whitesoxfan101

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 3, 2008 -> 01:32 PM) 2006 all over again This is a lot more like 2003 than 2006, IMO.

QUOTE (joesaiditstrue @ Aug 3, 2008 -> 01:30 PM) Ozzie is an idiot, it's just that simple. He's managed this team about as bad as anyone could in a pennant race. I could name about 5 or 6 things he's done, as i'm sure anyone else on this board could as well, that were terrible decisions Ozzie obviously made a bad decision playing Konerko, but if you actually think Ozzie is an idiot, than your the idiot. The reason this team is not up by 5 or 6 games is the pitching, not Ozzie.

My guess if Favre ends up cut right at the end of camp. Doing that would save Green Bay money, and it would also make it difficult for Favre to go somewhere else and start right away. It would make Green Bay look bad doing that, but they already have looked terrible and probably don't care at this point. It seems like they have wanted to manipulate Favre's legacy as only in Green Bay while not letting him play again this season, but it clearly hasn't worked. Then again, Favre deserves blame too for deciding to retire and then changing his mind a short time later, like the drama queen idiot he is. There are no winners here.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 07:33 PM) If you want to point your finger at something as the reason why we are in the situation we are in. Its not our record post ASB, its not the pitching tiring, hell its not even the injuries. It was when our pitching staff put up top shelf numbers at the beginning of the season and we were bouncing around as a 500 team because our offense decided to take a few months off. The stress and the wear and tear of our pitchers having to pitch perfect, because god forbid if the offense could scratch a few runs across the board. Its when we have 8 shutouts on our offense by early June. Pitchers have a few dead arms periods over the season. But we should have 5 or more wins than we have now. If we had a mediocre offense early in the season we wouldnt be in this situation. Now we are trying to survive injuries, and some tired arms at this point. We should of never have been in this situation. This is silly logic. Just as it was the offense's fault when we were 18-20 in mid May despite a great pitching staff, it's the pitchings fault that we are playing poor baseball the last month despite the offense being great. At the end of the day, it's a team effort if we don't make the playoffs between those two senarios that have played out, but to say the pitching is bad because it's tired from the poor offense early on is just wrong. If this pitching staff is already tired with two months to go (and it was closer to three months to go when they first started to fade in early and mid July), then they are built poorly and moreso, a bunch of wimps.

QUOTE (joesaiditstrue @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 06:16 PM) i'm not ready to throw in the white flag yet, or proclaim the twins better than the sox, but these next 19 games will be important and will probably decide our fate, it's easy to be pessimistic after a loss like today but you have to remember our team is not playing at 100% right now, with our starting rotation running 4/5 of what we had when the season started, Crede and Linebrink are also both on the disabled list and Konerko is playing like a Rookie A-ball player, probably due to lingering injury(injuries?) we play a lot of home games coming up, with a few road games in between. i'd like to see us go 13-6 over that span or 12-7 (or hell, 14-5 would be amazing). we've played awesome at home this year, one of the top 5 teams at home in all of baseball, and the twins are terrible on the road just like pretty much every other team I'm not ready to throw the towel in yet either, but we haven't been hit by injuries any worse than the Tigers or Twins have at times this year, and at the same time, our pitching is bad enough on the road, you can only expect it to reasonably get worse playing at our home park, which is so great for hitters. We have been great at home, but most of our home games were played back when our pitching was in the top 2 or 3 in the AL, and right now we are pitching as bad as anybody in the American League. Combine that with the defense, and there is reason for major concern right now. Hopefully the offense can continue to perform, we need them.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 06:12 PM) Simply put, the Twins are better than the Sox right now. Hopefully things change over the last 50 games. The Sox have turned into the Tigers the last 4 weeks when you think about it, and I can see why they are a .500 team that can't put together that run they need to in order to win the divison. Hard to win 8-6 everyday. As for the Twins, I can't even worry that much about them right now, because if we don't play better it doesn't matter what they do. The way we're playing is just not good enough to make the playoffs.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 06:09 PM) PK looked fantastic today, and Thome has been very consistent lately (in that he's been great). And with the way we're pitching and defending, we need EVERYBODY in this lineup to be fantastic if we want to stay afloat. I don't mean to sound negative, but it's true. Our ERA as a team in July has to be up in the high 5's, and today is getting August right back where July left off after one good outing on the 1st. And of course the defense has just sucked. It's difficult to watch, we'd be 4 or 5 games out without the offense in July and now early August.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 06:04 PM) You've never had that bad of one then. Indeed, anybody who's had a bad cramp knows it can cause some issues that last more than half an hour.

It's a recipe we've followed to a t very often the last month. Offense does it's job, pitching (both starting and relief) is awful, a key defense gaffe (the should have been error by Cabrera on Butler in the 2nd) gives the opponent two free runs that ended up being very important. I am starting to wonder if the pitching and defense are irrevocably broken. I have some faith in the starters (although that faith diminishes by the day), but our bullpen is doomed until Linebrink comes back and this defense is just horrible. Yikes.

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 10:25 AM) Well he used to be team president of the Cubs, so it kind of makes perfect sense. He is playing to a market that is familiar to him Not to mention that there are more Cub fans than Sox fans in the Chicago market, so he wants to appeal to a larger number of people. That's just how it is unfortunately, people tend to be stupid more often than not, which is the main reason the Cubs have more fans.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 10:55 AM) Orlando would need a killer nickname. The Brazilian Blur?

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 10:50 AM) Could just put Paulo Orlando on the 40 man and have him destroy the basepaths in September. Ha, Herb Washington style.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 09:49 AM) I believe Scott Linebrink is the key to the rest of the White Sox season. Although Carrasco has performed well for the most part, its just a matter of time for him. Linebrink getting back and regaining his earlier form could project the bullpen back to its shutdown level they had earlier. They all had their roles and performed them superbly. Missing a piece whether it was Jenks or then Linebrink, I think has affected the bullpen greatly and taken them all out of their roles just enough to throw them off a bit. If they could at least get close to the level they were at a couple months ago, it would leave Minnesota in their dust IMO. If someone told me in spring training that both Mark Buerhle and Javy Vazquez would be below .500 on August 2nd, 4th or 5th place would have been where I would have expected this team to be. Obviously Danks and Floyd have pitched beyond expectations, but the bullpen is what made this team a contender. Agreed, the bullpen has to rebound or we're dead. We don't need it to be quite as good as it was early on though IMO, we just need Dotel and Jenks to be good (not unrealistic), Linebrink to get back healthy, and then one of the lefties (either one) to start pitching well again. The Linebrink thing could be a blessing if we survive it and he comes back feeling good, because he's worn down in the stretch run in his career (his post all star game ERA is almost a run higher than his pre all star game ERA in the majors).

Well my top 2 have already played for them now in Frank and Junior, so the next guy on the list is Manny Ramirez.

QUOTE (WhiteSoxfan1986 @ Aug 2, 2008 -> 01:02 AM) If the Twins are smart, Span will be the starting CF when Cuddyer is healthy, not Gomez. Span is overachieving quite a bit and will regress eventually, but if he is still performing the way he is right now when Cuddyer comes back, you have to play Span and bench Gomez. Gomez has all the ability in the world, but I just wonder if he'll ever be able to hit major league pitching, as he never consistently even hit minor league pitching all that well. They don't need power from him obviously, just on base percentage and defense, but I'm not sure if he can do it. I think he has a lot of hope and promise long term, but right not at age 22, he looks a bit lost offensively.

I don't mind the idea of Alexei in CF, but with OC likely leaving and no real replacement for him in our system, combined with the Richar trade, Alexei at SS and Getz at 2B looks like a very real possibility next season. Unless of course, we get busy in the free agent market, and guys like Furcal (and especially Hudson IMO) are possibilities. I think a lot of it depends on what they think of Getz, and we don't know that obviously.

Impossible question to answer right now, because of all the variables: 1. Will we make the playoffs? And if we do, how does Griffey perform/affect us in the playoffs. 2. How does Griffey perform the rest of the regular season. 3. Does Griffey enjoy Chicago and want to stay here. 4. What are the financial consequences of keeping Griffey around. 5. Would Paul Konerko perhaps be willing to waive his 10/5 due to not being happy with the situation he's been put in. 6. Other free agent acquisitions potentially this offseason, as well as salary bump ups and arbitration possibilities. If it's me, I for sure don't pick up the option. However, if Griffey is willing to listen, and he performs well, I'd be willing to at least talk to him after the season.

Ruiz is a weird one. He's a very good career .301/.375/.521/.896 in the minor leagues, yet he had never played in a major league game until tonight and never in a triple a game until late last year, at what is now age 30. The numbers say he can hit though, and they had him in the OF in Rochester, so it wouldn't surprise me if he somehow can help them out between those numbers and the Twins magie pixie dust. As for Liriano, at least we only have 3 games left with Minnesota? Let's hope he has a few bad starts, because just 2 or 3 of them makes his effect negligable with as late in the season as he was recalled.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Aug 1, 2008 -> 10:51 PM) I greatly dislike David Kaplan. He's a typical Cub fan. Not a bad person in general, but such a blind, stupid, optimistic even though his team can't win, stupid when it comes to the Cubs fan. People like that are why I hate them.

Crede 0 for 3 with an error? He's right back where he left off before the injury apparently.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Aug 1, 2008 -> 10:25 PM) Grape pop and grape drink are both fabulous. General grape drink=good Grape pop/grape soda=awful It must be the carbonation or something, but any grape drink in a can is horrific. If you get it in one of those big plastic containers, like a quart or gallon, it's good though. At that point though it's grape "drink", not soda/pop IMO.

The most shocking part of that is the thought that there are people who drink grape soda.

QUOTE (Brian @ Aug 1, 2008 -> 10:15 PM) While I agree they do not belong in the Top 25, I'm not prepared to say their offense will suck. It's a whole new system with new players. 5-7 to 7-5 sounds right. Well, when you lose 9 starters on a unit, you usually have quite a bit of trouble. When you are putting in a radically different system with talent mostly unfit to run it, you have more trouble. And having no quarterback is triple trouble. If the offense is just average, Michigan could win 7 or 8 games, but I have a hard time thinking they'll be even that good to be honest. But with a defense that good, they could surprise me and a lot of other people.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Aug 1, 2008 -> 10:05 PM) It's the logo for the Iowa AHL team. It's pretty badass. I don't know if they call a cut of pork chop an "Iowa Chop" outside of the state, though. We call a cut of pork chop "a cut of pork chop" here in Illinois.

Where the hell did you come up with "rally chops" Heads? Also, it's nice that we won a low scoring game with pitching, defense, and some clutch 2 out hits. We haven't done that hardly at all lately, but pitching and defense have been our formula when we're at our best this year.