fathom

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 04:17 AM) I have a question. Before his time on the DL. Contreras threw his forkball over the top. He threw a hard 95 to 97 mph fastball. And then would drop down on righties from time to time to give them a different look, and then would use his slider from that angle. Now after the DL stint. The counts is throwing pretty much side arm all the time. His fastball is down to 91. And with his drop down, the ball seems to sail up in the hitting zone a bit more. He cannot get ontop of his forkball anymore and its either hanging or not dancing. Now for my question. If you are successful at sometime for a long period of time. Why in the name of God would you decide to completely change how you go about it. Either that bone spur still hurts, or Cooper and Ozzie need to get Jose throwing over the top more Contreras had a dominant forkball tonight, but he probably only threw it 10 to 15 times. His forkball is his best pitch, by far. When his fastball was good last year/beginning of this year, he threw it about 95 mph with a lot of sink. Now, every fastball is around 91 mph over the heart of the plate. Contreras also throws a lot of sliders, and that's clearly his 3rd best pitch. He's had a lot of damage done against that pitch when he gets underneath it and hangs it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I hung a slider," Contreras said. "I feel bad because I felt so good before the game. I lost concentration after the first homer (to Grudzielanek)." I expected more mental fortitude out of Contreras. Also, have no fear, Cooper will review video of Vazquez to make sure he's not tipping his pitches.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 03:57 AM) Pods on the game tonight. Well the ball didnt bounce our way tonight. Pods catch the f***ing ball, dont worry about it bouncing. Just catch it. The ball didn't bounce our way? The Royals were hammering the ball all over the field, and the Sox couldn't make solid contact. This was as one-sided a game as you'll ever see. The final score isn't even a good picture of how the game was played. I just can't believe that we continue to neglect our outfield defense. Our pitchers have underachieved this season, but our outfield defense (outside of Anderson) has had an incredibly negative impact on our pitchers success.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 03:54 AM) How many times has any team swept a four game series at home in the past 20 years? It happens less than 5% of the time. A crappy Indians team just swept this same KC team in a 4 game series. We've blown so many chances to sweep teams this season when we were in ideal situations. However, tomorrow's game is officially a must-win now.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 03:51 AM) Did you really think that Hernandez and his 8 ERA would shut us down at home and go deep into the game. I mean if we lost 6-4 or something its understandable, Vaz put us in a hole. But when we lose 4-2 and we struggle to hit a crappy pitcher its pretty sad. I didnt think we would lose a game to the Royals when we beat Redman in game one. This isn't a shot at Mr. Hibbard, but I guess it's easier to be extremely positive when you just don't set your expectations high.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 03:44 AM) The pitching was horrible but once again the defense let the Sox down. A pop up that fell between Pods, who plays DeJesus the same way he would play Albert Pujols, and Cintron wound up costing 3 runs. Cotts really is resembling Marte lately and has graduated with honors from the El Duque School of Pitching, as he goes 3 and 2 on almost every hitter now. Cooper should thanks his lucky stars for Matt Thornton. If not for him, I would really wonder if he's talked to any of our pitchers this season. If anything, Contreras/Cooper have made adjustments that have hurt Jose.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 03:04 AM) The defense in between? Maybe Cintron at SS, Pods in LF, Mack in CF and Gload in RF would indicate chances are the defense isn't going to shine. Also Iguchi covering second would have been nice. If Ozzie really said that about the defense being in-between, then that's just pathetic.

I think we're going to become the first team in history to hit 200 homers in 7 straight years.

Twins are looking like the Twins of old with numerous infield hits late in the game. If Nathan shuts down the Indians, our lead is down to 1.

QUOTE(GoRowand33 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:52 AM) yay that was an awful game win tomorrow or we don't deserve the division The division?

Here come the Twins.

It doesn't matter....but our LF platoon really sucks.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:39 AM) I just can't agree with the "corpseball" nonsense. Our offense has been dominant. We're on pace to score something like 200 more runs than we did last year. We're either at the top or close to the top of every major offensive category. This team is hitting well over .300 with RISP. Yes. We sucked hard last night and tonight. Yes. We had that two week funk coming back from the break. Besides that, the offense has been as good as it gets. Yes, but that's what brought about the corpseball generation (which I never was a fan of). The offense would be rolling along, and then this point of the season would come around, and we'd score 15 runs one game, and then get shut down swinging for the fences by the likes of Joe Mays, etc.

That doesn't hurt. Good job Alex. Brown almost made a great catch.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:46 AM) I don't think so. He was breezing through the game until that point. When has Mark ever struck out 7 in 3 innings? He didn't K anyone after the 3rd inning. Yes, he looked much better, but Uribe botching that DP didn't automatically force Casey and Granderson to get rolling curves.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:41 AM) Mark was a Juan Uribe botched double play away from probably throwing a complete game shutout against the Tigers. He's gonna have to be that good tomorrow. I pray the defense is good (Anderson better be in center). He looked better, but that's quite the stretch you're making.

QUOTE(GoRowand33 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:38 AM) by the way since I wasn't around earlier in the game, has any one else noticed how off-balance Jim Thome is right now when he tries to turn on pitches it looked like he's leaning back and not completely any transfer of power in his swing, so all the power has to come out of his arms, which may explain why he hasn't pulled a home run in a while anyone notice this or am I crazy? Thome's wrist issue has made it difficult to pull the ball with authority. QUOTE(GoRowand33 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:39 AM) but our offense played well against roy halladay, the yankee bullpen and verlander and the offensive approach improved somewhat (but seems to have reverted back now) We actually caught some big breaks in those games. Maybe Teahen will throw away an easy DP ball tomorrow to help us win.

QUOTE(GoRowand33 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:35 AM) well that ross gload grand slam did lead to improved play So did facing terrible pitching. We played terrible that entire Orioles series....we were lucky to win 2 games.

I'm sure happy we used MacDougal for those 2/3 of an inning, when we were going to bring BMac in anyways.

This team reminds me of the 2002-2004 White Sox in so many ways. If there was ever a time to bring out the terms tinkering and corpseball, it was tonight.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:29 AM) Even if such a miraculous event would occur, I've learned this season not to select individual moments to propel ourselves into a "rhythm." Momentum is just a underachieving start away from being wiped away. When's the last time we had 17 worse innings than this?

F. Carmona hasn't helped us very much this year, has he?

Hawk's basically calling us paper champions.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 02:16 AM) Is it just me, or has Neal Cotts been the most dissapointing one of our pitchers (outside of the starters of course) this year? He was the one guy -- along with Jenks -- that I felt really good about this year out of our bullpen. The most disappointing pitcher is quite the accomplishment on this team.

Neal might make a nice trade chip this offseason.

MacDougal's up? I'd rather he only pitch in close games. And it's official! All three of our outfielders have messed up tonight.