Balta1701

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 10:55 AM) "To Catch a Predator" host Chris Hansen was caught on camera cheating on his wife with FL news reporter Kristyn Caddell. IRONY! I feel uncomfortable based on the set of people I've seen post this on facebook...something about the type of person who might be inclined to gloat over that...

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 10:40 AM) I wonder how much of our team ERA is attributable to bullpen blowups. I'm not saying that's justified, but we are in the top five in QS, and just three shy of the AL lead. We're 7th in the AL in total ERA, and 7th in the AL in starters ERA. Our bullpen ERA is 10th. The fun numbers though...total ERA for the Sox is 3.84. Starters ERA is .... 3.84. Bullpen ERA is...3.85.

Amazon.com is cutting off all of its affiliates from California. With Illinois, New York, and California now on the list in addition to a number of smaller states, Amazon' affiliate program pretty much must be close to no longer existing. A number of them have jumped to other retailers and there's been talk of Walmart making moves on a lot of them.

Although, the low production values might make it hard to watch.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 10:00 AM) I used to like Maher until he started his big rant about how prescription drugs don't work and we should all just go back to eating natural foods and we'd be healthy again. At first I agreed with him - the country is over medicated and instead of being healthy we just reach for pills. But then he went overboard, claiming that he'd never get the flu and that people don't need antibiotics. So, I love that he can "skewer" a guy like Perry for praying (and saying that's ancient Maya-type thinking) but he refuses to acknowledge the importance of medicine? Here's the video: I was going to defend him a bit by pointing out that we are way over medicated on anti-biotics in this country (which leads to major, major, major problems), but then I started watching the clip where he's ridiculing safety limits based on ppm/ppb counts & so forth. Yeah, that's not something I can defend.

You want to watch the X-Games on a tape delay?

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 09:58 AM) Leo Mazzone did get hired by Baltimore to be a savior and that didn't go very well either. Which brings up the question...what would happen to a guy like Cooper or Duncan, etc., if they went somewhere else? Mike Maddux had a good year or two to start off in Milwaukee IIRC, but then his staffs started underachieving. Now he's pulling Ogando's out of his hat in Texas.

Hmph. Portland tendered Oden an $8.8 million qualifying offer before the deadline. Assuming restricted free agents still exist whenever things settle, that's a lot of money to tender a guy like that. Although it does mean he won't end up signing with the Heat like I thought he would

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 09:45 AM) fair point, but I think we should talk in terms of AL only, because NL eras are so different. They are 7th best in the AL this season, and .01 away from 6th best. And in 2005, they were tied for the best in the AL, with the best starting pitching.

Well, it's deadline night. Should we just change this thread name to the official 2011 NBA Lockout thread or do we want a separate thread?

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 09:29 AM) I'm sure there are several outstanding pitching coaches that I have never heard of, but Duncan is the one who seems to keep popping up from year to year with success. Of the teams you mentioned though, SF, Tampa, & Oakland seem to be pretty talented in general, pitching coach or no pitching coach. I guess the lack of perceived "talent" in STL is what always impresses me about Duncan's success. The comeback on that of course is "Adam Wainright and Chris Carpenter". The phrase "Supremely talented" fits those guys well, which is why this is an interesting topic. Of course, was Leo Mazzone frowned on all that much because of Smoltz/Maddux/Glavine/Avery/Millwood/Neagle being talented?

QUOTE (T R U @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 04:43 AM) Transformers was absolutely awful, and its f***ing 3 hours long as well.. I wanted to transform into a gun and kill myself Megatron?

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 29, 2011 -> 11:19 PM) Of course they exist, but no one really knows how much... should we just ignore them? No, but we should be intelligent about the amount of damage we're willing to do in order to solve them. No one, as far as I know, has reasonably suggested that we should cut every power plant offline immediately and shut down every automobile to solve the climate problem. No one has reasonably suggested confiscating and melting down every gun in this country. Disenfranchising what appears to be on the order of hundreds of thousands of people who want to vote to deal with the possibility of a few dozen people voting incorrectly is the same level. Instead of ignoring them, we can treat it like we treat gun crime. Investigate, respond, and jail. By most numbers read via the Google, ~11% of Americans currently do not have a valid ID that would allow them to vote, and that group is concentrated largely amongst the poor and amongst racial minorities.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 09:20 AM) Agreed, and I don't think there's a question both guys are two of the best in the game. If we think about it, we can probably come up with other names though. Whoever is coaching in San Fran, Tampa, LAA, maybe Oakland and Seattle (although it's hard to figure out the park effects there), Texas...there's a number of pitching coaches who have regularly had staffs that step up big time, in surprising ways, in the last few years.

Pitch like you're coming out of the bullpen, Jake.

Cook is 0-3 on the year, 5.48 ERA, fastball coming in has averaged 87.5 mph this year down several from last year.

Compliments to Sergio and to AJ on the pitch calling for Sergio. The slider's working that well? Why not make every pitch a slider. Big props to Buehrle, pitching over some weak defense (partly of his own making) and holding that team to 2 runs when we tried to gift them more. Props somehow to Bruney, for getting a shot right at Beckham when we needed a double play. And to the Captain for being the offense.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 08:45 AM) that time of the month again? Eww. I think this deserves a suspension. Eww.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 09:12 AM) Hawk played during the 60's right? Um, yeah, about that... I'm assuming he doesn't remember that era all that well. I've listened to enough stories to be confident about that.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 09:01 AM) Morel is doing at this level what he's done at other levels. He started real bad at the plate, has been improving since with the average, and then adds a little power later. If you want him to develop, then let him keep developing. If you didn't want to wait, and wanted a guy who hit .280 off the bat with power, and with Morel's defense, well... how many of those do you think there are waiting around the minor leagues? Have some patience, he's getting better, which can't be said of some others on this team. The other thing worth remembering is that if Adam Dunn had been Adam Dunn in the first half, this team would have a top 5 offense in MLB. As it stands...we're middle of the pack, and we're middle of the pack with 5 black holes in our lineup. If Dunn and Rios were doing what they were capable of, we'd be verging on a top 3 offense, even with Pierre, Beckham, and Morel being weak spots and Alexei struggling for the last month.

QUOTE (Greg Hibbard @ Jun 30, 2011 -> 08:57 AM) I guess the most "encouraging" thing is that our stats seem much more in line with the 2005 corpseball edition than the recent 07-10 editions. The pitching stats seem better and the hitting much worse. Again...worth adding is the comparison to the rest of the league. I'm harping on this a lot lately...but offense is way, way, way down everywhere. In 2005, the White Sox staff put up a 3.61 ERA, and that was tied with Cleveland for the best in the AL, Houston and St. Louis were better, and the best ERA in the league was 3.49. In 2011, the White Sox staff has put up a 3.84 ERA, and that's good for 14th best in baseball (strangely, 13th best is Cleveland, 0.01 runs better than us). The best ERA in the league is 2.98. The average ERA this year is 3.83, in 2005 it was 4.28. Offense is down. A lot. Hawk was noting last night I think that he's never seen so many 2-1 and 1-0 games. For once, he's right, we haven't seen this level of offensive performance since baseball got "Big".

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 29, 2011 -> 10:31 PM) That was Ozzie's best chance to use Dunn effectively. Oh well, 0 hits tonight from the 3 easy outs in the lineup (Morel, Beckham, Rios) Dunn was not hitting the ball harder than Morel. You know that.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Jun 29, 2011 -> 10:28 PM) Anyone playing the Sox from 7th inning on offense is doing just fine! Sox are 20th in MLB in runs scored after the 6th. 10 teams are worse.

QUOTE (iguchi=dank @ Jun 29, 2011 -> 10:26 PM) ding ding ding never noticed knoxville balta.. sorry you live around UT freaks.. yuck. You do any trout fishin over there? Your close to alot of good spots. Only been here for a year and a half, haven't gotten into the fishin yet.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 29, 2011 -> 10:26 PM) When's the last time we got a hit? Pierre?