Milkman delivers

We've just witnessed something that only happens once in a lifetime. OK, maybe twice.

QUOTE(Felix @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 12:33 PM) What you are saying is that the White Sox have the better team in all areas of the game, so they shouldn't ever lose a game to the Royals. If thats true, then the Royals shouldn't beat any team in the AL, since their team is clearly the worst in the league in all aspects of the game. This is the reason the teams play the games, the game is not won on paper. Am I excusing the Sox losing 2 of the games in this series so far? No. But to say that they should never lose a game against them is ridiculous. They should surely be better than 9-6 with the gigantic disparity of talent/money between the two.

QUOTE(Greg Hibbard @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 11:21 AM) In other words, last year you didn't watch the 7 game losing streak in August or the mid-september slide. I've watched every inning of every game (or listened on the radio in some rare cases) of every game for years. The only times I can't are the few games a year when I'm at school, in which case I follow via Soxtalk and gameday. The team might've looked passionless or complacent at a couple points last year, but this year's team looks like that on a pretty regular basis. Pretty much any time they're not playing a top team.

QUOTE(StrangeSox @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 11:03 AM) Ozzie Guillen is a terrible manager and I hope he's gone next year. And now he's getting a free pass from some for not motivating the players. At best, he's an average in-game manager. His strength is supposed to be motivation. If he can't do that, he is like Pods his speed.

QUOTE(RME JICO @ Aug 17, 2006 -> 09:50 AM) http://redsox.bostonherald.com/redSox/view...rticleid=153177 What are the Blue Jays doing? Helping their own Division, and paying for half his salary in 2007? Teams like to help out the Red Sox for some reason.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ Aug 16, 2006 -> 09:28 PM) You know, after watching this team for 120 some odd games, it's just so obvious what they are. They ave VERY talented (best team on paper in baseball IMO), but they just don't care all the time. Now this isn't Ozzie's fault, I know I like to jump him, but he can't make players care. You watch the games against Detroit, and we cared BIG TIME. Our batters had an approach every time, our pitchers grinded out every pitch, our defense did the best it could, and hey, we won!! We play the Royals, and we are 9-6 against them. 9-6 against the Royals, 9-3 against the Tigers. That's not a matter of talent, or the manager, or whatever else, it's just a fact that we only think our effort is worth it against the top teams. Now will this team make the playoffs?? To be honest with you, I still think it will. I think we'll end up caring just enough to get that wild card spot and get in. And also, to be honest, this team is actually better than last years team. The difference is we seem fat and happy with just playing when we want to and doing just enough to try and get into the playoffs, and that is a PROBLEM. Even if we make the playoffs, we aren't going to do a damn thing once we get there, unless there is some sort of change of attitude in that clubhouse. And the scary part about that is Ozzie, nor Kenny, nor Jerry, nor any of us have a damn thing we can do. It's all up to the players, they can either give a damn or they can't, and I hope they choose the former, because there is enough time for us to be a World Series Champion team yet again. However time is simply running out here. It's not about talent, or schedules, or pitching matchups....because we're good enough. It's about showing up every day and giving everything possible in order to acheive greatness. I will watch every game, and root these guys on, and I think they are good enough....but I don't think they have the "it", the heart, the hunger to do it again. That's all I got for this rant, hopefully the boys pick up the effort and focus EVERY GAME....because to be honest, that is really all that's left for us to do, and if we can do it from here on out, we can repeat October glory. I just don't have faith we'll do it until next year, when we aren't the champs, and we have a chip on our shoulder. Maybe then things will click (after all, we have almost everybody back, and you know Kenny will do what he can to improve the team). But hey, I hope I'm wrong and that light clicks on THIS YEAR!! GO SOX! It's not Ozzie's fault that he can't motivate his team? Is that what you're saying? Ozzie's JOB is to motivate this team. Some managers are motivators, some are tacticians. Ozzie is clearly not the latter. If he can't motivate his team, which I guess isn't part of his job, then he should be fired.

Just show up and you'll win, guys. If you lose, oh well, you won the title last year.

I haven't read through this thread yet, but I'm going to add this. This 2006 team doesn't feel the need to show up everyday. The 2005 team came out with something to prove against every single team. They played every game like it meant something, which it did. They had heart. This year's team does not do any of that. They believe they're better than everyone else, and they don't have to prove it. They take off games and entire series. 2005 team = wanted it 2006 team = complacent, don't have anything to prove That is why this team will never accomplish what the 2005 team did.

I'd like to see Ozzie be extremely serious about winning and put Dye and BA into the lineup right now.

Don't worry, Vazquez should be starting his messiah-like turnaround any day now. Then we'll be unstoppable.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 16, 2006 -> 08:06 PM) I made the comment during yesterday's game that it looked like we thought all we had to do is show up, and the game was over. There's been no concentration at the plate, in the field, and on the mound. It's been like that for a while. We don't show up against quite a few teams.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 16, 2006 -> 08:05 PM) How many runs will the Count give up before Ozzie pulls him. 11, maybe 12. Just enough so we lose by 1 run in the end.

QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Aug 16, 2006 -> 08:04 PM) Why is our manager playing our subs again? Does he realize that we can replace one or 2 guys, but why do we have 3 subs in the same game. Are we trying to win here or are we resting for next year. Ozzie looked like he was trying to win for a few days there. Now, it's back to the mentality that we're simply better than every other team and we don't have to prove it.

QUOTE(fathom @ Aug 16, 2006 -> 07:58 PM) Did anyone read the Bill Simmons AL review today about our starting pitchers? It summed it up perfectly...these guys are underachievers. You probably summed it up better than Simmons possibly could have. They are underachievers, and they seem to be complacent with their production. They make about $30 million too much as a whole.

Taking the Royals lightly honestly may be the Hunter-Burke event of this year. We have our future in our own hands. All we have to do is beat the Royals and put ourselves further out of reach for the WC. Why do we think it's fine to not show up against these scrub teams? These are the teams that are preventing us from being 1st in our division or running away with the WC, not the other contenders.

Who wants to bet we come back and lose by 1, and someone will say it will be the spark we need because we didn't lay down?

Ha, has Coop finally lost his perfect reputation or something? If the pitching is a barometer of how good he is as a coach, then he deserves a whole lot of blame this year. Every single returning pitcher is worse this year.

Vazquez is the skidder. He starts losing streaks.

Well, our starting pitching was in a nice little groove, feeding off of the last guy's good performance. Then, Javier Vazquez happened. I tell ya, the anti-stopper. He's the skidder.

Unfortunately, Ozzie's stellar lineup might not be enough to get us back into this one. We all know what happens when our 3-4-5 don't hit, and our 5 won't even have a chance to hit tonight.

Well, that's not good. If we end up losing this series, we could end up seeing it as the series that broke our backs.

That was a great bunt single. Was that Pods?!

Ozzie better get in these guys' heads quick. If we get ourselves into another offensive slump because we're swinging for the fences again, this season could be over. We have a golden opportunity in front of us right now. A scrub team to build a lead in the WC and possibly gain ground in the Central. We can't get complacent yet again.

Hawk getting excited again for a ball that was CLEARLY not a homer.

QUOTE(CYGarland @ Aug 16, 2006 -> 07:30 PM) and he gets out of it. At this point its safe to say that were the only team that can beat these guys. So when we play em, we definitely gotta take advantage, like last weekend First thing we have to do is hit some bad pitching.