southsideirish71

Someone who can make contact at third for the love of god.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 10:21 PM) Answer above. El Duque's WHIP has been horrible all season long. Sooner or later it was bound to catch up with him. He can't get lucky all the time. Photo of El Duque from tonights game

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 10:15 PM) Have you seen the stats when AJ is catching Contreras compared to Widger. I'd like to think Widger has a better CERA than AJ when catching El Duque though. AJ gets in contreras's face. He yells at him, gets him going. If 8 million isnt enough of a reason to have the mental acumen of a 10 year old, yelling will help.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 09:05 PM) Duque is still better than any of our 5 pitchers. I'll take it. Our offense though has gone back into a slump. Not according to Ozzie Guillen. He doesnt see the slump. The thinks the great for a game, bad for 2 is a good thing. Offense OK After struggling to score runs during the first two months of the season, the offense has improved to the point that manager Ozzie Guillen believes no changes are necessary right now. "I truly believe what we have here can do the job," Guillen said in response to a question as to whether the Sox would have to produce more runs in warmer weather. "We've been swinging the bats better the last two to three weeks." The Sox have scored six or more runs in six of their past 12 games.

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 10:03 PM) Contreras was hanging his splitter yesterday and that was pretty much it. He still needs to throw it though because no pitcher is going to survive by just throwing fastballs. I was at the game. And yes he hung his splitter. But he also missed his location on his fastball on hitter counts. They either jumped on first pitch or they got a hitters count and sat on a pitch.

QUOTE(Adam G @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 09:48 PM) Look at his last four outings: 5/16 vs. Texas: 2.2 IP, 6 ER *missed a start with bad shoulder* 6/3 vs. Cleveland: 6 IP, 4 ER 6/8 at Colorado: 6 IP, 4 ER 6/14 vs. Arizona: 4.2 IP, 6 ER These are not the types of outings that we need from Hernandez. Anyone think he's still nursing some sort of injury? He hasnt been walking as many guys the past two games (1 BB each), but the results just arent there this past month. Well when you get behind every hitter 2-0 and 3-1 and then have to come back with a 84mph express meatball with extra cheese it goes a long way. He and the other cuban head case need to get the sign, throw the ball, then get the ball back for the next pitch.

QUOTE(whitesoxin' @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 09:44 PM) I know exactly how he feels and it sucks the big one. After so much hard work to get back to full strength, all it takes is one movement of the shoulder and the injury comes back. This sucks. He is my type of hitter, line drives and uses the entire field. He has a good glove and can spell the mighty homer or nothing GIDP Pull-o-matic.

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 09:37 PM) Maybe you guys criticizing Contreras should check out one of his games and look at his numbers every once in a while. The guy's been great all season. Both of our cuban pitchers need to trust our catchers and the game that they call. Both of them are steller when they get the ball, look for the sign, and hit the target. When they start to shake off the catcher, go 3 or 4 signs deep its going to be a long night.

QUOTE(Ozzie Montana @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 09:32 PM) Thats whats been getting me worried, Count and Hernandez doing the exact opposite. They always keep the game at an unbearable pace and throw too many pitches in the at bat. I wish the would be like Garland and try it Buerhle style, you'll be better off throwing strikes plus the defense won't fall asleep on you. LEARN IT. I dont know what Contreras' problem is, he is obiviously stubborn cause Coop and Ozzie tell him use the fastball use the fastball and he seems to always find his way back to a forkball that he is hoping the hitter will go through it. I give him his props on his good outings though, its hit or miss with this guy. Just give us a solid 5-6 innings and you can earn your 8 mil. sheesh My suggestion to these guys is take a look at Garland. El Duque has an 84mph fastball that he can rush up to 88 every so often. He relys on deception and a funky motion. That said he gets behind way too many hitters. Hey has done that all year long. He has been very lucky more than a few times getting into trouble only to get out of it with a pop up or GIDP. Now he is getting behind in the hot months of summer. That pop up is now flying out of the park. He doesnt have the stuff to get hitters out if he gets behind consisantly. This is only a preview of more to come from big bombings if he doesnt get ahead of some hitters. Sorry an 84mph meatball doesnt frighten hitters. Conteras needs a shrink. Last night at the cell his first pitch was at 96 on the gun at the park. Every single fastball was at 94. Live fastball. His problem is he gets behind also. When he gets behind he loses location and gets way to much of the plate. Also he falls in love with his splitter. He slows down and the game drags. They should ban him from behing able to shake the catcher off. Watching him or the other cuban shake off our catchers who have been responsible for calling some great games is a joke. Its like watching Kevin Costner turning to the hitter, 2 hitter and this guy is shaking me off, well here comes the duce. And teddy when you speak of me, speak well.

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 09:23 PM) Yay Twins win. Now rant time. Our offense makes me so f***ing sick. Not gonna rely on the HR this year...my ass. We are gonna see a lot of CGs this year because we have 0 patience. You see our guys at 90 pitches through 5 while their counterpart has 60. :puke The demise of El Duque? We all knew the WHIP would get him someday. Has that day come? Twins are hard charging meanwhile we lose the first 2 of a long homestand where 8 W's is a must. Come on Jon gotta salvage a game or else I will really snap. If our hitters and that dolt of a hitting coach keep f***ing with swings when they are good this offense will be dead. The only thing that has been keep our offense going over the last month is Pods/Gooch and Arow. Arow and Gooch are now pull happy. Its ironic and all because that is totally against our hitting philosophy. I have little confidence that we can put together a good gameplan right now. Our guys are swinging for the fences. This is evident on the number of strikeouts opposing pitching has been putting on us lately. Forget shortening the swing and all, swing for the fences. Last year we would look like world beaters for a game and then struggle to score runs. Our runs were only scored on homers usually of the solo variety. Kind of sounds familiar. When we were in pitching duels in Colorado for the 1st two games we should of known this anemic offense was near a nice streak of crap. Then Byung Yung Kim shuts us down for a while, and that Stauffer guy shuts us down so we only score 1 run.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jun 14, 2005 -> 09:19 PM) Twins win on a blooper by S. Stewart. That noise you hear is the SOS signal coming from US Cellular. The Tigers/injuns and twins all gain a game. Injuns are 9 back and are now starting to hit. We however, still cant hit. Outside of solo home runs. Corpseball 2005, If our pitching doesnt shut the offense down....we are f***ed

I hope our guys start to work on hitting line drives instead of trying to pull and elevate every single pitch in every single AB. Uribe hopefully keeps up the good work over the last few games. Going the other way and working the count. El Duque needs to pitch better than his crappy cuban companion from last night. Hopefully the wind isnt blowing out. He needs to pitch ahead and stay ahead. This falling behind every single hitter so they can sit and wait to drive one is not cool. Its June and this offense needs to show it can be consistant. It has been great for a game, then crappy for a few. Gooch is trying to pull the ball too much, Walker must of gotten his Japanese to English Pull dictionary. Now Arow is trying to tinker with his swing. :puke

I still dont understand why they give Contreras the option of shaking any catcher off. Ozzie should have a little chat with our two cuban car slow motion machines. How about this guys, when AJ or widger put down the one finger throw a fastball. Dont think about, hey I really want to throw my splitter or my 65mph curve. Think he put the fastball finger down, let me adjust my grip for fastball. Whatever finger or combination of fingers call a certain pitch, throw that pitch. I am the manager, we pay you to pitch, they pay me to make decisions. DONT THINK MEAT, THINKING HURTS THE TEAM

QUOTE(WHarris1 @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:51 PM) I was thinking the same thing tonight. I hate the whole idea with the Chevy trucks rolling out for like 17.59 seconds and the t-shirts...BUT SWEET JESUS tonight they were awesome. I have a great marketing idea. If in the 1st inning for every run the sox score, that is how many of the pride/fundamental girls have to go under the shower on the concourse under the watchful eye of a camera that displays it on the jumbotron.

QUOTE(JimH @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 01:36 PM) Keith, right now the Sox don't have room for Bajenaru or anyone else. I suspect that will change soon. This board can sit here and say Shingo sucks or Vizcaino sucks and to an extent some of that may be true. But there will be 11 pitchers on the staff and at the moment there are 11 guys healthy enough to be active. If the issue here is Jenks over Bajenaru, I tend to agree on the surface, Bajenaru deserves the shot 1st. We aren't privy to how well both are throwing at the moment, so there may be some intagibles in terms of their performance. Personally I'd like to see another power arm in the bullpen but the key is who's better equipped to succeed here? One would think Bajenaru because his maturity level is probably better. But I will say this, there is something very enticing about Jenks and that true closer stuff he has. It would be interesting to let him get his feet wet, they can always send him back down. The way he's progressing he has a good chance to be a dominant guy at the back of the bullpen. To me, Baj is a guy who can fill the Politte or Vizcaino role. He is showing he can close games at AAA but maybe it's a personal bias for me, I like the closer to have overwhelmingly good stuff. I saw them both in spring training when Jenks was nowhere near 100% but you could really see the talent. Not to say Bajenaru doesn't but Jenks' talent jumps right out at you. Baj has better numbers, but its hard to argue with upper 90 flamthrowing and a good curve. Stuff can get you around some limitations of experience at the major league level. This is why other teams pitching prospects look so good their first time out against us. Their guys are throwing gas or having moving gas and its still hard to hit it. We have 91 mph location pitchers. When they get nervous for their first time, the miss on location and then its just batting practice. The only thing I worry about with Jenks is getting all goofy and walking the world. However if Jenks and Baj were to come in and stabilize this pen. Damn. Bye Bye Dingo, never knew you were here. Trade him to the NL. They obviously havent seen him there. He will do great in the NL.

Randa's most telling stat. BA with runners in scoring position and less than two outs .294. With 2 outs..... .381. Keep Uribe at SS, put Joe and 2 on the bench, and get Randa. Uribe will come out of it, and Randa can keep the offense going and drive in runs when men are on instead of King to strand them. Joe Credes stats with men on and less than 2 outs .250 and with 2 outs its .125.

QUOTE(sox-r-us @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:48 PM) If we give up minor prospects, what is not to like again? WHy do you care if JR s willing to spend to help put us over the top? WOuld you prefer a WS this year and then we have some problems 2 years out or would yu prefer us contending but bowing out this year and then being solid two years out but with no chance to compete We finally have some stars aligned in our favor with the SPankees maybe not even competing and the Red Sox is similar trouble. Do you really believe two years from today we will have the same golden opportunity to win it all? YOu think Steinbrenner will let that happen? I want to win now and this is not a big deal towards making that happen. And please go ahead and project who we should trade for before you say no to Omar. Give me some names please....and be realistic. I would pick up Randa and put Crede on the bench. Joe Randa has similiar defensive numbers, he is a short term rental. He provides a good contact bat with experience in the AL Central. He is a line drive hitter, something we need in this lineup. He also hits to all fields. Which is exactly what we need. Uribe can get better, Cruddy cannot. Uribe has shown flashes of greatness, Cruddy has shown 2 weeks of greatness over his 1400ABs. I would spend the rest of the trades on pitching. Pitching is what gets you through the playoffs. Get a good closer, and a good lefty specialist. If you could get a starter and put El Duque or conteras into long relief the better.

QUOTE(Gene Honda Civic @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:44 PM) I'm not jumping ship on Uribe as he sits @ .23something. With frank in his ear every day, he's going to hit .275 for the rest of the season, and actually walk some. He's about to become very valuable to this team. Vizquel needs a rocking chair for the next three years. Uribe has looked better. His only problem is the lack of plate discipline and being pull only. He has been making an effort to hit to all fields lately and has had a better eye. When he hits the ball though he hits nice line drives. Cruddy on the other hand is hopeless. If I had to vote, it would be Cruddy to go. He proves the ocassional home run. But he cannot string hits together, its impossible for him to.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:00 PM) Huge, plus she was Asian and that doesn't hurt. When she was running, she kept pulling her shirt down. It was just begging to fly open. Let them free.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:34 PM) The only team I could truely see as a possibly beating the sox in a short series is the Twins if every team is at full strength. If the sox can get into the playoffs they're going to be in fantastic shape imo. This team is built for the playoffs. Methinks we need to figure out how to string a few hits together day in and day out before we declare this team is built for the playoffs. Yes Buerhle, Garcia and Garland can be a 3 man rotation for a short playoff series. But if the Shawn Estes of the world, and other large ERA pitchers can shut us down into pull monkeys, what can a Santana/Schilling/or other top tiered ace do to us. We need to get better as an offense in stringing hits together more consistantly.

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:00 PM) That was as pathetic as the spanking we received. Great pick, Sox! The guy couldn't even lob a ball over the plate. :puke I will have to keep an eye on him and Carillo and see what happens in their careers. From the current view, we picked another Felix Diaz. Maybe his 89mph fastball is magical and not straight. Or a few years later we will see.....

QUOTE(Jabroni @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:06 PM) Punch him square in the c***-reras. I dont understand why they even give the option of Jose shaking the catcher off. There should be an understanding that Conteras doesnt have a say in what pitchers are called. In his opinion the splitter is the only pitch and should be thrown in all situations. And walking the bases loaded with splitters calls for another splitter. Take his melon out of it, and make him a robot. The catcher puts down the sign, and the count throws the pitch. Dont let this guy think, its a nightmare.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 11:02 PM) More Joe Crede talk aye. Did you know Eric Chavez went 5 for 5 with 2 HRs yesterday? You know what is embarassing. They have one Royce Clayton, we have 2. You know what is sad. When you see Tony Clark with great numbers, then we stroll our 8.5 million dollar pull only son 1st baseman out there to roll over his wrists and GIDP.

QUOTE(sox-r-us @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 10:57 PM) I agree with BBTN, out bench needs to be upgraded. To me the best way to do that though is to get a starting 3b and/or SS and put Crede and/or Uribe on the bench. Simple.... Well after Joe hits the occasional homer, his champions pound their chest and say, see he just raised his ba to 235. He is on a hot streak. Then he rolls the wrists over a few times and puts another corpseball spin on his hitting technique.

QUOTE(3E8 @ Jun 13, 2005 -> 08:58 PM) NEVER LET JOSE PITCH WITHOUT AJ CATCHING. I have a solution. Everytime he shakes off the catcher who is calling a fastball to throw his splitter for the 4th time in a row. The catcher should call time, calmly walk out to the pitchers mound, and drop to one knee and punch him in the jimmy. When Jose gets up after vomitting. The catcher says, dont ever shake me off again meat. That would take care of Jose, and he would pitch like an ace.