CaliSoxFanViaSWside

Time to put the pedal to the metal and steamroll the Tigers into roadkill pancakes !

Shifting has a lot to do with it also and early in the season the pitchers are usually ahead of the hitters . What I'm not getting if that tweet is stating yearly totals or comparing the 1st 4 weeks of the season to the first 4 weeks of other seasons. Need more info. If he's just comparing 4 weeks of this season with 2008 well it seems pretty random and everyone knows K's are rising a lot the last approx 10 years , so he's not stating anything earth shattering.

No I'm saying it will be a huge difference. A guy like Greg Maddux built a HOF career out of getting the benefit of the doubt on strikes called outside of the zone because his command was so good. It'll be a good thing but just not sure how players , especially pitchers ,will react to it if walk totals increase in any significant manner.

When the walks start mounting after they change to automated balls and strikes there will be an uproar. Miss the plate by a centimeter ball. Throw a sinker that the catcher dips his glove on and catches way low but somehow clips the zone- strike ! Then some hacker will make the strike zone smaller for his team in the playoffs . I don't agree that its just a couple of years away as some say. I'd say 5 at the earliest but I know nothing about how advanced the tech is or how it might be implemented and maintained or work in inclement weather. Like on a checked swing how would it differentiate between the bat and the ball entering the zone ? I'd guess by the path but the bat would have to be eliminated very quickly and still have it be able to call strikes when multiple objects enter the zone.

I would imagine another 4 days with the day off today. So the 30th perhaps.

Yes but also there's enough negative stuff out there about Madrigal ,so when he does well, it's time for the more positive people to have their say.

True .4 game winning streak without Giolito or Lynn starting . Get them back and pitching well and things start looking even better.

Did you see that swing in one of the last few games where on the follow through he just dropped his bat behind him ? My first thought was his back was bothering him. That would not be unusual for a 3rd baseman. Plus with back pain you are going to be walking around gingerly after a sprint or a slide making it appear like it's your legs that are bothering you. Also very often back pain affects your legs .

Bad defensive play is the easiest thing for reactionary fans to pick on, but if you pay any attention to other games , there's a lot of shaky defense being played out there.

I'd say it is possible but he is definitely stronger than last yr. just going off his ISO increase. (SSS of course but encouraging)

Every game against TX we were on the wrong side of the bad call spectrum and remember we were the home team and still won all 3 games.

Exactly what I said in my post 12 hrs. ago. It's also what I have been saying for months, just find the gaps and corners , get some doubles and triples and he will be fine. Last year with the weak shoulder for most of his games we didn't see that.

One thing I didn't like about the article and some very good comments is that no one mentioned his shoulder injury last year. It happened in only his 5th game. It kept him out of the lineup for almost 4 weeks. After he returned he hit .349 in his final 24 games but his ISO was very low (.029) and that's a part of his game that his many detractors worry about. Then he had off season shoulder surgery so he was obviously playing in pain or at the very least a weakened shoulder 83% of his total games. He had a choice to play on it after the time off or have surgery right away. He choose to play. Right now his ISO is .108 . Nothing to write home about but still a vast improvement . That's what we are looking for in any young player.

That's the problem.In the Gibson game the strike zone as established by the ump that game ,it looked like the normal strike zone which is a vertical rectangle, was flipped on its side and became a horizontal rectangle according to what I saw in the umpires scorecard on Twitter. It was bad.

In the Gibson game they said the umps were 88 per cent correct when normal is 94 % and it also favored TX by .34 runs. One time I'm going to have to keep my own Umps scorecard based on what I see on TV and match it up against the ones on Twitter.

Kyle Gibson must 've got 7-8 balls called strikes that were outside against RHB and early in the game he also got one outside against a LHB. This is for the game yesterday. That's pretty bad in TX favor .

Welcome back our British friend !

https://www.mlb.com/news/michael-kopech-strikes-out-10-vs-rangers Mahomes called Kopech "a monster".

Wasn't it just a day or 2 ago that our smart posters were screaming in the game threads about "where's Kopech" because LaRussa said he needed 5 days off and everyone thought LaRussa was stupid because he wasn't pitching in relief ? He pitches in relief and we don't get the performance we got treated to today. Just maybe the Sox have a plan with him that includes starting and we see a little less of him relieving. The games are going to be clustered together for a lot of May and June. The Sox will need a lot of arms for the rest of the season. Get out ahead of the game and start looking for potential RP now to trade for.

I agree 3 hits is 3 hits . It isn't easy playing sparingly. You get on base you can score and more runners means you can score more and scoring more means more wins. So hell yes hooray for Collins !

I always felt with a young player I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. It just seems to make the most sense to me. I don't like to crow about them too much when they are doing good nor bash them when they aren't everything we think they should be. There's always room for improvement in every young player with all the professionals around them to help and from their own desire. I looked at Nick in that way. Then I threw in the shoulder injury and decided there was no way I could be angry or disappointed in him so soon. I said all he has to do to keep OFer's honest was hit the ball down the lines or into the gaps and over some heads more and with the injury perhaps we didn't see a lot of that. We still haven't seen him pulling the ball much. He uses the RF line a lot more since most pull hitters can get out too early and K more so that's not in his repertoire ..yet. It was nice to see that triple to LCF since I look for progression from a hitter and that to me was progression. He's been getting held to singles down the line in RF because he's shifted on toward the line so it was also nice to see him hit the ball over Gallo's head when he was playing so shallow to try to catch a line drive before it hits the ground or throw out Robert at the plate if a hard hit single comes right at him. Anything off to either side of him and Robert would score. As far as the base running and fielding go, again gave him the benefit of the doubt that should come with being a rookie and having an injury. I never felt I was being sold a bill of goods that he wasn't delivering on by scouts. We might have a tendency to think fielding and base running doesn't take as big of an adjustment as hitting normally will but I also believe that guys may be pressing or adjusting to the speed of the game at the highest level.

As happy as some are to see Kopech I would really enjoy seeing Lynn and Lucas while the Sox try to continue this mini streak. Lynn's last start was the 15th and Lucas the 19th when he was shelled. Props to the team for winning without them .

He had 2 days off this week just like the rest of the team.

I didn't say they were trades I said you got all bent out of shape about a nothing trade ( a minor leaguer who was 1 yr younger than the major league player who already had some decent yrs. and was a higher rated prospect than Steele Walker ever was) trying to see if a player could reach his potential. 0 points for reading comprehension. I defend it just as 3 or 4 others here in response to your obsessive over the top reaction to it to this day. Remember that time you constantly ridiculed me for not wanting Puig last year because of his behavior ? What happened this year ? Oh yeah you said you didn't want him . Why ? Because of his behavior. Farcical.

Because making a minor trade is something to get all sucked, disappointed, stupid, sucked, sucks about when trying to see if a 24/25 year old guy might be ready to breakout. Thank goodness for all the McCann's, Muncy's, Mercedes', Justin Turner's, Big Papi's, Randy Johnson's and all the other guys who it took longer to breakout to make what you say utter and complete nonsense.