fathom

How will the curse of Oakland strike tonight? This definitely won't be easy.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 3, 2005 -> 01:33 AM) Our 1-2-3 hitters look absolutely terrible up there tonight. I don't understand why we bat Harris 2nd, just cause he's taking the place of Iguchi. It's ridiculous to have two slap hitters batting 1st and 2nd in the order. Pods and Harris aren't the second coming of Pierre and Castillo.

Even though he popped it up last night, I would like to see Pods try to bunt for a hit more. He's not exactly tearing the cover off the ball at the plate.

QUOTE(CWSGuy406 @ Jul 3, 2005 -> 01:28 AM) Garland throwing his changeup is so pretty. That pitch has become so good for him... Agreed. Garland in the past used to always seem to hang (too high) that changeup in crucial spots, and usually paid for it with a 2 or 3 run homer against him. I have so many memories of Hawk just being pissed off that Garland threw a high changeup to a lefty, instead of getting beat with his sinker.

Good catch by Pods out there. Takes a lot of concentration in that area to stay with the ball.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jul 3, 2005 -> 01:22 AM) Man, Oakland got lucky there...terrible control on the field there, Sarloos had no reason to be over there like that...it's the pitcher's job to call people off. I disagree, that was a very good play. That was great hustle by the pitcher to get over there. Chavez and Kendall had a lot more ground to cover on that play than Saarloos did.

Good job by Crede and Rowand of not trying to do too much with these meatball pitches.

f*** you Timo. I'm so happy we're playing him instead of the red-hot Everett.

Twins won 4-1 tonight. Lead is 9 currently.

Good inning for Garland. After last night's debacle, it's just nice to see a pitcher throw strikes.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ Jul 3, 2005 -> 01:11 AM) You can't have a 3-0 count and strike out. That's the worst, especially striking out looking. Our power hitters like to take the 3-0 pitch, and then swing wildly at the 3-1 pitch, which in a lot of situations is going to be an offspeed pitch. Prior made our big hitters look silly by taking advantage of some poor strategy.

Dear offense: Please wake the f*** up. Against a pitcher who relies on a sinker, we can't play for the 3 run homer tonight.

I understand that Ozzie wants to play as many lefties as possible against the RHP, but why not just put Everett into the outfield instead of playing Timo? Everett and Dye have been our two best hitters lately...and both are sitting tonight.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Jul 3, 2005 -> 12:48 AM) Tadahito's been pretty bad for awhile now. (.244/.319/.354) in June pretty much sucks. Not to mention his RISP avg (.226/.278/.339) -- This is really troubling because he was well above .300 before june. I like what we've seen from Iguchi, but he was bound for his stats to drop significantly from the early part of the season. He was finding every hole imaginable on the field for about 3 weeks, and that resulted in his batting average shooting over .330 for a little bit.

Big game tonight with Tampa rolling over for the Twins again. We really need to win at least 2 of the 3 against the D Rays next week.

We have a Timo sighting tonight!!!

Every single f***ing game in Oakland seems the same. We play like minor leaguers, and Oakland just seems to retire every batter from the 4th inning on.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 2, 2005 -> 05:04 AM) Huff's average isn't much better than Crede's and he's only hit 6 homers. I like him, but I heard a scout talking about him on the radio, and they said he isn't the hitter he was a couple of years ago. His bat has supposedly slowed considerably. He may be a right handed Ben Grieve. Considering Huff is lefty, that might be hard to do. However, every time I watch Huff bat, he seems to hit the ball hard. However, Crede isn't going anywhere. Did you hear the Sox PR machine, Hawk, praising Crede tonight?

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jul 2, 2005 -> 05:02 AM) Cotts would have never pitched in the 5th anyways, they'd save him for the 7th or 8th. If Marte was healthy, you can bet your ass Cotts would have been in to face Johnson in the 5th inning.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 2, 2005 -> 05:01 AM) Exactly. Moneyball means 100 pitches and you're done. The patient approach worked great the first inning, and then it was forgotten. Especially with Frank on the bench, this Sox team isn't going to have a lot of success trying to be patient. What puzzles me is how Pods had the great AB in the first inning, and then had 3 simply miserable ABs after that.

Marte's injury really hurts us a lot more than we thought. The difference between Marte and Walker is huge, and the effect it has on our bullpen roles is bad. Instead of the lights-out Cotts being put in for the 5th inning in the crucial situation of this game, we had to bring in Walker, who hasn't done a f***ing thing to deserve a spot on our roster. Just sucks to lose a game when you lose with your worst player on the roster f***ing up (bases loaded walk) with the game on the line.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 2, 2005 -> 04:57 AM) Harden is a flat out filthy pitcher who has been good of late. We knew going in it'd be tough. You're not going to put up 6 on a good pitcher in a pitcher's park. We'd have been in very good shape had Buehrle, Garcia, or Garland pitched however. We had our chance to make Harden only go 5 innings tonight after the first inning, but our hitters seemed to get less patient as the game went on. The biggest problem with the bottom of our order is their inability to draw a walk.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Jul 2, 2005 -> 04:55 AM) As bad as Contreras was, the Sox aren't going to win many games scoring 2 runs. After the first inning, I don't understand the offensive approach. It seemed like no one really had a plan at the plate. And Kendall's thrown out 7 of 61 coming in. Except for Konerko and AJ, if anyone else gets on first, they should have been going. Maybe the'll do the unimaginable and score a few of Street in the 9th. I know I'm thought of as the eternal pessmist on here, but my biggest concern with this team is its inability to have good ABs against the top pitchers in baseball. Yes, there's a reason why they're the best of the best. However, we have too many everyday players who are easy outs. Against tough righties, guys like Rowand, Crede, and Uribe are incredibly easy outs.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jul 2, 2005 -> 04:47 AM) So is that a yes or a no? Yes, I would have gladly taken those numbers......however, I would have also thought that maybe he had figured some things out to get those numbers lower as the season went on. However, it almost seems like back to square one with him. You can play the whole number game with anyone on the team, and use it to prove a point. How many people still can J. Dye = Dead? Not only has he easily been our best hitter for over a month, but he's also right on with the power numbers we expected from him (HR at least).

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ Jul 2, 2005 -> 04:47 AM) I would think most of us would after how our staff pitched in the second half last year. Here's another one: how many of you really thought we were going to win this game? Be honest! We've found ways to win games this year that I thought we had no prayer going into the game (Duque vs W'brook, etc.). This game would have been a lot easier to deal with if Contreras didn't pitch like a pussy tonight. We suck at Oakland, plain and simple.