Jake

The insta-IL without diagnosis to me is a good sign that the trainers who dealt with him thought there is no chance that this is <10 day injury. I would think if it was just the equivalent of a charlie horse or something, there's no way they'd send him to Chicago, let alone send him to the IL. This feels more like one of those cases where he has an injury that can be easily be assessed manually by a trainer but that they always go to an MRI to confirm.

You're right. Nobody offers month by month defensive splits, but Eloy's outs above average on Statcast (which I regard as the best outfield defense metric available) has only dropped by 1 since then.

I feel like I never see Robert hitting a high pitch in the many highlights we get of him

Listen if you make him a DH at age 22, then he's a bust. I'd rather continue risking him in the OF than remove basically all his upside as a player so early in his career.

The Celtics example has been discussed, but the Knicks remain a good example. They did what you have to do in order to bring in major stars and they got burned, which is an occupational hazard of trying to build a superteam.

There have been sporadic reports about his knee bothering him, so I suspect they're trying to limit how much he's running.

I wouldn't be against the Bulls finding a different way to build a winner because it sure seems that "sell out for superstars" is a method that burns most of those who try it. Most of our recent championships have been won by a team that drafted most of its key players and didn't exactly sell out to add Durant. Raps sold out, got their title, and now get to watch as their Finals MVP goes to LA. Boston isn't totally dead yet, but their acquisition of Kyrie didn't yield much (but maybe they didn't really sell out to get him). Lakers got LeBron basically by default after the Cavs ran him out of town and it's not clear yet whether their attempt to build a super-team will be successful. Knicks thought they were getting KD and, well, you know. Plenty of others left at the altar over the years.

Yeah when you're an expert at scouting, you just know

He looks like he's on track to be ready by about April 20th next year

I wonder if this might be a sign of a quick recovery from Tim.

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