Milkman delivers

You'll never convince me that Ozzie is a good in-game manager. He's a good players manager, but his in-game decisions are bad. Despite that, I completely understand and agree with the decision to remove Buehrle last night in favor of Thornton. It's necessary to limit MB's pitches and we needed to see if Thornton had it in him to close. Now he's proven that he cannot and he shouldn't be trusted in that scenario anymore. We just have to hope that Ozzie also realizes this.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 07:34 AM) Broken left thumb for Furcal. Rafael Furcal. That's a name I don't think I heard once last season.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Apr 12, 2011 -> 12:07 AM) You responded to my post to those people. If you want to remove him from the closer's spot after three games, I can sort of understand after going through Jenks the past couple years, but people have this idea that Matt Thornton all of a sudden loses his talent in the 9th inning. Removing him from the 9th isn't going to make everything better with him; he's the same pitcher regardless of inning. I understand your point. To me, it's not about putting Thornton in the best spot for him to succeed, it's about getting the best option at closer in there.

QUOTE (gatnom @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 11:57 PM) That's perfectly fine, but don't give me some BS like we're ruining him purely by messing with his mind. If that were the case, he's already done for. And, I think he should be given another shot or two considering he's been our best reliever for a couple years now, a slightly larger sample size than three damn games. I never made the argument about ruining him, although it does make sense. I personally don't give a f*** about Matt Thornton or any other individual player. If they are a detriment to the team, I want them moved. It's all about what the best move for the team is (same reason I was upset about Milledge being DFA'd, as I felt he was the best for the team).

QUOTE (gatnom @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 11:27 PM) For those who think Thornton doesn't have the mentality to handle being the closer, how is he going to deal with being demoted? If you believe that being put in the closer's role can screw up a pitcher, I think we've pretty clearly passed the point of no return and should give the guy more than 3 appearances to prove himself, particularly when he's only given up 1 earned run. Telling a guy he isn't good enough is about the last thing I would want to do to get a guy back on track. Sure, eventually if he consistently blows saves, your hand will be forced, but I think we should try to show a little confidence in a guy who's been pretty damn good for us the past couple years. He's not a child, f*** his ego. We should keep him in his current job, which he's terrible at, because taking him out of the job he's terrible at might also cause him to be terrible at another job.

Everything is considered an overreaction on Soxtalk. I don't know what it takes to consider something a reasonable reaction here. Thornton has blown three saves (every opportunity he's been given) and has looked terrible in each. I imagine for everyone to consider the idea of trying out another closer that Thornton would have to give up 4 consecutive homers in a 3-run save situation and then proceed to beat Konerko, Ozzie, and a handful of fans to death with a corked bat while funneling steroids and wiping his ass with the American flag.

QUOTE (flavum @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 06:20 PM) 4-6 weeks. All things considered, not that bad. How the f*** do you break your leg and miss just over a month? Twins luck, man...

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 11:09 PM) So Edge has to retire Hm?

QUOTE (chw42 @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 10:28 PM) There is absolutely no guarantee that Santos is going to be a good closer. This is a guy with very few high leverage innings under his belt and hasn't exactly excelled in them (5.01 FIP). You'd be taking a big gamble by placing him there. But outside of Thornton, he is probably the next best option. The thought of having two good left handed setup men does seem inviting. That's assuming that Thornton returns to his dominance when moved back to setup. It's something I'm not inclined to believe just yet.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 10:12 PM) I believe Thornton deserves a solid month until removed from the role. I'm sorry. He's been too good for too long. I just can't believe the 9th inning is that big a difference from the 8th inning. No, terrible. 3 straight blown saves? I don't give a f*** if he had nobody playing defense at all. Did Jenks ever have 3 straight blown saves? We can't afford this crap. There are other options and Thornton, IMO, has proven all there is to prove.

QUOTE (MattZakrowski @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 05:15 PM) Blastro's got this. Eat your heart out, JoeCoolMan!

QUOTE (zenryan @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 09:52 PM) and youre basing this off of what....? He gave up a leadoff double and then a rocket that luckily went right at Konerko. Then he gave up a bomb to the warning track. He was likely going to blow that game. QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 09:57 PM) People need to admit that Thornton has also had pretty bad luck in his first 2 outings. It's incredibly unlucky to blow 3 saves in only 2 outings, I agree.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 04:26 PM) Yeah against Anthony Reyes. And the Sox scored 20 in the first game. I was at the 20something game. That was thanks to, I believe, that funky motion. Great seats.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 11, 2011 -> 03:40 PM) You gotta get the corn off the cob. You can get everything on it, but at the very least get the lime, butter, mayo and red pepper. All of those toppings sound good, but what else do they have?

"El Guapo" Rich Garces

I'm sure the offense is going to decrease a little, but I don't think it should drop off that much. They're still playing in cold weather and bats usually heat up with the temperature.

I like threads like this.

QUOTE (bmags @ Apr 10, 2011 -> 07:37 PM) Great first sox game of the year. Tailgating, ice cold beer, corn off the cob and a white sox winner. I have been to a countless number of games, but I've yet to try this. I must do it very soon. QUOTE (WCSox @ Apr 10, 2011 -> 06:38 PM) I thought that Floyd wasn't supposed to pitch like this until June??? Nice surprise. They do. The offense and starting pitching are there. The defense has been atrocious so far, but history has shown that they'll improve significantly there. They only question in the bullpen. Things have been looking up with the starters, that's for sure. The offense has been just about the best around (although I'd like to see them improve some in situational hitting), but I expect the defense to improve. The only weaknesses should be Konerko's range, Pierre's arm, AJ's throwing, and obviously Quentin. That bullpen needs to reach some of its potential because it can be incredible. You all know that I don't truly expect the bullpen to improve greatly due to my pessimistic nature, but they have the talent.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Apr 10, 2011 -> 04:12 PM) Got to watch the game on MLB Extra Innings. Gavin was really sharp. PK and Beckham with the dingers and GB was fielding great. You managed to mess up Beckham's name twice, even while using initials EDIT: Fixed it before I could point it out, damn!

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Apr 10, 2011 -> 11:18 AM) AJ knocked that punk Barrett on his ass with a good clean hit at the plate, knocked him out of the way and scored. Barrett responded by sucker punching AJ in the face which didn't even seem to phase AJ. At that point, if AJ retaliates he's facing a big fine and suspension. AJ rises above it and walks back to the dugout because he still got the best in that exchange--he scored, he knocked Barret on his ass and took Barrett's best shot without batting an eye. And yet, AJ still got suspended and fined which was pure BS. I totally agree, although I feel like any catcher would have done what he did yesterday. In other news, I don't think I could respect Maddon more than I do.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Apr 10, 2011 -> 07:15 AM) I'm Bigsqwert and I approve this message. Same here, but I'd probably still go with Sale. Oh, and I'm Milkman delivers.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Apr 10, 2011 -> 03:35 AM) Not trying to be a douche but isn't that exactly what injury prone means? That no matter what you keep on getting injured all the time? Note that I'm not saying Jake is or isn't injury prone. This. And if he injures himself sleeping, yes, that'd be the definition of being injury prone.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Apr 8, 2011 -> 04:36 PM) No when the trade first happened, the main b**** about Javy was that how could the Sox give up on The Chris Young. The Sox traded El Duque for Vazquez plus cash Vazquez was set to make $11.5 mil, El Duque was to make 4.6 mil + he had a 2 mil bonus on innings. Thus when Vaz was first acquired his total cost in terms of money was 11.5-4.6 = 6.9 and the Sox got more cash on top of that. He didnt become overpaid for the Sox until they resigned him to a new contract. But lets not talk about facts. (Edit) Strangesox, lol Okay that makes a lot more sense, it caught me off guard because J4L quoted it like it was a serious statement and that it was actually a good argument. I generally do take comments like that as humorous. Most people liked the Vazquez trade, as I recall. Then he underachieved and was paid too much, so everyone justifiably turned against him.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Apr 8, 2011 -> 03:56 PM) I dont care what everyone had to say about Vazquez in 2008, you can pull up threads from 2008 and see what I had to say about Vazquez (consistently defended him because people hated on him merely because he was traded for Chris Young.) I dont know what point you are getting at here. You made a statement that is factually incorrect, that this can never be an economic win for the Sox, you got called out on it. People hated on Vazquez because he was an overpaid underachiever. Don't get that wrong.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Apr 8, 2011 -> 11:29 AM) After two seconds of research, it was easy to see that you had only looked at Juan Pierre's handedness. I'm talking about how he performs against lefties, and he hits them very well. With absolutely no power, which is a main point here.