southsideirish71

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ May 7, 2006 -> 02:11 PM) Matt plays loogy and here comes Brandon. It seems obvious that Matt is the new LOOGY. Get this out Bmac and lets see what we can do against Elmer Fudd in the pen. I cant believe we are still suseptable to the soft tosser.

Here is a picture of my bodyguard Brendan. Dont let his size fool you, he knows Drunken Irish Kung Fu.

QUOTE(Dan @ May 6, 2006 -> 12:50 PM) i wouldnt underestimate the Royals. they are a good baseball team, but their record doesnt reflect it, so many people like yourself just assume that they suck. just look at john buck for instance. he may not be swinging a good bat but he can gun down a runner with the best of em. Pods doesnt have 1 SB(that i know of) with Buck behind the plate and has been caught stealing by him at least three times. if you disect it all and look at every player, they have a pretty respectable lineup. The royals are a good baseball team??????????? They have lost over 100 games 3 out of the last 4 years. They will most likely lose another 100+ games this year. When you break the century mark in losses you are a bad team. John Buck has a fine arm, however outside of Victor Martinez, Pods hasnt exactly been ripping up the basepaths this year. Grudz was the only player in their lineup last night that was decent. This good baseball team is about to fire their GM and maybe their coach because they are so bad. Lineups that feature Dougy Baseball as the 3 hole hitter, and Matt Stairs as the cleanup and Brown as the 5 hole arent exactly striking fear into opposing pitching.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ May 5, 2006 -> 11:18 PM) We won't be seeing Nelson until June at the earliest IMHO. I think our pen has been made out to be worse than what it has been so far, and over the past few days it's shown signs of settling down. I'm hoping tonight's performance was just an aberration. Nelson needs time to get ready, he needs also a few minor league appearances. Logan has to disappear. Ozzie needs to stop worrying so much about what hand the person who comes to the plate has. He burns through the pen trying to play matchup. Your loogy is the only one that comes in for a true matchup and usually to get one or 2 batters. After that the rest of your pen should be able to pitch to both sides. And contrary to Ozzies belief some of our relievers have pitched better to the opposites side of the plate.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ May 5, 2006 -> 11:29 PM) So how's Javier Lopez sounding as the LOOGY right now? If anyone's going to be called up right now, it'd probably be him, not Nelson or Tracey I'd say, considering they'd probably send down Logan. Javier actually has major league experience. Give him a shot, why Nelson gets work in extended ST. At least he will not s*** his pants and will go after a hitter. Boone got star struck. And I think Hafners dong scared the s*** out him. He needs more time in the minors.

QUOTE(SoxAce @ May 5, 2006 -> 11:21 PM) Hey.. what can you say... Baseball is a crazy game. And I still remember a poster here who predicted that we would be 23-8 after we were done with the Royals, which I precisely shook my head. Like Ozzie said, every team is difficult. There are no easy teams in the MLB. Period. Some teams might just be alittle less talented than others.. It's crazy though every good team will have a team that they will struggle against (or be the b****.) It's common. That being said let's get a win Javier. Ozzie is giving lip service on the Royals. They are the worst team in baseball. There is not even a close second to how bad they are. They dont hit, they dont pitch, they are bad in every way. When they leave us, the next team will kick the ever living s*** out of them. This bad and horrible team also is missing its only two hitting players. Sweeney and Sanders. Without them, they are an even worse team. A 20-8 coming into this series, with one of the top offenses in the league and one of the best pitching staffs in the league should sweep this team. Instead we made Scott Earlton and his nearly 5 ERA look like Santana, who we actually hit better. We like to make bad pitchers with limited skills look like the next coming of Cy Young. In our last series we had Cy Meche out on the hump. When Hawk starts talking up the opposing pitcher as this amazing enigma. How can he have a 9 ERA when he has stuff like this. You know at that time, we are chasing crap out of the zone, either bounced in curves, or fastballs neck high while we take meatballs down the middle. The league might be hitting 900 against him, but they are not doing it against this stuff. We also made Cy Meche who is terrible look good until we got the memo that he in fact is terrible. The Royals will give the loss record a run for its money. We need to beat the s*** of out crap teams like this, because other teams will. This is like tossing free victories away. We have to focus when playing s*** teams like this, and play hard. We have had problems over the years with bad teams of loosing focus and allows s***ting teams to rack up victories against us. A few years ago when the Tigers were looking to break 120 losses, they probably had 1/3 of their season victories against us. Why because we decided to mail in the game, why f***ing play, its an automatic victory. We are a much better team than this.

I will agree with another poster in this thread. The pitch calling tonight in the 9th was absolute horses***. We get caught up with sitting on the outside corner, especially against the Royals. You need to bust in once in a while to setup the outside corner. Ozzie needs to figure out the roles on this bullpen and figure it out soon. If Ozzie started Thorton to shorten the game for Bobby because he pitched a few games, whatever. But if you are worried that Bobby is tired, then send out someone else. Dont dink and dunk the ninth. Boone Logan needs to go. He is a LOOGY who made this team based on one thing, his ability to attack the zone and throw strikes. All he has done is had one good game when it was a blowout. He came into one game where the ball hasnt landed yet, came into another were he walked the world, and then tonight he again came in to perform the LOOGY function and got PWN3d. If the LOOGY cant do it, then send him down. His ERA looks cute, however he just allows nearly all of his inherited runners to score. Thorton should be the LOOGY, until he proves the can throw strikes consistantly. Because of his velocity he is less likely to get hurt, when Boone gets behind he will get f***ing rocked. Where is Neal Cotts? Bmac is also missing in action. No major league teams at all mix and match the 9th like this. They either start with their closer, or if their closer has come into a lot of games, they turn to one of the setup men. Now Bobby is unavailble for tomorrow. What a f***ing mess.

Its the f***ing royals, the worst team in baseball. We shouldnt be leading the season series 4-3 on a 20 loss team in the first week of may. I dont want to hear Hawk talking about how even though Runny Nose Hernandez is a crappy pitcher on a crappy team, tonight his s*** is crisp. We were able to get 2 runs on the great Santana, yet dogs*** pitchers like Earlton shut us down. We also need to get Dye healthy so we can stop with the 3 scrub lineup. Putting 3 or more backup players in the lineup is the cause for half of our losses. 1-5 with the 3 dog lineup. Memo to the Sox MAKE THE ROYALS EAT s***

We need to THOMINATE The Royals. Dear Royals,

If the team is batting .230 and only scores via the dong, then worry. But when we are hitting at a good clip, have a real good OBP then dont. The homer is just a nature of our team. Especially with Thome, Konerko, Dye and Crede in the lineup.

This sucks, I liked Carmen and Silvy.

QUOTE(LosMediasBlancas @ May 5, 2006 -> 09:15 AM) Interesting that the 4th of July is more of a family type, cook out, laid back kind of celebration. Shouldn't that be our huge drunk fest? Instead, St. Patty's and Cinco de Mayo are. Its a conspiracy to keep the mexicans and Irish from ruling the world.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ May 2, 2006 -> 09:19 PM) So it went from 1-3 days a few posts ago to 2-4 days at the beginning of your latest post to 3-4 games by the end of your post, at this rate the site will be down for a week within the hour. The small amount of time that this will take in the long run is worth it. As the team keeps winning, more and more people will be hitting this site. I would rather have them take a few days extra and get it all taken care of, then have them feel pressured to bring it up quickly and then we suffer from it in the stretch run. People like Jabs and Mike might be twitching from not being able to post. Hopefully a cool chat is part of the upgrade or is being thought of as a future upgrade path.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ May 2, 2006 -> 04:05 PM) Also, of note in regards to Anderson, Charlotte has been giving Sweeney some time in CF recently. Aboz I would say that if any of our prospects doesnt have a long and looping swing in our system its Sweeney.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ May 2, 2006 -> 04:02 PM) I still don't know if our major league hitting coach is the man for the job, but I'll agree with you on the swings. Why every single pitcher just doesn't throw a slider low and away every single pitch is beyond me. Heads watch how a lot of pitchers pitch the sox. I state this in chat all the time, they just setup low and away against us. It seems that this is the scouting report on the sox right handers. Just setup low and away. The minute you get to 2 strikes, try the slider away or in the dirt. Its funny because a pitcher who can hit the low and away spot will silence our right handers.

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ May 2, 2006 -> 03:54 PM) Honestly, it sounds like you and Flash want the following: An all-star caliber team at the major league level winning multiple World Series, to the point that farm is insignificant. However, the insiginificant farm must be damn good. That makes no sense and is not even close to realistic. Actually I took their points as being the all-star caliber club, that has every so often a good player that can contribute from the minors. Crede came up, and is now contributing. To me there is some flaw in our development in the minors. Because all of our hitters that come up have the same exact hitting flaw. A long and looping swing. Crede - Came up with a long and looping swing. Great numbers in the minors. Came up had a hard time adjusting. Borchard - Long Looping swing Anderson - Long looping Swing Arow came up and swing was long. I know that Jeckle would disagree with this, as the swing is the model for all other swings in the universe. But it was long and looping. He adjusted But why do our hitting prospects come up with the same swing and same flaws.

QUOTE(Flash Tizzle @ May 2, 2006 -> 03:37 PM) I'd rather criticize Anderson. As you've mentioned, Uribe has proven himself capable of hitting major league pitching over an extended period of time. Anderson hasn't. This alone seperate's the two. I'll criticize him EVERY day until he begins showing improvements; regardless of what Uribe does. I'm not giving Brian any benefit of doubt concerning his success in the minors, and how we're supposed to "give him time." His AB's are painful to watch. How will this magically improve over time? It appears his swing is most responsible for early troubles. That's not a minor adjustment Walker can fix. I've accepted the likelihood he'll remain on this ballclub atleast until midseason. By then, no more excuses should remain. If he's hovering around .200--goodbye. Have fun in Charlotte. Whether the option for a replacement lies in on our minors (lol) or outside the team, it's not acceptable for a contending club to have a regular such as Anderson. And people wonder why I criticize our system. For an organization whose strength is outfielders, it's amazing how Anderson is our top prospect. What does that tell you? I know not everyone is Jeff Francouer. Or Matt Murton. Or Minnie Mendoza. I just expect some consistency. Hitting clutch HR's once every 50AB's doesn't change matters. To me Sweeney has a better stroke that will translate better to the majors than Andersons. However that doesnt mean he will hit with power or will he be decent in CF. If he could play CF and play good defense it would be nice. However I dont think that will happen. He has been projected as a corner OF, and I dont know if Sweeney without killer speed can be a corner OF without power. Sweeney needs a full year in AAA at least.

QUOTE(LVSoxFan @ May 2, 2006 -> 03:27 PM) I used to joke that you could throw a frozen ham at Uribe and he'd still swing at it--it's just that bad (like last year). Again, though: his defense has probably won us plenty of games. Anderson I don't know what to say. He seems to instantly get down in the count and then the pitchers just toy with him. I'm assuming that word gets around on that, BTW. Uribe doesnt get down in the count because it rarely gets past a pitch or 2. Anderson needs to shorten his stroke a bit. He has a long stroke, which seems to happen in every hitter that comes up from the minors in the sox system. Right now he is jumping on the first 2 pitches just to get wood on the ball. He is almost afraid to get 2 strikes on himself. That makes for some frustrating ABs. I thought he was coming around after the twins series, however he is back to square one. I would like to see the sox do the same thing they did with Uribe last year, get someone in to work specfically with Anderson. This at least would give Anderson someone to work with him one on one and hopefully it will help him take off. I would like to see the same guy brought in that they did last year, because he would help quiet Andersons stroke a bit. After Anderson gets good wood on the ball, then we can work back towards a power stroke.

I know that Anderson is an easy target, but. How about this, the minute our SS starts to actually hit we can then address our rookie CF who hasnt hit. Uribe has been in the league for years, has had some limited success, however for the most part he just spins himself into the ground trying to park every pitch low, high, bounced in, into the stands. Anderson is struggling. He has the talent, obviously needs some special attention. When we have the full lineup in, he is not so annoying. Because if you can use the well Uribe plays great defense so its okay when he swings and spins like a top, has no plate patience and basically will swing at a ball rolled in, then we can give the same benefit to our Rookie CF.

QUOTE(SnB @ May 2, 2006 -> 02:34 PM) with the amount of travel and a quick noon game after a pretty long game that started at 8pm the past night, I would have expected a few bench players in. Thome was out just because the guy needed a day off, period. Today I figured we would have the crappy lineup. I probably would of rather have seen Gload in at 1st, Konerko at DH. But in general its a bit shocking to only see the starting 9 in 35% of our games. I dont even think we did that last year.

QUOTE(wsox08 @ May 2, 2006 -> 02:26 PM) It's so hard coming here after a loss.. It's so depressing and people talk like we are horrible... Our team is great and our offense rocks. Some of us are just upset that we only seen the full starting 9 in 35% of our games so far. Considering that 35% number and looking at our record, I am happy as hell. I would like to see Uribe pick it up a bit, so we can take some more pressure off of Anderson.

When we face teams, I never see 3 or more subs in at once. It will be nice if we ever run into someone using this type of lineup so our pitchers can have an easy game.

I lifted this from Southsidesox.com It was a gamethread post that quoted SHAFTR's diary entry. Interesting stats. All Starters: 9-0 One Bench: 4-3 Two Bench: 4-1 Three Bench: 1-4

QUOTE(T R U @ May 2, 2006 -> 12:45 PM) I really dont think we should ever put out anything less than our best lineup against Cleveland.. especially with the team they have Hopefully. We need full lineups for the Tigers and the Indians this year.

And end game, Cintron strands 7. 21 run ducks still left on the pond.