fathom

We have to use Iguchi against the right players. Iguchi shouldn't be facing tough righties, like Clement, when lefties have a much better chance to be successful.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 05:23 AM) Where would you rank Uribe among defensive SS in baseball? How many guys make that play to get Nixon at home that easy? No one makes the play he made in Detroit to save the game. There's a lot of good defensive SS. That Polanco play in Detroit was good, but it was a play that probably half the SS in baseball make. To be honest, I didn't see the Nixon play though tonight. I'd say Uribe is one of the top 6 defensive SS in baseball. However, he's not a sure-fire Gold Glove winner like Sox fans on here think.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 05:21 AM) I'm saying he shouldn't be giving up hits like fat people are in line for getting free cake samples. It was happening all night and a big inning was inevitable. I would be fine if he was just rocked in the 4th or some other inning, but the whole night when Buehrle was pitching, you knew the big inning was coming and you just hoped Ozzie would take him out in time. In my car on the way home, I was begging Ozzie to take Buehrle out before the 7th inning. You knew that those guys, seeing him for the 4th time, would likely not go down quietly. Ozzie ALWAYS leaves his starting pitchers in until it's definite that they shouldn't be out there. Ozzie is hands-down the Manager of the Year so far, but he just doesn't have a good feel for when a pitcher is done with, and needs to get taken out BEFORE the runs come.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 05:13 AM) Uribe's defense overrated? Haha--do you watch every game? Yes I do, and he's a very good defensive SS. However, his defense isn't good enough for me to overlook his terrible hitting this season. People earlier this year were saying that the difference between Uribe and Omar's defense this year is the same as the difference between Crede and Ozuna. I completely disagreed with that belief. Uribe is an above average defensive SS.....but I wouldn't say that he's an amazing defensive SS. Anyways, our overall infield defense has been spectacular this season (besides for Iguchi's pretty sad range). Our outfield defense has been much worse. We have a below average throwing outfield, and don't get stellar jumps on the ball.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:56 AM) Iguchi is just lost. Couldn't turn a couple of DP's quick enough(what happened to that fast arm?). His offense is really sucking and it looks like he has caught PK-itis. Pull and hope for the best. His only hit was an an opposite field hit. Gee, I wonder where I should be aiming at. Trot Nixon never shifted right at all for whoever came up to bat. Iguchi should be thankful for the awful Willie Harris game against the A's before the break. It made people praise him for being able to get the runner over to 3rd with less than one out. However, Iguchi has been getting in the habit of just hitting grounders to 2nd base lately, and we're giving up the out to advance the runner. Instead of basically playing smallball, I'd rather see the Sox try to put big innings together. Iguchi is batting a little over .200 this month. In no way am I giving up on him, but he's become overrated on this site. Iguchi and Uribe's defense have become overrated, and Dye and Everett's offense has been underrated. Dye basically carried this team for 30 games.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:30 AM) Frankly Boston's lineup doesn't scare me that much. Ortiz and Ramirez are monsters, but that's only two of the 9. The other players aren't going to beat you with any regularity. In a playoff situation, I think our guys will get through without getting hurt that bad. J. Damon is easily the best leadoff hitter in baseball this season. Varitek is one of the best hitting catchers in baseball.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:33 AM) Maybe, but when there's the likes of Ozzie's favorite Alex Gonzalez and Rafael Furcal in the upcoming FA market, I tend to think we'll target one of them (although I'm in the minority on that). I hate Alex Gonzalez with a passion too. He's got A. Rowand syndrome, where he'll chase any slider out of the zone with 2 strikes. Furcal would be interesting, but he'll get a lot of money from a big market team.

QUOTE(qwerty @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:23 AM) Could you imagine what people will be saying two years down the road when vizwuel is hitting .220 and we didn't end up winning the world seris this year? Could you imagine how many people won't be at the Cell next season if this team chokes, doesn't make the playoffs, and KW sits on his hands?

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:27 AM) Actually we saw that for most of the detroit series also outside of some hits against bad relief. Cy Douglas had a 3 hitter going before Trammel got stupid and took him out. Bonderman shut us down 3 hits. Robertson shut us down 4 hits. The bullpen blew that one. And tonight we have Clement not nearly at his best. The same clement who has been hit very very hard in the last 3 starts. But hey we hit a lot of nice long solo homers. YEAH US. More power stats. We haven't beat any tough righty this whole season (Radke might be the best we've beaten). We really, really struggle facing pitchers with a sweeping slider. Of course, the reason for that is you can't pull those pitches very effectively.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:27 AM) Coupled with the fact he can play 1B, 3B and any OF position, we could even trade for him if we do re-sign Konerko and not tender someone like Crede a contract (which probably won't happen). 3B is Tracy's original position anyways. Does Tracy play the outfield? Never seen that. I've heard he's a disaster of a 3b though.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:25 AM) Coughfranksnotgoingonthedlcough Says who? Ozzie sure implied this after the game?

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:24 AM) Fact. You will give up far more in a trade for Lyle Overbay than Chad Tracy. Have a look at their splits; Tracy - .302/.345/.515 Overbay - .276/.381/.466 Tracy's only 25 and has been in the majors for what just over a season. Very important when it comes to controlling his rights. Arizona has Tony Clark and Conor Jackson coming up for next season. They have a big logjam, coupled with their need for pitching, they make a good trading partner. Tony Clark is not part of their future. If you get Tracy, you'd be giving up some top pitching prospects (McCarthy or Gio). DBacks are LOADED with offensive prospects....they need young pitching.

QUOTE(SoxFan562004 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:21 AM) That's the worst feeling in the world to go to a game like that. You know that your team has a good chance of getting f***ing shelled. And I just have visions of Arroyo dropping that curve-ball and the White Sox hitters flailing at it We should play as many lefties as possible. Hell, let Buehrle play SS that game. He has as good of a chance as O-ribe as getting a hit.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:20 AM) Where has having the monster lineup gotten us in the past? How many times do you see the monster lineups get shut down in the playoffs? Their offensive prowess is offset by their pitching deficiencies. Even assuming they consistently get 4 or 5 runs against our staff, which I don't see as that likely with our big 3 getting most of the games, there's a good chance that our guys do the same thing against the likes of Wells, Wakefield, and Arroyo. Those monster lineups sure hurt Boston and St. Louis last season.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:18 AM) Conteras has a 13.50 ERA against the bosox. And that's only cause he did good against them in his last start. That number was over 20 when we got him.

QUOTE(JimH @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:16 AM) Ortiz torches lefthanders this year, where's your numbers on that? Ortiz has a lot more power against RHP than he does LHP.

You don't know how many times I've seen Viz s*** the bed like that in late inning situations against the Cubs. The man gave up like 5 walk-off homers to the Cubs, it seems like.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:14 AM) Lugo - Sucks Defensively. Vizquel - 3 year contract. Always going to be an issue. Feliz - Doesn't takes many walks. Has an OBP of .309. Lopez - BWAHAHAHAHA. Why do you laugh at Lopez? Also, Feliz is not a SS. I would take Lugo and Vizquel over Uribe in a heartbeat. The only thing more overrated than Uribe's defense on this board is Iguchi's batting in the 2nd spot.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:12 AM) Again, what I was really dissapointed in is that this team doesn't have that championship edge, and on TV you can tell the crowd really sensed it. They seemed out of it, like they knew the Red Sox will win the game. I understand what you are saying from tonight's game but I can't see how you can say that about this team. It has had a championship edge the majority of the time. Look at our lineup, and look at the Red Sox lineup. We don't match-up well at all against teams with great offenses. We have very good starting pitchers, but we don't have pitchers that can consistently strikeout hitters with 2 strikes. Thus, the opposition gets a lot of opportunties to put the ball in play. The Red Sox, Yanks, Rangers, etc. don't have any John Buck's to help bail our pitchers out.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:06 AM) I'm sorry, but I'm not ready to start putting the blame on Thomas. He hasn't been great, but considering he hasn't been seeing too many baseballs the last year and a half, I'm not gonna b**** at him. He's still posting a .905 OPS and is slugging .590... So, since I'm really not doing anything by just disagreeing with you guys, here's my suggestions to a solution. Juan Uribe... while his defense is valuable -- 4.5 defensive Win Shares leads our team, if there's an upgrade that's within reasonable pricing -- like Julio Lugo or Omar Vizquel -- you gotta try and make a move. A .266 on-base percentage is brutal. I haven't been very "for" the idea of getting Vizquel, but something's gotta be done. Luis Vizcaino... Look -- if our team is built on pitching and defense, why the hell is he still on our team? He's bad -- extremely bad. He had some nice outings in mop-up, but I'm sorry, when he was brought over in the Podsednik trade, all I heard was people all gaga over his arm, and how electric his stuff was. His stuff sucks. He hangs sliders and is too much of a pussy to throw his 93 MPH fastball. He pisses me off more than Contreras -- almost. You don't pay $1.3 million bucks for a guy to do mop-up. Jeff Baj can do a s***load better job at a quarter of the f***ing price. What I'm saying, is we need a new f***ing reliever -- Chad Qualls, Billy Wagner, Eddie Guardado -- somebody to push everyone down in the pecking order. I'm probably just really pissed off right now, but Vizcaino sucks. At least Uribe does something to earn some of his money, even if none of it comes from his bat -- Viz is a joke. Unfortunate that Shingo was DFA'ed alone, 'cause Viz deserved to be every bit as much. We don't always get along, but this was a very good post. Well done

QUOTE(bulokis @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:06 AM) KW cant let this team tank down. This team will need a boost. As one of the people on this board who most strongly believe we need to be proactive instead of reactive to any slump, my biggest fear is that KW and Ozzie will read the standings page too much, and judge our team based on our record. Our record is not a good predicator of how our team will play the rest of this season. Our pitching is not going to put up the same numbers that we did at the beginning of this season. Not a chance in hell it will happen with the ball flying out of the Cell.

QUOTE(whitesoxmanager @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:03 AM) Vizcaino is better than Baldwin and he ended up going to Texas today, no? This game is really about confidence and execution. Getting Vizcaino to believe in himself and his stuff is exactly what Ozzie was attempting to do tonight. He really has done a tremendous job for us lately. Ozzie was trying to build on that! He was so close to sitting in the dugout and hearing from all his teammates...great job man...you just got Ortiz & Manny out...you are the man! Thanks, I needed a good laugh. Vizcaino threw a f***ing meatball to one of the best hitters in baseball history. That confidence in Viz sure looked strong as he walked off the field with his head down.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 04:02 AM) Did Clement have his best stuff tonight. Was that a great pitching performance. He was off. We should of killed him tonight. When he was 2-0 to a bunch of hitters and was throwing rollers up instead of his biting slider he should of been launched. I am sure the cubans will shut the bosox down. When you have 4 righty hitters in your lineup, you're not going to have a lot of success against a pitcher who is much tougher against righties. As much as I dislike Willie, he should have been playing tonight.

QUOTE(whitesoxmanager @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 03:56 AM) i liked the move to leave Vizcaino in the game for several reasons: 1. he has been very good lately gaining confidence and actually looking pretty tough...he is just about to turn the corner on the guy the Sox expected to get 2. maybe he is going to be a part of a trade and the Sox are showcasing him 3. hermy is coming off an injury 4. righty vs righty matchups 5. 4 game series dont necessarily use the closer in non save opps question now is do you go back to Vizcaino tomorrow in the same situation???? First, Manny is so much better against rhp. Also, the other two hitters that inning were lefty batters. Vizcaino is a pitcher who has problems with the long ball. He absolutely can't be trusted in a tie game like that against terrific hitters. And why does everyone think that every player on the Sox is being showcased for a trade? I love trade rumors just as much as the next guy, but Viz is going nowhere.

QUOTE(JimH @ Jul 22, 2005 -> 03:51 AM) Fathom ... go back to right before it happened and please show me your post where you call for Cotts to be brought in to face Manny Ramirez. Damned easy to say you would've done it after the game is over. If Cotts had screwed up you'd have a whole Ozzie Sucks thread going on right now, admit it. I didn't say I wanted Cotts (to be honest, I thought he had pitched already while I was at work), but I definitely stated my opinion that I didn't think Viz would keep it in the park against those hitters.