whitesoxfan101

The first goal on Niemi was unacceptable obviously, but it wasn't only his fault tonight. Not many guys played well, and Nashville executed its sit back, don't give up many chances, and wait for the Hawks to f*** up strategy perfectly, and the Hawks gladly obliged in the f*** up category during that 3rd period. It's going to be like it was tonight all series long from Nashville's perspective, so the Hawks are going to need clean play in their zone, clean goaltending, and to take better advantage of the minimal chances they do get (missed the net on a handful of good chances tonight) or else this series may end very badly. Must win Sunday obviously.

Of course he'd get another job. He's actually not a bad manager, with the exception of the fetish he has for fast guys and with one bad player per season who shouldn't be playing (it appears Omar Vizquel will be that man in 2010). The key with Ozzie is don't give him what he wants in a lineup (outside of a good, fast top of the order if you can acquire it, which isn't easy) because his idea of a lineup isn't going to score a lot of runs.

Cavs in 5, although at least 3 of the Cavs wins will be decided by single digits. The Bulls can keep the games close, but not the series. Also, I think the Thunder can take the Lakers 7, but not beat them.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 23, 2009 -> 10:29 PM) I actually think OKC will make the playoffs as the #8 seed. I expect a huge dropoff from Phoenix, and that 8th spot is there for the taking if the Thunder can get good play out of their young talent. It would be a great story, and I hope it works out for them. As for the Bulls, they are going to be a very similar team to last year, a .500, border line playoff team. Hopefully we see good things out of Johnson and Gibson, hopefully Noah and Thomas show something, and hopefully Derrick Rose can get and stay healthy. I think Deng will be a good surprise and Salmons a bad one, and the Bulls will actually have a better frontcourt than backcourt for once. To me, Cleveland, Boston, LA, and the Spurs are the 4 best teams in the league by far. I expect a dropoff from Orlando, and I also am not sure Portland is as good as people think (they'll be in the playoffs, but I am not sure they are the 3rd best team in the West). Mixed bag of predictions for me this year in terms of accuracy. Oh well, at least I didn't get everything wrong.

Rose is absolutely unguardable if is jumper is falling anywhere near like it was tonight.

Huckabee likens gay marriage to incest, polygamy Smh at the Huckster. Besides the point that this opinion is ignorant, I also don't think it's a great way to gain political support.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 01:13 PM) And if all of the teams in the conference play to their potential, I dont see Illinois being better than OSU and Wisconsin. I also dont think they underperformed this season like most of Ill fans do, I think they ended up about right where they belonged with their talent level. Illinois definitely underperformed this year. The problem is, there is no reason to believe they won't do it again next year. They've underperformed drastically 2 of the last 3 years now.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 13, 2010 -> 01:25 AM) I'm with you, with one other thing, Jones in the lineup I imagine helps our D out a lot more. I'm anxious to see what the data would read, but when Jones takes out one of either Quentin or Pierre in LF/RF he adds at least an arm upgrade. And an OF of PIerre/Rios/Jones is our most optimal in terms of getting to the ball. Quentin took an absolutely horrid route to a double today. Kotsay really doesn't provide that benefit. Nor does he have the upside, as you said. I think ideally, you play Rios in CF everyday, Jones in RF close to everyday, and DH/LF Quentin and Pierre in whatever order you want. Kotsay can get a spot start at DH/1B/RF to spell somebody every once in a while, but that's it.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 11:17 PM) Too bad he would never end up with a WHIP around 2. But he may end up with an ERA of 2.25. BTW his WHIP is 1.67 and at its highest in his worst year he was at 1.39. He has had a sub 3 ERA 3 out of his 5 seasons. You continue to worry about things that make no sense, and Bobby will continue to be a very good closer. Bobby is a concern, has been for a while, and will continue to be one, no matter how much some people deny it. Hopefully, his high wire act and continually declining stuff get enough people out to be effective though, because we need him. At any rate, tonight was a great and badly needed win. Getting contributions from Teahen and Jones was great, and the bullpen was awesome. We really need to have a good series up there.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 06:52 PM) Pods was looking for two years and $15 million when he approached the Sox about a contract. Were we really supposed to wait all winter for his price to come down and hope that it did? That isn't really smart. We could have, because there was no way in hell Pods was going to get that. I still don't blame them for not wanting Pods even if he was willing to come back cheap though, he doesn't have a great resume in seasons after performing "well" at the MLB level. Additionally, he's still a very soft player, and he'll suffer some minor injury that will bother him for weeks on end eventually.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 12, 2010 -> 10:42 PM) Because he had a multi-homer game? Because he was great against a terrible left handed pitcher? I'd say that this is one game, and he has a hell of a lot more work to do before I consider him anything more than a viable bench option. I think it's entirely possible and even likely that he will be just fine as an everyday player, but you don't prove yourself in one night. That's a bit ridiculous. You don't prove yourself in one night, and Jones may be nothing more than a viable bench option on most teams. But on our team, he should be playing the vast majority of the time, because the other option is Mark Kotsay. At least with Andruw, there is hope he might overachieve and be useful.

It's too early to worry about him, but his stuff has been positively mediocre his first two starts. It's really not even lack of velocity either IMO, (although he is about 2 or 3 MPH off in that category it seems like) it's just lack of life/movement. Hopefully that's a byproduct of it being early in the season, and we see his typically crisp stuff return in short order. His numbers are not going to be at prime level here since he's pitching in the AL almost all of the time and at The Cell about half of it though.

The bullpen has been absolutely abused this week in terms of how much it's been used, particularly considering we don't have a long reliever. Combine that with Buehrle being in a major rhythm and ending up with a not too bad pitch count of 114, as well as the possibility of extra innings (and more bullpen overuse) looming along with 7 road games in 7 days starting tomorrow, and I don't see how anybody can argue he was left in too long honestly. As for the win today, thank goodness that 3rd base coach made the worst send in the history of baseball because Bobby Jenks cannot be trusted. We'll take the win though, hopefully our luck is better in Toronto this season than it has been in the recent past. I just wish we could hit because this pitching staff is awesome.

Pierre DH, Quentin LF, Rios CF, Jones RF is our best defense, it's too bad we'll never see it since it makes a mess of things when Kotsay plays (among other reasons) since defense is a big deal when you can't hit. I guess you could DH Pierre and do Jones LF Rios CF Quentin RF on days Kotsay doesn't play.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 9, 2010 -> 12:45 PM) What does him being a creepy pervert have anything to do with rooting for him playing golf? I'm sure theres plenty of other athletes that you root for out there that are just as creepy if not worse than Tiger. They are just not stupid enough to get caught up in the media like him. Let him bang whoever and whatever he wants in his free time, I can still enjoy watching the best golfer in the world conquer Augusta. The big difference is golf is an individual sport. In team sports, there are so many players on teams that you know some of them are bad people and thus just have to kind of deal with it. In individual sports, it's easier to just pick out assholes like Tiger and root against them since they play alone.

Bulls would basically be in had they not blown that game Friday night. I still think the odds are against them getting in right now considering the schedules, but who knows with how badly Toronto is playing.

QUOTE (DBAHO @ Apr 11, 2010 -> 09:26 PM) Now if the Hawks beat Nashville which they should, they'd play the winner of the series b/w Vancouver and Los Angeles correct? If so, then I think the Hawks have got the better playoff route to the Conf. Finals, than if they ended up with the #1 seed (where'd they have to play either Phoenix or Detroit). NHL reseeds, so it depends on a lot of things. If San Jose blows it in the first round again, the Hawks would guaranteed play Colorado. If they don't, the Hawks play the best seed to win in the first round other than themselves and San Jose, with the Sharks playing the lowest remaining seed after round 1. I personally think odds are high the first round winners will be the top 3 seeds and Detroit, which means the Hawks would play Vancouver and the Sharks would play Detroit. But we'll see. At any rate, you get the feeling the Hawks are going to have to beat Detroit to get where they want to go. Detroit has been the boogeyman to the Hawks for a long time, and it was seen yet again today. Such demons generally have to be exercised during a championship run. Losing today actually very well may have helped the Hawks avoid a potential Detroit matchup until the conference finals, but it'd still be better to have the #1 seed and have home ice all the way until the Stanley Cup Finals where only Washington could have it over you. HUGE win for Detroit, having to play Phoenix rather than San Jose or Vancouver really helps them.

This is the one year Walker cannot be blamed. Nobody could coach up a good offense with this group of players.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 10, 2010 -> 07:19 PM) Ownership of this roster is all on Ozzie, this is the team he wants, he said so himself. Well part of it has to be on Kenny too. He has final say in making the roster, and thus the power to shoot down Ozzie's idiotic ideas about how the everyday lineup should be constructed.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Mar 25, 2010 -> 07:35 AM) Urban Meyer is a crazy asshole. Ripping on that reporter, he sure thought he was a tough guy I think I dislike Urban Meyer more than any other figure in college or pro sports. Well, actually he and Coach K are right there: complete assholes who not only think success means they can do whatever they want, but also have convinced themselves they aren't assholes, while also pretending they are holier than thou and don't do the same shady stuff all the other top programs do. Complete joke.

QUOTE (SockMe @ Apr 8, 2010 -> 05:50 PM) Packers picking 23rd in the draft, hope they get Arrelious, Tebow or Spiller! Spiller would be an awesome pick for them. Make a scary offense even scarier.

I'm not sure why Tiger is supposed to change his demeanor on the course. I never personally had a problem with that, he's an athlete who gets frusterated when he screws up. Who doesn't get frusterated and curse (or at least really want to) when they screw up? That's a completely seperate issue to the cheating.

The Tiger Woods analysis as to how he's going to play this week has been silly. Yes he's an absolutely horrible, scumbag of a human being (as much as you can be without doing anything illegal), and he's coming off a long layoff, but he's still the best golfer in the world. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he wins this tournament. I was a bit surprised at the reception he got today, although i'm more interested to see the reception he gets at a tournament not as controlled as The Masters.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Apr 8, 2010 -> 02:23 PM) Dumbass DePaul. Wake Forest just fired Dino Gaudio and he would've been a 20x better hire than Purnell. You could certainly argue DePaul could have done better than Purnell, but Dino Gaudio looked like basketball's answer to Ron Zook during his time in Winston-Salem. I'd pass on him if I needed a coach.

The Hawks will get the #1 seed as I understand it if they win out since they'd be tied for points and have more wins than San Jose, so it'd be nice if they just go ahead and do that, although it is a tall task. Hopefully Niemi's play recently is not a mirage, because he's been outstanding, and they'll obviously need him to continue to be for the next several weeks if they want to reach their goals.