scenario

Owens or Richar? Anybody notice that Chris Getz was 4-4 two nights ago and 2-4 last night? So, we've got a 2nd base prospect who can lead off hitting .302 with a .362 OBP at Charlotte... with 5 homeruns and an .842 OPS. Meanwhile, as of this morning, Jerry Owens is batting .234 with a .312 OBP... with 1 homerun and a .610 OPS

I hope they do sit Konerko because: (1) I'd rather have him rest against the Giants and play against the Tribe and Angels next week with a rested and healed arm. (2) I'd hate to have this thing get worse and require a DL visit. If they're going to rest him against anybody, who's better (on our schedule) than the Giants?

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 15, 2008 -> 04:19 PM) Levi Maxwell was promoted to W-S from Kanny. Good. He looked ready. And W-S is where he should be age-wise.

We win tonight and we're tied with Minnesota. We lose tonight and we're tied with Kansas City. The Royals with their win today are 6-0 on the season against the last place Tigers. (Cue David Bowie's "Panic in Detroit".)

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 15, 2008 -> 08:34 AM) I just want to point out that Delmarva's second baseman, Ryan Adams, has 24 errors in 30 games. That is amazing. Someone buy that man a new glove... one without holes in it.

Contreras' forkball looked better than I've ever seen it last night. I knew he was in for a good night when he pitched to Garrett Anderson in the 2nd inning. Jose was behind with a 2-1 count and threw a forkball that looked like a changeup until it dropped about a foot as it crossed the plate. That pitch would have fooled any hitter in baseball. And then he threw several similar pitches later in the game that absolutely froze some of their hitters, including Vlad. That was fun to watch. If he keeps throwing that pitch with that effectiveness, he is going to have a very good year.

Who would have thought that after 6 weeks, Danks, Floyd, and Contreras would all be in the top 15 in the league in ERA?

QUOTE (MEANS @ May 14, 2008 -> 12:02 PM) that has always been my problem when we went out and got him after the WS in 05. We really didn't need another slugger, heck we just got rid of Carlos and Maggs a bit before, went out and got some speed and look what happened-WS Champs, then we turn around and get another slugger...seems like we don't learn. Some people seem to have forgotten than upgrading the DH position was one of the keys to re-signing Paulie. And they needed to have a big homerun bat in the lineup in case Konerko walked. So Thome was exactly what we needed at the time.

The Kannapolis offense provided a little run support tonight... they beat Delmarva 17-3. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...delafx_kanafx_1 Levi Maxwell with a nice start lowering his ERA to 1.23. He's been a shutdown reliever and now they've started him in two games. The BEST news of the night for me, is that Juan Moreno is back on the active roster. Moreno was the outstanding pitcher in the Pioneer League last year. He started the season on the DL and tonight was his first appearance of the year. He got touched up for 2 runs in one inning of work tonight... but he was GREAT last year... As in league low ERA (lowest in the Sox minor league system in fact); 1st in in the Pioneer League in K's; and a K/BB ratio of 7 to 1 (77K's; 11 BBs). If they get him back in the regular rotation with Shirek and Carter, and he looks anything like he did last year, the 2nd half of the season could be very interesting.

David Cook is on FIRE!!!! Batting .519 over the last 10 games before tonight... Cook went 3-3 with a homerun. His season average is now .316.

Winston-Salem got rained out. Lakewood beat Kannapolis 11-2. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...lwdafx_kanafx_1 Every pitcher Kanny ran out there got scored on. Charlotte beat Toledo 10-6. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...tolaaa_chraaa_1 I always enjoy beating Toledo (Tigers' farmclub).

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 11, 2008 -> 12:50 PM) McCulloch's gonna get lit up again. I say 4 runs in the first inning. I'll let you guys know if I see any improvement. Kyle McCulloch... 6 innings; 0 runs; 6 hits; 6 strikeouts; and 0 walks. http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...wtdaax_biraax_1

QUOTE (Agent Cooper @ May 11, 2008 -> 02:28 PM) http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...wtdaax_biraax_1 What's the story with clayton richard? His groundball rate was stellar(14:3), and his K/BB has been impressive all season. The only time I've seen him was in a spring training game 2 seasons ago, and I haven't heard anything about him as a prospect. Is there a reason for his improved control and increased K rate this season? He was reasonably well thought of coming out of college... where he had 7-8 K/9; and a BB/9 under 3.00. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/R/C...n-Richard.shtml But in the minors so far, his K's were lower and BB's were higher than expected... so no one was terribly excited. Seems like maybe he's getting his act together and starting to live up to expectations. If so, that's a very good thing and he's likely to reappear on the prospect radar map.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ May 11, 2008 -> 11:50 AM) McCulloch's gonna get lit up again. I say 4 runs in the first inning. I'll let you guys know if I see any improvement. So if he does well today, is that because you're wrong about him, or because he got lucky? (Just yankin' your chain... McCulloch hater.)

This will be a good test for Whisler. He's fattened up his W-L record by beating some bad teams. He's 1-1 against good teams. He's got a relatively high WHIP and his K/BB is approximately 1.0. So, hard to tell whether he is pitching well or overachieving at this point.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ May 10, 2008 -> 07:57 PM) Damn, Lance. You really want to be up with the big squad. Maybe for Wassermann soon? Great game for Broadway... 7-inning complete game; 1 run; 3 hits; 3 K's; and 0 walks. And he did it against one of best teams in the International League. Toledo is 25-12. But I don't think they'll bring him up. Lance is our insurance policy against one of our starters going down. Gotta keep him stretched out.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 11, 2008 -> 09:18 AM) I know he's on the old side, but Cook has been a damn good hitter for a couple years in a row now. I wonder if he ends up in Charlotte sometime soon. I'm betting he does. Not only is he hitting well, he's got great plate discipline. > 1.000 OPS and walks>strikeouts is a good way to earn a promotion. I'm particularly impressed that he's doing it in the Southern League, where he's seeing much better pitching than he did in A-ball.

I vow not to say anything bad about Uribe for a week.

QUOTE (Tony82087 @ May 10, 2008 -> 11:01 PM) Dotel really stepping up as of late, which is huge for this club. Absolutely. Last time out he was really impressive. Faced 7 guys. Struck out 5. Doesn't get much better than that. We've desperately been needing a reliever, other than Jenks, who can just come in and strike people out. And coming into tonight, Dotel has 21 K's in 13 innings pitched.

Brad Eldred hit his 10th homerun today... and his average is up to .283

Toledo @ Charlotte - Game 1 Broadway pitching http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...tolaaa_chraaa_1 Toledo @ Charlotte - Game 2 Rob Bell pitching http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...chraaa_tolaaa_2 West Tennessee @ Birmingham Clayton Richard pitching http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...wtdaax_biraax_1 Salem @ Winston-Salem John Ely pitching http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...salafa_wswafa_1 Lakewood @ Kannapolis Nathan Jones pitching http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...lwdafx_kanafx_1

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 10, 2008 -> 10:14 AM) Cook and Shelby are on fire. I could see both getting mid-season promotions.

The pitcher who 'really' lost the Barons game was Ryan O'Malley who gave up 3 runs in an inning and two-thirds. We must have just picked him up. O'Malley started two games for the Cubs in 2006... major league games... then went down with a season ending injury soon after. I remember reading an interesting story in the Trib about him. He's a kid from Springfield. And they wrote about how he was called up to the majors. He was scheduled to pitch a minor league game (AA) in Austin, Tx, I think, and the Cubs sent someone in a car to pick him up and drive him to Houston to pitch against the Astros instead. LOL. And he won the game. I bet that was a surreal day for him.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ May 9, 2008 -> 06:47 PM) Egbert's been crap this year. 4 starts. Two good. Two crap.

Dye and a couple of prospects for Griffey? I'm at least half serious. Griffey is a rental. They'd have an extra year of Dye under contract and they'd save quite a bit of money, assuming we'd pick up Griffey's full salary. Plus if they really wanted to re-sign Junior next year for sentimental reasons they still could. And it gets us out from under Dye's contract next year and allows us to move Quentin to right.