fathom

Another at bat you like to see. Swinging at strikes, taking balls.

Said he didn't like how he was swinging bat coming into the game. To me, you hope he had confidence facing Royals and gets things turned around facing a pitcher that doesn't strike a lot of guys out.

I do, and he was in the 2nd at bat after swinging at first two pitches. From there, he laid off the offspeed pitches he's been chasing to draw the walk. He still fouling off far too many fastballs to the left side though.

What a joke Yoan has turned into defensively. Hope he likes center field.

Great to see the walks for Yoan

Well Davidson would be a DFA candidate this year if not for his performance vs KC. Looking at Sox bloggers, most of them mentioned this as well.

Let's hope it's nothing serious, as the fact he finished the inning is better than a situation like Dunning.

Hansen went 3 innings, 65 ineffective pitches and is done. Wonder if it was due to injury or not pitching well?

Davidson not playing...wow

Yep why wait to get to a pitch you're not going to hit anyways. It's a problem I feel a lot of the Sox hitters have this year and another reason I question the coaching staff's ability to develop a game plan with the personnel. If a guy has a top-notch breaking pitch like McCullers, you can't just allow fastball after fastball down the plate to be called a strike and then chase sliders a foot off the plate. It gets frustrating watching Yoan take first pitch fastball down the plate for a strike, foul off a fastball on the outer half for strike two and you know there's a ridiculously likely chance of him chasing an offspeed pitch with two strikes or guessing an offspeed pitch is coming and take a called 3rd. Good news is this is absolutely type of thing he will improve upon as he develops.

Collins kidding, but it's really strange especially going from great pitcher's park to a hitter's park

And despite the Sox telling him to be more aggressive, it's still happening far too often. Would love to see him just poke those close 2 strikes pitches to the left side and let his speed work for him. Since he's been on the Sox, I can only recall a few infield hits he's had where his good speed got him a single.

Pulling off is also causing him to foul off to the left side good pitches to hit on outer half, as well as give up on fastballs on the edge of outside corner. Don't get me wrongs, umps have done him no favors either, but there comes a time where you need to fight off close pitches.

Have you seen his stats? The only true success he's had is swinging at first pitch. Once he falls behind, it's all over.

At this stage, he's nowhere near the WSox version of Thome in terms of batting eye.

If it's not on the inner half, he has no chance right now. If you think about his best moments over last few weeks, it was on pitches he could turn on. Huge difference between some of the success he had last year compared to this is he's not driving the ball to the opposite field at all. All comes back to pulling off everything, and it's been that way all season besides maybe 2-3 weeks.

From listening to the 74 interviews Jesse Rogers does on ESPN1000 every day, the Cubs have a team of employees that run analytics via a computer to determine what optimal lineup would be. They then provide that to Maddon for him to make final decision.

Dunn and Thome say "remember us"

That would be one of the best years ever. Might want to be a little more realistic.

Madrigal playing

There's a chance for the bullpen to get really bad real soon. When you combine that with a mediocre rotation and bad offense, it's likely going to get ugly in the 2nd half

Let me also add that everything the Sox say is he has a great work ethic. I'm not questioning that at all. More you just don't want to see him sulking or getting too down on himself. The reason I pointed out the pitching change thing last night was it just looked awkward with him pacing back and forth while the others around him were chatting.

Actually a buddy of mine who watched him in Charlotte last year was amazed at how awful his body language was there, and I posted about it and everyone said he was just bored.

Two other quick comments from seeing them live: -Timmy and Yolmer seem so happy to be out there - no way are Yoan's legs healthy. Tons of stretching after movement and his lead off when he was on 2nd was very, very short.

Since you weren't there, they were all standing a few feet behind Minaya warming up. It wasn't like Yolmer and Timmy just stood in their positions during the pitching change.