fathom

Ozuna's glove looks mammoth.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2005 -> 06:44 PM) Our pitchers hold runners like our hitters hit line drives. Good, accurate analogy.

QUOTE(mreye @ May 11, 2005 -> 06:38 PM) Why? This lineup can't win? Why watch? Why are you reading the play by play here if you already know the outcome? Of course this lineup can win....but it's a case of a manager having absolutely no clue how to adjust a lineup when he doesn't have regulars in the game. Under no circumstance should Timo Perez ever be leading off or batting 5th. I don't care if he hits 4 homers today, that's not a good managerial decision.

The question I have is that Dye was a late replacement for Everett in the DH spot. Why not let Widger DH today? He's been one of our best hitters lately. I know Ozzie has gone with some stupid lineups in the 3rd game of the series this year, but that was when we had won the first two games of the series. Getting swept by Tampa wouldn't exactly be good for this team's psyche.

QUOTE(mreye @ May 11, 2005 -> 06:35 PM) I should go back and count the optimistic posts since the first pitch. As someone said earlier, the optimism was thrown out the window when we saw what our lineup was today.

Every single player seems to be swinging out of their ass. Greg Walker has to be held responsible for the s*** that's happening with a lot of our hitters. Simply a terrible approach by way too many players.

DJ asking for the baseball gods to start helping us out? In all honesty, I think the baseball gods have been more than helpful this season. Seems like we have got a lot of breaks so far this year.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2005 -> 06:26 PM) Can Ozzie crack walker in the back of the head and tell him to stop teaching the dip the back shoulder and elevate. This flyball to the track crap didnt work last year when we had thumpers on the team. Exactly. As I was saying last night, just look at how Dye takes pitches. He has terrible form at the plate right now. He needs to get his lower body into the swing.

Konerko and Dye are hitless in the Tampa series so far, and the only hits Everett had were two infield hits.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ May 11, 2005 -> 06:25 PM) Carl f***ing Crawford That was a fairly easy play. You should be saying Jermaine f***ing Dye.

Dye's so off-balanced at the plate that he can't even capitalize on hanging curves. That's about 5 times in this series he had to swing all arms at a great pitch to hit.

This is why Dye shouldn't be in the 5 hole! Absolutely no excuses for this.

2 flyballs to the track already today.

Not this same old s*** again today with every deep fly by the Sox getting caught 2 feet in front of the fence.

Why do people think Everett is being pitched around? From my viewpoint, Carl gets as many good pitches to hit as anyone on our team. Everett's problem lately has been that he's fouling off the fastball right down the plate, and then he's chasing bad pitches when he's down in the count. Everett's patience has never been good, but it's been horrible lately.

QUOTE(RockRaines @ May 11, 2005 -> 05:51 PM) Ozzie you f***er, why take our Spods, who should steal bases on a terrible catcher and a slow delivery pitcher??????????????????????????? There is a reason why we have jumped on top of TB in the first 2 innings, and that is SPODS It's so Ozzie can let his boyfriend Timo leadoff the game.

El Duque against the lefties, and with their speed, is a recipe for a very slow game today.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2005 -> 05:26 PM) Here are the lineups for todays game. YUCK YUCK YUCK Ozzie what are you doing? Timo our very slow RF is leading off. I would rather have Pablo lead off. Dye is DHing. We may score 1 run today. Chicago White Sox Tampa Bay 1 Timo Perez, RF Alex Sanchez, DH 2 Tadahito Iguchi, 2B Nick Green, 2B 3 Aaron Rowand, CF Carl Crawford, LF 4 Paul Konerko, 1B Aubrey Huff, 1B 5 Jermaine Dye, DH Damon Hollins, CF 6 A.J. Pierzynski, C Jorge Cantu, 3B 7 Juan Uribe, SS Chris Singleton, RF 8 Joe Crede, 3B Charles Johnson, C 9 Pablo Ozuna, LF Alex S. Gonzalez, SS Really would have liked to see Pods playing against a righty pitcher and Johnson catching, who I'm pretty sure can't throw for s*** now.

Part of the problem right now is that Uribe is batting behind so many guys that can't get on base at all right now. Thus, he's rarely in a situation to drive in runs.

- Pods - Iguchi - Uribe - Konerko - Everett - Rowand - A.J. - Dye - Crede

Interesting that both pitchers they suggest the Sox might take are Illinois high school products (Mt. Carmel and DeLaSalle). Carillo was on ESPNews a few weeks ago, and he said he was a Sox fan, FWIW.

The thing is, we're basically playing with house money with our incredible start. Instead of waiting for this team to lose 5 or 6 games in a row, Ozzie should get creative. The current lineup is certainly not clicking in terms of producing a lot of motion on the bases and smallball. Something I've noticed is that besides Pods or Iguchi, we do a terrible job with situational hitting when we have runners on 1st and 2nd, no outs. I've seen enough weak pop ups or routine DP balls to last a season in the last week.

I honestly would like to see Uribe in the 3rd hole for a while, and see what happens. He is the starter who consistently hits the ball hardest, and with Pods and Iguchi at the top of the order, I really think our offense would flourish. We also should have Everett and Rowand batting back-to-back, so a manager can't put in a lefty to face Everett and Konerko (who's worse against lhp than rhp).

QUOTE(JimH @ May 11, 2005 -> 03:30 AM) I agree but the clutch hitting is not there. They manufactured a few runs but left a few big runners out there too. 9 walks, poor location on pitches, at least one poor defensive decision. Yeah, but Tampa also left a ton of runners on base also. When both teams do it, I don't feel as bad about it. The one thing that just irks me about tonight is that we had the game at a spot where we could use our best relievers to get 9 outs with a 2 run lead....and I just feel like Ozzie didn't put us in a good chance to succeed. However, we've talked about this all night, so no reason discussing it more. Thanks JimH for some actual good conversation tonight.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ May 11, 2005 -> 03:27 AM) We hit a lot of warning track shots over the last three years. Line drives win games. This is not a power hitting team anymore. Stop trying to jack homers. That's the thing, it was a lot of line drives that carried out to the fence. Rowand, Crede, and Widger all put solid swings on the ball, only for it to not carry AT ALL.