greg775

How has willie been fielding? Has he been stellar in the first 3 games? I haven't been able to see many, except for the opener. If he is a vaccuum, maybe his lack of hitting won't be that much of a problem. I need to develop a signline "I'm not giving up on willie harris ... YET"

I hate to panic early, but I wonder how many other organizations think Willie Harris is a bonafide big league hitter. I'm not giving up on him, I'm just curious. Our battle cry for this series probably should be, "Let's Win One." We had no chance today against the Bronx Spenders 55,000 fans their big money lineup? We had NO Chance.

There were a lot of good things that happened in KC. --For once, a former Sox player didn't beat us single handedly (Graff) --Loaiza did pretty well and doesn't appear to be a one-year wonder. --Mark B. did very well. --Koch got a save which can only help him. --Our catchers were on fire at the plate. -- Lee was great; Aaron looked like he belonged. -- Maggs was Maggs. -- Konerko had one good day out of two. -- Frank was good. On the negative side: --Uribe and Harris didn't scratch a hit (too early to panic). --Poor Crede went hitless (too early to panic) --Poor Jose V was not good at the plate. The best news of all: Read the first few graphs of this AP story about Oz. A feel good story!! I love Oz. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Ozzie Guillen felt he could almost hear his country cheering. Fueled by solid relief pitching and three home runs, the Chicago White Sox beat the Kansas City Royals 4-3 Wednesday and made Guillen the first Venezuelan-born manager to get a major league win. “We have a lot of political problems in our country, like in a lot of countries,” Guillen said. “To help my country, to give something real positive to my country is something I feel good about. I feel proud. I’m pretty sure my country feels real proud right now.” The longtime White Sox shortstop made headlines across his native land when he was named the major league’s first Venezuelan manager. Miguel Olivo, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Lee all homered for the White Sox, who lost Monday’s opener 9-7 when the Royals scored six times for the biggest ninth-inning comeback in an opener in 103 years. “I know for a fact that when they see us lose the way we lost, there were a lot of Venezuelans who were hurt,” Guillen said. “Now they are going to hear what happened today and they are going to feel good.” The loss means the Royals cannot repeat their 9-0 start of last year, which catapulted them into a season-long contention in the AL Central. “Hey, you didn’t think it would happen every single time, did you?” Royals manager Tony Pena said. Esteban Loaiza (1-0) handed the bullpen a lead, and Mike Jackson, Cliff Politte and Billy Koch stopped the Royals over the final three innings. Loaiza, second in last year’s AL Cy Young Award voting after going 21-9, did not allow a hit until Mike Sweeney’s RBI single with two outs in the third. He allowed three runs, five hits and four walks in six-plus innings. Koch induced Beltran, who homered with Angel Berroa aboard to win it Monday, to fly out to shallow center with Berroa on first for the save. Darrell May (0-1), the Royals’ pitcher of the year last season, gave up all three homers and was charged with four runs and six hits through five innings. Olivo, the No. 9 batter, homered for a 2-0 lead in the second after Aaron Rowand’s two-out single. Ordonez made it 3-1 with a solo homer in the fifth. Then, one out later, Lee hit his second homer in two games, a 430-foot drive to center. Aaron Guiel homered off Loaiza leading off the fifth. In just his second major league game in left field, he made two strong throws to cut down Ordonez and Lee trying to stretch singles into doubles in the seventh and eighth innings. Jackson relieved Loaiza when he walked Guiel leading off the seventh, and Guiel scored on Carlos Beltran’s infield out. Frank Thomas fouled off 13 pitches, including 12 in a row, before drawing a walk off May in the first. May threw 35 pitches in the inning. “It got to the point where I thought he was going to swing at anything,” May said. “So I was trying to throw sliders in the dirt, changeups in the dirt. I tried to come in on him and still he just kept flicking everything off. It was a great job by him.” Notes: The Royals put INF Desi Relaford on the 15-day DL and called up LHP Jaime Cerda from Triple-A Omaha. Relaford pulled his left hamstring during the opener on Monday. ... The White Sox are opening on the road for the 14th straight year but when they get home will stay for a season-long 12-game homestand. ... The previous team to overcome a four-run deficit in the ninth or later to win an opener was Detroit, which trailed 13-4 in 1901 before scoring 10 in the ninth to beat Milwaukee, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. ... The White Sox botched their infield defense after Sweeney’s RBI single in the third. Beltran was caught between second and third, but got back to second because nobody covered the bag. Sweeney, who’d almost reached second, returned safely to first because nobody was there, either.

Yeah I did go to the game. Unfortunately it was the most rabid scene in memory after the game-winning blast. As far as today ... did anybody see the game on TV? Was it even on TV anywhere? I didn't see it but listened to the ninth and even though Koch went to three balls on about every batter, it seemed like a pretty nice save for Billy. Did he have good stuff? I think it's a good sign maybe that he blitzed through the ninth without any MAJOR scare. Think about it. Today Ozzie would have had to go with Koch no matter what. It was his game to save or lose and he came through. I give him credit. Good job, Koch! On to NY. I think a split would be dandy. Losing 3 would be annoying but tolerable. Losing 4 will be very very depressing.

We better win Wednesday. 0-6 ain't gonna cut it. An Opening Day crowd of maybe 29,000 if we are 0-6.

Old Socks made a great point. We were toast when Cliff walked two guys to start the ninth. Game over. The choke was on.

I don't like it, but Koch should be the closer cause he's our closer on paper. It's KW who assembled the team and Koch is the closer Ozzie's been dealt. So sink or swim, it's Koch. If I had my choice it'd be Marte though (I can't believe I'm saying that after yesterday).

Managers are hired to be fired. They realize that. That said I wish Oz luck. Hopefully his players will soon bust their asses for him 9 full innings.

I nominate Molto's post for best I've read today. I agree with Molton Lava on that one. p.s. "Good Lord it's one f***ing game! This sounds like a f***ing suicide note..." That was a great line and made me laugh. Good line.

For some reason I don't mind the complaining that much. I want us to win badly but we've had so many bad moments in the KW era, our complaints are not unreasonable until we start winning some games like the Royals won today. We were all pretty happy during that stretch after the all star break last year when we started bashing the baseball and winning.

I'm sick of this confidence talk regarding Koch. The guy has sucked, period. If we were talking about some young low paid guy, I'd agree about confidence issues, but Koch deserved to get pulled. He needs to pull his head out of his ass frankly and start pitching and saving some games. A horses*** closer can ruin a season and fast.

Thanks for the answer souths. I didn't know roman got banned. That is weird, wild schtuff.

I blame the pitchers, not Oz. Mark B did the job; the rest sucked pure and simple. They are KW's players; Oz just put them in. I respect your arguments, they were interesting, especially the OB percentages,but I disagree. I think the players (pitchers) deserve this loss. p.s. I think Stairs would have hit Koch's pitch all the way to Mars.

He was great. Kudos to Mark. p.s. whatever happened to old roman?

I love the optimism and this post, except I take issue with two things. I don't think Willie's liner was hit all that hard if you check the replay. I don't think we got a bad break on that play. And I am really not optimistic at all about Koch. I didn't sense he was pitching well like some of you did.

It's wild because until we imploded late it was looking like a perfect opening day win. Alomar excelled. Willie it appeared didn't hurt us and had a nice DP with Jose. Jose whacked that RBI double after whiffing 3 times. Hurt hit the ball. Konerko smashed the key double and had another hit. Maggs got an RBI hit after going 0-3. Aaron got on the board with a hit late. Lee was great. Then the ONLY negative ... our middle relief and closing relief costs us the game. Amazing. On a scary note, at the risk of making a blatantly obvious statement, blowing a five run lead is not good on any day. Let's just hope it was an Opening Day thing, cause we know Marte is better than that. We don't know if Koch is better than that, however. I hope we have a short rope on Koch. I mean if the guy can't get people out consistently anymore, get rid of him. I'd rather lose with younguns. If you read this far for some reason, my opinion is .... --No need to panic, but it truly was a horrific way to lose. The game was ours for so much of the pleasant KC afternoon, then BAM we lose. p.s. Why do we never seem to win games like this? You wait, our opening day in Chicago we'll probably lose, 6-1 or something against some hot pitcher.

Has Cotts really been on here? Truly? That is wild schtuff.

I predict we finish 3 games under .500

I have no expectations either. I do suspect our crowds will be horrific all season if we start slowly. The Yankees better not sweep that four game series. We better split in KC and win 2 in NY or interest will be abysmal early especially if the Flubs win. For some reason I have a feeling we might win the opener in KC. I am planning on being there and covering the game so hopefully I won't get yelled at by the Big Hurt.

It hit me today ... The Twins are not going to win our division this year. I have a sick feeling all teams in our division are going to be right at about .500 with the Sox or Royals winning the division by a game over the other. I think Cleveland will finish third and also be in the hunt. The Twinks I feel are going to flop finally. The only reason they won't is that damn dome.

This is another test of Kenny. Will Willie be better than Miles? Will Uribe?? We shall see. If Miles shines and our guys suck, another KW blunder.

I'd say Willie just because we need to find out if he can do anything given the job. Give it to the better fielder and bat Willie ninth.

I agree KC won't win it. Just like the Cubs are a likely flop. Things just sometimes go South when you are expected to do well.

Willie sounds like a great clubhouse guy. Sure hope he can hit a bit.

The Royals are going to start 4 lefthanders this year out of 5 starters. My question: Is this good or bad news for our Sox? I'm thinking Frank, Maggs and Carlos and Joe will be loving this. Even Mr. Olivo. Meanwhile, Harris will whiff, whiff, whiff. What do you think? We will pound the Royals' lefties? Or are we screwed?