Jake

My feeling is Bulls going after Russ would almost certainly be the perfect Bulls thing in that we would trade away good assets, get a declining Russ, and win nothing with him but at least get to say we went after a star player.

Probably about time. I don't think he was a great candidate to skip a level, anyway. And we know from his experience in Winston-Salem this year that he's capable of going on the kind of prodigious tear that forces him to the majors.

I think Kawhi wanted to play for one of his hometown teams, but was going to try to make it the best situation he could for him. I think he managed to accomplish that.

Just glad he's not a Laker

You're just wrong. We were coming off two consecutive off days before yesterday's double header. Our bullpen was rested enough to cover the final 4 innings of this game comfortably. At minimum, Minaya (obviously), Osich, Ruiz, Herrera, and Fry (who didn't pitch yesterday) were available. Fulmer could have been available if we felt we needed him but we optioned him to move Cease onto the active roster. Fry being available and completely rested is especially pertinent since after Cabrera's leadoff double, we let Lopez face 4 straight lefties/switch hitters, surrendering 3 straight doubles followed by a homer in the process. It appears part of the problem was the temporary malfunctioning of the bullpen phones, which is the most White Sox thing of all time.

He pitched 5 innings and we have an off-day tomorrow. Lots of teams accept the reality that some of their starters won't go particularly deep. We also had the option to hold Dylan Cease off the roster and call up another reliever if we were so strapped for pitching.

They're a worse offense than us but we clearly hold the crown for the worst offensive player

I mean it's not like he'd have a 3.5 ERA but there's no use leaving him out there to give up 1-4 extra runs in his final inning all the time. Take, for example, this game against the Royals about a month ago. Lopez gets through 5 innings with a pitch count in the upper 90s and his fifth inning featured some hard outs. He goes out for the 6th and gives up a double, then a homer, then a walk, then a ground ball double play, then a single, then a triple, then another single before finally getting taken out with 118 pitches, the highest total of his career having given up 4 runs in the final inning when he probably shouldn't have been given more than one or possibly two batters before getting pulled. As I remember, even after the home run we didn't have a pitcher warming up yet.

This isn't about Lopez, it's about our manager. It's Lopez's fault that at about pitch 95, he was dead meat. It's Ricky's fault he didn't even have someone warming up by then and then left him in at least one batter past the point he was clearly cooked.

Lopez has his own problems but Ricky has repeatedly pushed him well past the point where it became clear his effectiveness has been used up. Saw the same thing with Giolito last year

I guess the story post-game will be that the bullpen phone made Ricky screw this up

We haven't done Lopez any favors with our handling of the bullpen in his final innings this year

Is there nobody warming up??

All hits on offspeed this inning, so might as well try the heater

We'll cut Lopez at some point and he'll go to the Astros and win a Cy Young

I did think Stewart hit it better than that, though

I hope we have someone up in the pen because Lopez's fastball has lost a bunch of juice this inning and it's not like it was really blowing them away before

Reynaldo really gives away his curve with his motion, as evidenced by Stewart hitting that thing an inch off the ground

.030 expected batting average and needed a robbery to keep it from going out

Holy christ is this ballpark playing small. That was hit 92mph (not hard) and 39 degrees (very high) and would have been out if not for a nice play by Eloy

His ERA had dropped from 6.12 to 6.01 at the time of this post

I know how bad Reynaldo has been this season, but this inning is not (yet) a meltdown of any kind. A couple not well-hit single and a hard liner does not a meltdown make.

I never saw a good angle on it, but was that second hit a bad play by Palka?

These are not well-hit balls against Lopez thus far, so should probably just relax and hope he gets a good bounce here

Probably a reverse jinx, but Rondon is every bit as bad offensively as Yonder Alonso was. How much more rope do we give him?