scenario

I'd be very surprised... stunned in fact... if we see any roster changes. I think it's just venting... Ozzie style.

We've had a hellacious schedule for the last two months. And we are one of only four teams in MLB that do not have a losing record on the road. (We're 17-17 after today.) So... we've played 34 games on the road... and only 22 games at home... the LEAST home games played of any team in major league baseball... and yet we're 4 games over .500 and in 1st place. Now, our schedule gets MUCH more favorable... both in terms of teams we play and where we play them. 17 out of our 27 games in June are at home, including: - 3 against Kansas City (last place in the AL Central) - 3 against Pittsburg (last place in the NL Central) - 3 against Colorado (last place in the NL West) If someone told me we'd be in this position at the beginning of the year, I'd be thrilled. If the pitching holds up... we are going to be sitting pretty going into the all-star break.

Keep in mind that Konerko started out last year pretty much just like this one... And then caught fire in June and July and carried the ballclub offensively for 2 months. In fact, over the course of his career, April and May are his worst two months... and June is his best month. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/5908/s...mp;type=Batting Let's just hope the pattern repeats itself.

QUOTE (DBAH0 @ Jun 1, 2008 -> 12:06 PM) Richard is comparable to Heath Phillips though. Don't think he's really in the Sox's long term plans right now. Good to see him pitching well though. Not sure you can compare fat-body Phillips to a guy who is athletic enough to play major college football. Got a scouting report to share? A 2005 Baseball America report said Richard throws low-90's. I don't think Phillips ever got close to throwing that hard. Richard's problem, so far, in the Sox system has been somewhat suspect control. But if that starts to come around for him, which it has so far this season, then hey... what's not to like? As far as not being in the Sox plans... a successful starter in the minors is always in a team's plans... especially if he's left-handed... if for no other reason than being a good bargaining chip.

Clayton Richard should start hitting fans' radar screens pretty soon. He is starting to look like what the Sox hoped for when they drafted him. 9 very good to excellent performances in his last 10 starts. WHIP around 1.00 for the year. K/BB almost 4:1. ERA at 2.64 after 12 starts. Nice to see from a 6'5" left-handed starter. Very nice. Also, I have a feeling that Stefan Gartrell is about to catch fire. He had a slow start this year because he basically skipped a level... moving up to the Barons after only 70-something at-bats in Winston-Salem last fall. I think he's another David Cook only 3 years younger. It will be interesting to see how he does in the 2nd half once he adjusts to AA pitching.

Here's a link from his high school team... A few other pretty good players went to that school too... like Atlanta's Jeff Francoeur and Cincinnati's Jeff Keppinger. http://www.parkviewbaseball.org/index.html Looks like a baseball factory.

In his 10 starts this year, Carter has struck out 8 guys 3 times... and 7 guys 3 times. (Almost all of those games he only worked 6 innings per too.) The most walks he's given up in any game is 2. And he's had 4 starts where he hasn't walked anybody. I'd love to hear more about his stuff if anyone can find anything on him.

This is Cook's 5th year since being drafted. So, we'll have to put him on the 40-man this fall to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft.

David Cook is absolutely unconscious. After going 3-3 plus 2 walks tonight, he's up to a .327 BA on the year... OBP over .470... a .610 SLG... He is 1st in the Southern League in OBP and 3rd in OPS.

QUOTE (soxfn4life @ May 26, 2008 -> 03:20 PM) Do you? My answer is 42.

Yep. Richar is back. He's played in 3 games since returning. You picked a great game to see pitching-wise... it should be Lance Broadway vs. Francisco Liriano.

According to an A's fan I know, DLS is on the DL and scheduled for TJ surgery. (I should note that I can find anything definitive on the web... that says he is absolutely going under the knife. But there are quite a few articles documenting arm problems that have kept him from pitching since late April... and the A's fan I'm quoting is pretty reputable.) Also these notes from Rotowire about Gio... Sat. May 24, 2008 News: Gio Gonzalez gave up 10 hits and two walks over 3.2 innings on Friday for Triple-A Sacramento. Impact: Gonzalez's walk rate has been around 3.7 per nine innings. This year, it is 4.9, which is just too darn high: it's throwing off all of the rest of his game. The A's may need to Volquez him -- send him all the way down to High-A -- in order to exorcise the walk demons. (RotoWire ) Fri. May 9, 2008 Gonzalez thus continues his disappointing year. This kind of mediocrity is not needed in Oakland at the moment with the A's near the top of their division, so the ways in which Gonzalez sees significant major league innings this year are: 1) he starts to pitch considerably better than he has and regains some semblance of his old self; 2) a couple of key injuries occur in Oakland; 3) the A's drop out of contention. He may need to scrap the year and start working on whatever he needs to work on to get back on track. ------------------------------------------- Feel any better about Swisher now?

A thread with some discussion of Retherford. http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?sh...p;#entry1646965

Yeah, he had a cold streak and dropped to .230 but has rebounded in style and pumped it back up to .275. (5 multi-hit games in his last 10 games. Two of those were 4-hit games.) What I'm intrigued by is his history of being good at every position he's played. I love the fact that he both pitched and caught in the same inning in a college game. LOL Alot of position players haved pitched an inning or so and sucked. But he was a good pitcher who hit well enough that they played him in the field on his off-days... a classic old-school bat-rat type of player. I don't think I've ever heard of a player who could play EVERY position before and be good. Just seems to suggest he's a unique talent with baseball IQ and instincts that you just can't teach. That and his 1.000 OPS last year at Great Falls... a 1.000 OPS and set the all-time league doubles record... that's sort of an attention getter too.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ May 24, 2008 -> 06:24 PM) Scenario, you seem like our resident minor league guy this year. Besides guys like Broadway and Poreda, who the hell else is worth following right now? I appreciate your comment. I'm really just a hard core fan who spends too much time listening to games and reading about minor league players. There are several other people, like JPN, who regularly attend the games and can tell you alot more about guys they've seen. Here are the players I track. That doesn't mean they're the best prospects from a scout's perspective, but I find them 'interesting' players with potential. (Some are doing well this year. Others aren't.) At Charlotte: Broadway, Egbert, & Getz (plus Fields, Owens, and Richar of course) At Birmingham: Cook, Gartrell, Richard, McCulloch, & DRodriguez (plus Lucas Harrell when healthy) At Winston-Salem: Allen, Shelby, CJ Retherford, Ely, & Poreda At Kannapolis: Jose Martinez, Marrero, Miranda, Shirek, Carter, Hunt, Moreno, & Mabee. If I had to bet on one star coming out of this group: as a position player it would be Shelby; as a pitcher it would be Poreda. My longshot darkhorse lotto bet to turn into something... CJ Retherford. I've done some research on him. Really a unique player. Could turn out to be nothing... but I just have a hunch he'll end up making it to the majors.

Birmingham is 28-20 and has a 6-game lead in the Southern League's 'South Division'. The hitting (outside of David Cook) hasn't been much to speak of... But the pitching has been very good. The Barons have the 3rd best team ERA out of 10 team. They have the lowest WHIP. And they've only given up 18 homeruns as a staff, which is 10-15 lower than most of the teams in the league.

The situation that existed when Winston-Salem re-started the suspended game... Kinston had the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the third. How's that for a way to 'start'? Poreda did a nice job to get out of it only giving up one run. So, Poreda actually pitched 4 innings last night not 6. And he gave up 3 runs which is not horrible considering the situation he had to bail himself out of. The other 3 were runs he gave up in 2 innings on April 4th - his first start of the year - that didn't show up on his record until completion of this game. I listened to that game on radio and Poreda is lucky it got suspended. He couldn't find the plate. When the power went out I thought somebody on the Warthogs must have shorted out the system to come to the rescue and save his ***. LOL.

Charlotte @ Lehigh Valley http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...chraaa_lhvaaa_1 The Knights won 5-2. Richar played 2B. Getz played short. Fields hit 2 homeruns and drove in 4 runs. Eldred hit his 17th homerun. Birmingham @ Huntsville http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...biraax_hunaax_1 Cassel pitching The Barons won 5-4. Winston-Salem @ Kinston http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...wswafa_kinafa_1 The Warthogs lost 6-3. Not a stellar game for Poreda. Oops. This wasn't a new game. This was a continuation of an April 4th game that was suspended due to a power outage. Tonights actual game came after. And Winston-Salem won the second one 8-7. Kannapolis @ Delmarva http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...kanafx_delafx_1 Kanny lost 3-1.

Two consecutive all-star games. Probably a lock for this year too. Tough to say he's 'underrated' anymore.

Anabolic steroids -- no. HGH -- yes.

After the night he had last night, I'd put Toby at DH and rest Thome too. Thome is pretty useless against lefties not named CC these days.

Funny how quickly this turned into an Anderson trade thread. Bringing up Wise seems logical and simple to me. We had no left-handed bench depth... no one who could pinch hit. And now we do. Wise is knocking the cover off the ball. And it won't screw up his career development to park his 30-year old keister on the bench. BTW - He's had major league at-bats with Toronto, Atlanta, and Cincinnati before the Sox got him. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/W/Dewayne-Wise.shtml

QUOTE (Brian @ May 23, 2008 -> 04:06 PM) Is Victor Martinez bordering on overrated status? Or is he just injury prone? Martinez is a very good player who is a little injury prone... and has no business batting cleanup. Another Tribe note... here's a great comment posted by a Cleveland fan on the Indians' scout.com site: "Interesting fact: In the Southern Hemisphere, the Indians' season is twirling COUNTER-CLOCKWISE down the crapper."

QUOTE (OilCan @ May 23, 2008 -> 07:22 AM) Line of the night: S. Spurgeon (W-S): 5 IP in relief, 9Ks. That was very impressive. Another notable performance in the loss... CJ Retherford went 4 for 4. He's been scuffling a bit in the last 10 games, but I have a gut feel he's going to catch fire at some point this year.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 23, 2008 -> 08:35 AM) Still only averaging 6.5 IP over those 2 games... One of those games was in a doubleheader... so they only played 7 innings. And Poreda pitched the entire game. Can't pitch more innings than a complete game.