Chisoxfn

QUOTE(jphat007 @ Apr 5, 2006 -> 12:40 PM) Steal with Juan. Test Martinez. I doubt he will even throw. Has anybody seen Neal warm up? Is he available? That would be awful. Juan doesn't get good jumps. I have no problem with being agressive, but you got to pick and choose the situation and doing it now, this late in the game would be a poor move, imo.

Good call, I like the idea of a pinch hitter here Ozz. And if Anderson is out I'd think hard about PH him, but at the same time I'd also think hard about what it says to your youngster by doing that. Anderson has had two straight AB's with a big no no, going down looking with runners on.

Any mention on how severe it was? I never heard Hawk or DJ say anything during the game aside from when they announced Mack was coming in.

QUOTE(sox-r-us @ Apr 5, 2006 -> 12:25 PM) It is a one run game, and with Travis Hafner on, he decides to sit McCarthy after one great inning to get Boone freaking Logan???? Yeah I understand the lefty-lefty matchup but come on Ozzie.......this was asking for trouble.....and the game is tied Kenny better find a way to improve this bullpen somewhere at the deadline. Or we are not going anywhere. Why was trading Marte for Mackowiack that important????? You got to see what Logan can do. Ozzie doesn't baby guys, he finds out what they have and whether they have the right mindset. He seems to have a knack for figuring out whether players will be strong enough to hold up in crunch situations or whether they won't. Thats why Marte is now gone and its a big reason why Munoz never got a shot with the club this spring. Ozzie is going to give these guys shots to fail, but what you have to remember is guys may fail with shots, but they can't succeed without a skipper being willing to take a shot. There is a grander scheme of things to Ozzie than just winning 1 game. He wants to win them all, but he's going to do what he can to best prepare this team to win more games and not just 1 game.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Apr 5, 2006 -> 12:34 PM) I actually like what I see out of Boone to be honest. Thornton still worries me more then Logan. Boone is going to be solid this year for us. The nice part was that after he gave up that homer, the first pitch he threw was a damn good slider to Victor Martinez. While I would have preferred to stick with the hot hand I have no problem in Ozzie giving these guys shots to prove themselves. He did it last year with numerous guys and it left us shaking our heads, but as the season went on he figured out who would crap there pants in those situations (and they would be gone or seldomly used) and who would rise to the top. It may cost us some games early on, but it'll also better prepare us for the latter part of the season.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 08:19 PM) They probably mixed 'em up. I think the Joshua Fields is still recovering from off-season surgery. He's probably in extended spring training. Yeppers

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 04:32 PM) Nah I was more thinking of PK. I could be way off base but he seems like a guy that goes through terrible slumps where he is trying to yank everything for a bomb. Then when he is hot he can spray the ball all over. I totally disagree with Paulie. He's one of those power hitters who goes to right field very well. Every once in a while he'll get in a funk and get locked in towards left, but when he does that you'll see him try to jam himself and hit the ball to right field in order to get out of the funk and it leads to him being able to drive the ball to all parts of the field.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 04:10 PM) Another guy comes to mind that if I bring up I will get crucified. I have no idea who your speaking of. I assume you refer to Thome cause he's a pull hitter. However I have been very pleased with Aj's approach the first two games. He seems to be hitting the ball hard to the opposite field. I expect a good year from him at the plate (avg wise).

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 04:35 PM) I scored a 30, but it would be lower if not for some of the multiple choice TV/movie/book/comic questions. I needed a none of the above for both books and comics since I have never read comics in my life and quite frankly school has ruined any interest I once had in a good book (thanks for making me read horrific text books and awful awful books). I used to read 2 books a week and now I read maybe 1 a year.

53 Probably thanks to this website.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 03:33 PM) Jas, We have to give boone a few outings before we know what we have out there. I was watching him warm up and he threw one that hit the wall. He was obviously very nervous. I completely agree, most of my writeup was based on his spring performances. Granted it was spring, but I think it was nice seeing how people rarely square up on him. And it was no surprise he was nervous out there today, but considering the situation he came in on I couldn't complain with how he pitched. He gave up a double, but I think Mack had a bad jump. I don't think Anderson would have caught it, but it would have been closer. One thing I wasn't impressed with was Mack in center or Mack at the plate. He tries to PULL everything. Granted this is just one days observations and it takes a while for me to formulate any sort of opinion on how I think a player will do/be.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 03:17 PM) See, I still dislike this sort of posts...where you presume that steroids wouldn't have been as much of a help to 1 guy over another because of some reason. Why? Because there are a lot of steroids out there, and there never as far as I know has been a double-blind study on the effects of heavy use of each particular steroid under each circumstance. You can find steroids like Winstrol, which don't make you explode as much (Palmeiro), or you can use THG (Bonds) and turn into a giant. All we really have are rumors about what steroids can and cannot do for any particular player. For crying out loud, in the mid 90's, you could find plenty of people who would say "Steroids aren't a problem in baseball because having huge muscles won't help you in baseball like it would in football" (See: what people say about basketball these days). For all we know, you could easily find a steroid that would help you get your arm in better shape, or not lose as much stamina during 120 pitches, etc. We just don't know. I for one can think of several guys who are starting pitchers who I really think were juicing a few years ago and have since stopped (and have fallen off accordingly). Freddy, is not one of them IMO. I base my stuff on what I've heard from various people close to the game. And I've never heard of many of those people suggesting many starters were on roids. Your right there are different kinds of roids, after all olympic sprinters use them to get faster and body builders use them to get bigger. There are tons of variations, but from what I've heard for starting pitchers there isn't one that would really make a great difference. Thats not to say there aren't starters that use them, cause I'm sure plenty do, just not as much as relievers and hitters.

Part of it has to do with the fact that Farmer isn't any good. This may not be a good radio duo, but at the same time I think a lot of people overhyped Rooney/Farmer. Rooney had some amazing calls during the post-season and by and large they were a good crew but It wasn't as if they were Vin Scully or anything like that. Give me Vin Scully in his old and senile days anyday of the week over anyone the Sox run out there. It was a poor move on the Score's part, but the poorest part wasn't hiring Singleton it was trying to move Farmer to a position he stinks at, instead of keeping him at a position he was mediocre at and finding someone to come in and replace Rooney (leaving Farmer as is).

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 02:51 PM) Garcia's velocity has been gradually decreasing over the past 3-4 years. People act like he was throwing 94 mph constantly last year. That's not true at all. He was in the 91 mph range on average last season with his fastball. His FB was just fine last year. He would throw 91 and bring it in at 93-94 when he needed it. I figure in a couple weeks he'll be back to that point for the Sox. After the 1st inning he was in the 88-89 range althoug he wasn't throwing it enough, so its just a matter of getting another 1-2 on that and than being able to rare back and jack it a little more. Give him 2-4 more starts and I think he'll be in-season shape.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 02:49 PM) Freddy will actually be 30 in three months, not that I think his age has anything to do with his velocity being down today. And I hope no one was saying we should trade Freddy now. I would definately consider trading Freddy after the season is over though. Its all about conditioning. You could very easily be down 4 MPH because he hasn't done enough cardio and leg strength training. Thats where most of the velocity comes from and he may still be in the process of getting his legs underneath him and good to go. Usually pitchers need to put a lot of work out in the off-season to get there legs strong. And those pitchers who do that and have strong legs tend to be the kind of guys that have the velocity carry late into innings and that tend to not wear out as the season progresses.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 11:22 AM) He does indeed dress like a gladiator. However his fastball is much faster than 120, as the whole reason nobody can hit it is the shock of the sonic boom it causes. This is not sarcastic..he looks like a clown on the mound. I swear it looks like he's just a big awkward clutz and his freaking shoes take up the entire rubber and than some.

He gave up a double, but aside from that he got Hafner to hit into a double play and while he didn't impress me with his command, no one really seemed to hit him hard. I didn't see a lot of movement on his pitches but the hitters are the true sign and they had trouble squaring up. The true test will be how he does as people get enough film on him to come up with a good scouting report. Than we find out whether he can be a main stay in the pen. You have to like the fact he gets a lot of GB's and people haven't hit him hard (including spring training). Still, we will learn a lot about Anderson, Thornton, Logan and a few others as this season progresses. Prior to the trade deadline Kenny will know what he has and whether changes need to be made.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 02:38 PM) Steroids would not benefit a starting pitcher very much. First off, it would be horrible for flexibility. Second off, Freddy was never noticably big so for someone to say that is just plain irresponsible. The only pitcher on the Sox I ever looked at and thought he was on the juice was Koch and look where he is now. They are a great benefit to relievers, but starting pitchers typically would gain little benefit. They help relievers gain velocity and help them rebound faster. In fact I'd venture a guess that the highest % of users in this league are a combo of relievers and hitters (more relievers than people think were using this stuff).

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 02:36 PM) All I know is this....I don't want to see Garcia become a soft tosser like DJ was suggesting he wants to try and be. That alone makes this a topic. It would be assinine for him to change the way he throws. I think Dick Allen said it best when he mentioned that if he's making this change he isn't doing it on purpose, it means he can't throw that pitch anymore. However, if DJ and Hawk are just talking more about him working on using his breaking stuff a lot more, than it could very well be Garcia not quite ready and in shape for the season and because of that his velocity is down a bit. That would not shock me. But if in fact Garcia is planning on doing this all season, well he better learn to throw a lot more strikes and be a lot more agressive or he might as well get ready to be replaced by Bmac.

QUOTE(SSH2005 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 01:56 PM) People who were at the game are calling up The Score and talking about how horrible and out-of-shape he looked on the mound. They are saying he lost 4 MPH off his fastball. If it's because he is trying to locate more by throwing with less velocity, he better go back to his old way of pitching. Mid to high 80 MPH fastballs get roped unless you have Maddux-like control. Not true. Freddy can survive with an 88-89 MPH FB as long as he varies speeds. He gets great movement on his Slider and curveball and varies the speeds on them anywhere from 81-66. That alone is good enough to work and work well. The problem is he doesn't have the type of command to get away with that because hitters won't be as far out in front on these pitches when they aren't worried about his fastball. He definately doesn't need a good FB, but if he doesn't have it he's going to have to become more of an agressive pitcher who doesn't fall behind in the count. I do think its quite possible this is just an issue of a dead arm/him not quite being prepared and ready for the start of the season. Freddy didn't consistently throw hard last year, but whenever he needed to he could rare back and throw 93-94 while throwin consistently in the 88-92 MPH range. I expect him to get back to that point, but if he isn't by May 1st, I think we'll have something to worry about.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 01:35 PM) I just ran into a guy who was at the game and said that Freddy looked exhausted more than anything, seemed to be laboring through pitches. He usually is sweaty and laboring becaus he throws so many pitches. So I don't consider that unusual.

QUOTE(Reddy @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 12:57 PM) by the way you've all failed to mention that hawk and dj said he was TRYING to throw the slower stuff and work his control, location, curve etc. that he was going at this from a new approach - an approach i think is ridiculous... but a new approach all the same. i dont think anything is physically wrong with freddy. The problem was you saw him rare back and fire his legit fastball and it was topping out at 89. If you aren't throwing hard your not going to just magically be able to throw 93 as the season progresses. I could see him still being tired and working into things and I can buy into the fact that he's working on some stuff, but this is a horrid approach he's taking. I have no problem with him throwing more breaking pitches and varying speeds, but he's still got to be agressive with his fast ball and use it, otherwise that hard heater won't be there anymore.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 12:53 PM) Small update...some of us are having a wee bit of difficulty figuring out exactly what Freddy was throwing...the CSN gun had him in the mid to high 80's, but the CSN gun seemed to disagree with what the stadium gun was saying when Logan, Cotts, and Jenks were in there. Anywho, Freddy did get hammered, and Hawk & DJ did say he was throwing a bit slow. What DJ and Hawk were saying in terms of velocity in the game was dead on with the stadium gun. They read there velocity from the stadium gun and typically thats the same gun that comcast puts up. I also want to note that the velocity was on par for the other pitchers. Sometimes radars are off, but hte best way to judge that is by looking at the varying pitchers that throw and see if the readings are online. This gun seemed pretty accurate. Maybe 1-2 MPH slow, but that would mean Jenks was hitting 97 and I find that hard to believe.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Apr 4, 2006 -> 11:25 AM) The fact that he was hit hard and struggled isn't what bothers me, that happens. The fact I didn't see him hit 90 once all game is what bothers me. Hopefully this was just a bit of a dead arm period or a bad day, because Freddy without a low to occasionally mid 90's fastball isn't going to work IMO. Hopefully his velocity is still coming back, but of course this is a concern considering all the innings he's thrown in his career, especially last year. The fact that the media decided this wasn't an important issue all of spring also bothers me. We had fluff piece after fluff piece, yet nothing was ever mentioned about Freddy's velocity being insanely down. Plus we had Hawk and DJ in the booth talking about how its no big deal. Well I got news, when you have the control Freddy has you can't get away without having good velocity. He's going to have to get in shape and strengthen his legs and hopefully build back some strength so he can reach back and pop it from time to time. Just a really ugly game by him today. I liked the fact he was changing speeds and his breaking stuff looked good, but without that fastball its a little easier for hitters to have success. We saw some weak hits today off him, but he got himself into jams too. Logan looked solid as did Cotts. Jenks is out of shape and you can see he just doesn't have a proper range of motion when he's throwing. I'm really worried he's going to get hope. I sure hope the Sox trainers are working with him on losing some of that weight he gained this off-season, because its going to be a key to his success, imo.

Oh man that was awesome. Thanks for doing that.