enough to acquire that hack. Teams with talent win games.

Konerko, Thome and Carlos hit and we win. Is that so difficult to do, guys? Man, Beckham and Lexi need to flip flop in the order. Beckham seems to be slumping. 1-3 on the road trip. Better than 0-4. If we're going to win a game vs NY we will really have to earn it. After kicking their ass 3 of 4 at the Cell, they are going to want to put a whomping on us.

We won a game? Whattayaknow? Good line by Dotel. My god.

I haven't been reading the accounts of the games much lately, just skimming some. My question is whether the "E" word has been uttered yet and if and when somebody like Oz or the players will say they are embarrassed. What will it take for you the fan to be embarrassed on this trip? Would it be tonight's fourth loss to the Sox? Or an oh-fer in Boston and New York? When will you be embarrassed by the club? There's a difference from being mad and embarrassed. I'm not embarrassed yet, but we have pretty much laid over so far at 0-3 entering game 4 of the bataan death march.

Why did KW think it was a good idea to trade an everyday player for this ineffective pitcher? Please tell me he doesn't have the type of contract where we'll be unable to dump him for a bag of chips this winter.

I agree Squert, read my edited post from a second ago. I'm just saying it's obvious the poster is a kid. Why not discuss it with him or not post at all rather than just say he lives in a fantasy world?

Sqwert why don't you try to educate the fan who posted that. It's pretty obvious to me he's a younger fan into the part of the game where fans can affect the outcome. Might be helpful discussion rather than simply being smart about it. If that fan isn't under 18 I'd be shocked. He has a right to his opinion. My response to that post: The Cardinal fans are no different than ours. I listed earlier this year when they wanted duncan's head ... again. Then the starters got good again and the fans shut up. The reality is big leaguers are millionaires and can handle what the fans dish out. I think it's bad taste when our fans decide they hate certain guys (Wise) when others deserve as much hate (could Rios please get a key hit? would Dotel and Liney and Pena just volunteer to go back to AAA for a while?) but that's just me.

must ... resist saying what I think of grammer nazis on message boards in general. Yes I spelled it wrong on porpoise. Geez.

Great post, WCSox. I agree with you 100 percent. Oz can't pitch Thornton every game. He's the only halfway reliable set up guy and he's sometimes wild as s***. Kenny's the one who acquired these rag arm relievers who might as well put the ball on a tee. It's rebuilding time and I hope we have enough pieces where it won't be too painful. On paper our starting rotation should be excellent next year IF Mark returns to being Mark and Danks/Floyd continue their improvement as reliable to great starters in Sox uniforms. Peavy we need to be that ace type guy and hopefully one of our young guys will be No. 5. I wish we'd have kept Poreda or Clayton ... maybe one of them could have been serviceable in the pen. As far as Oz, it would have been interesting if we had this 2-8 1-9 type road trip performance in May or June. You go 2-8 or 1-9 as we are doing on this trip early in the year ... wow interest can fall in a team in a hurry. Would Oz have imploded? Would KW have canned him? Maybe not but 1-9 mighta put us in the tank for good early on. I find it hard to criticize Oz too much; he's no different from any manager, though. If we're out of it in May or early June any season, sure he could be canned.

Blaming Walker for Rios' total crap at bats is simply wrong. It's on Rios. He better get his act together to earn that money next year. He's been utterly crap. Many chances to drive in key runs and he ALWAYS fails (so far in the Sox uniform). You think Rios, with his reputation, is listening to anybody much less Walker? I agree he should be fired, just to give people something else to talk about next year. The Sox better develop a plan for next year. Returning all the same position players and banking on our rotation excelling will not be the answer. We have to totally rebuild the bullpen and get rid of some of the elder statesmen to go with our supposed great rotation.

Nope. A hitting coach is a cliche. He's the whipping boy for when things are going bad. A good hitting coach makes available tapes, extra BP, talking things over with hitters. I've always been shocked at those who put a lot of stock in a hitting coach. Name me the good hitting coaches in baseball. It's all cliche. Our hitters suck because they suck.

We definitely have no use for the reliever we acquired for him. Just another rag arm hack we'll have to replace this offseason.

Fire him if you want, but it's not the hitting coach, folks. It's the guys with the bat in their hands.

I stand by my 2-8 which looks about right, but I truly wouldn't be shocked at 0-10. Would you?

An 0-10 trip is still a possibility. Good job, White Sox and your stellar relief pitchers. Nice trade Kenny. Brandon should be laughing somewhere.

I know there is 'Dotel love on this board. He has been far from effective IMO. I haven't examined all the stats, but my own eye tells me he's a base on balls machine and a guy I don't want on my team. I hope we get rid of him. Only guys worth a s*** in our pen are Carrasco who is good for what he's asked to do; Bobby and Thonrton.

Is Rios another guy to loaf mentally and physically after getting the huge contract? So far the answer is yes. He has a chance to prove that wrong next year, but he's been a pathetic hitter with the Sox so far.

I don't see any reason to pitch him if we go 2-8 on the trip or worse. For that matter, Mark ought to get the last 2 weeks of the season off. Rest him up for what we think will be a good rotation next year.