Dick Allen

Garland was fantastic again today, and as much as I know the guy is a bench player and anything more is a stretch, let me express my appreciation for Mackowiak busting his butt down the line on routine groundballs. He's the only White Sox that does it every time, and today he got himself on base because of it.

I can't see Lopez on the Sox. He'd play once a week. That's not going to work for him. I'm sure santo=dorf is dancing in the streets. This move was long overdue.

The White Sox don't get the Yankees money for Vazquez. That goes to Arizona who does pay a small portion of Vazquez's deal for this year and next. The Sox are still on the hook for a total of aboug $10 million a year for him I believe. The year of control the White Sox gained by Vazquez's trade request is an arbitration year, something unless there is dramatic improvement , the Sox will want no part of.

I do think Soriano is an excellent example of what you could expect Fields to look like defensively if he's playing LF for the Sox next year. If a position change is in the works for Fields, its about time they throw him out in LF in Charlotte. Its hard enough being a rookie in MLB. Don't make it harder by having him play a position you try to have him learn in winter ball.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Jul 22, 2006 -> 04:17 PM) What are they asking for? It's just a rental, but then we'd get 2 draft picks next year, correct? (How do they figure the free agent type with a player who's changed positions, anyway?) In the end, it's about the rotation recovering, though. And anyone who'll be in the rotation is already with the team. So, although I think a couple moves could help, I'm not gonna be heartbroken by what does or doesn't happen at the deadline. Probably a ton. Especially since Soriano has recently said he wouldn't be opposed to signing with the Nationals. The Angels and Tigers are probably the competition, and they both have some pretty decent prospects to make an attractive package to acquire him. QUOTE(CWSOX45 @ Jul 22, 2006 -> 04:22 PM) I can't see us seriously considering this, I bet Kenny is just seeing what the Kitties are offering, and therefore will make a high bid forcing hte Tigers to overpay if they want him. It would depend on who had to be surrendered. Soriano is a huge upgrade over Pods. Defensively its probably a wash except Soriano can throw, and throw well. Offensively, his obp is a little higher, he only has swiped 4 less bases in 9 less attempts and he's got 30 homers, more than anyone on the Sox not named Thome. He puts these numbers up in Washington.

Ken Rosenthal on Fox reported KW has inquired about Soriano. KW is always willing to give up prospects.Seems KW is about as sick of Pods as most on this board.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 22, 2006 -> 02:46 PM) Former Sox organization member, Alex Escobar, looks very good in his brief stint this season. Oddly enough, as so many assumed Owens was stolen for him, Escobar probably could really help the White Sox this season if he could remain healthy which probably is a huge question.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 22, 2006 -> 11:44 AM) Sounds like Vazquez from Wednesday night. Yeah, I posted somewhere that Buerhle has gone from a guy with a 13.00 ERA his last several starts to being Vazquez. Unfortunately for us and Buehrle and Vazquez, you don't get to throw away your bad inning. The difference between the 2 is Buerhle has a history of being a good pitcher, Vazquez has a history of having a bad inning or 2 in many of the games he pitches. The complaints about him Sox fans have are eerily similar to the complaints Yankee fans had about him a couple of years ago.

I posted before that besides that one inning last night, Buerhle was impressive. Hopefully he can build on that because the White Sox desperately need him to return to form. Just because he was 1-10 or 2-10 a couple of years ago and bounced back to respectability doesn't mean he's going to go on a long winning streak this season. It was nice that he was able to pick up the pieces after the disasterous inning last night. Because he left the game with 4 or 5 good innings, it may be easier for him to build on, rather than a game where he pitched well for 4 or 5 innings, but left getting teed off on.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 21, 2006 -> 11:49 PM) Cora has been horrid since the day he got here, they say a 3B Coach is doing his job when no one mentions his name, well Cora's name has come up an awful lot over the past 2 years. He has this creepy fetish where if there's an ultra slow baserunner (Pierz and Crede especially) on second and the ball is smoked into either left or centerfield he must send him everytime. It's gotten absolutely ridiculous, the time he sent Crede against Cabrera in New York and this one today with Pierzynski and Hairston should be enough to have Cora removed from his duties at 3B. That throw tonight was 10-15 feet up the line, so if AJ would have been out by only 10 feet he would have been safe. The guy was waiting for him with the ball. I don't think I've ever seen such poor judgement in my life. It has to be almost impossible to be out by that much. If you would be out by more than that, you would have enough time to get back to third. QUOTE(southsideirish71 @ Jul 21, 2006 -> 11:52 PM) Well except our LF, I am sure that Kong and AJ would score on that arm. Noodles should just hit the cutoff man and be done with it. The minute I see a nice arch at about 75mph flying past the cutoff man I want to leave my seat and and vomit. His throw tonight from shallow LF with the runner tagging came close to bringing rain. And 75 mph is giving him way too much credit.

You're right. Cora sending AJ was beyond ridiculous. It was a poor throw and he was out by 30-40 feet.

QUOTE(greg775 @ Jul 21, 2006 -> 11:39 PM) The fact we couldn't beat Wasdinowski in the Cell shows we are up a creek. We is in deep trouble. His manager made sure the Sox didn't beat him. He could have left him out there to try and get the W, and it probably would have been a totally different ballgame.

I saw something on the scoreboard tonight that coming into tonight's game Anderson was hitting .250 with 4 homers and 17 rbi at USCF. That means he must be hitting around .160 with 1 homer and 4 rbi on the road, which is unbelievably pathetic, and I happen to be as big of fan of Anderson as there is.

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Jul 21, 2006 -> 11:11 PM) Has anyone been listening to the Fuzzy Pink Bunny do the Sox Post Game show tonight? I would LOVE to hear how he's attempted to spin this one. I'm usually pessimistic when the Sox are losing, but Buerhle actually looked very good tonight except for 1 inning. So at least he's gone from a guy with a 13.00 ERA to Javier Vazquez-like.

The Sox may be in 3rd place by Wednesday.

Let's get off this Coop crap. Isn't Mazzone Coop Sr.? He couldn't do anything with the guy. Coop needs to concentrate on fixing the greatest rotation in the history of baseball. There are a lot of current White Sox pitchers who Coop needs to work with, and get some results or it won't matter who KW acquires.

It is a BS excuse. The Sox played exactly 11 extra games last year. Contreras made the most starts and he's not fatigued. Garland talking about fatigue? He didn't even pitch against Boston.

Tonight's game, just like most of the last ten, featured many of the head scratching things you see at least of few of almost every game. Pods bunting. Why, its an automatic strike. If he just takes it, because he will never get it down in fair territory, it at least has a chance to be called a ball. Poor starting pitching. Buerhle admittedly was pretty good except for one horrific inning. Unfortunately he was batting practice for one inning. Joey Cora waving a guy home that is thrown out by at least 30 feet with a poor throw. Ridiculous. The Sox were down 3 at the time, and that would have loaded the bases for Iguchi against Mahay. Iguchi has a far better chance to do some damage against Mahay, which could mean multiple runs than AJ had of even making the play at home close. Lack of bunts. The Sox were down 3 with runners on first and second and nobody out, and Uribe is swinging away. Of course he fails to advance the runners and it cost the Sox at least 1 run. The only thing I can think of is Ozzie probably had no confidence in Buerhle keeping them at 5 and wanted to play for the huge inning. I know the final score would indicate that most of this post didn't matter, but who knows how it plays out if the game is tied or the Sox have the lead late in the game. That and the fact that these and other incidents like these occur daily now, and its costing the Sox a lot of ballgames, games they may have needed to win when its all said and done.

Pitching is what is costing this team. The starters are no where near where they were last season, and the bullpen while much better lately doesn't have Politte, Hermanson, Cotts, Jenks, Vizcaino, Marte combo of 2005. The bullpen last year was almost automatic. Thornton has been a nice pick up, I think its still questionable if Riske will be able to get tough outs consistently late in a ballgame. McCarthy has had his moments, but last year if it was the 6th inning and the Sox were winning, the game was over. The offense is vastly improved, and guys are ripe to start a little slide in that area. The pitching staff is going to have to lead this team. If it doesn't, we will all be very dissappointed, no matter what the offense does from here on out.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Jul 21, 2006 -> 03:21 PM) Everything about Texas sucks. EDIT: Sorry Kap! Don't mess with Texas.

Unfortunately 7 of the last 9 games for the Tigers are against KC. 5.5 games isn't a lot to make up, but it isn't going to be easy. They are going to have to beat Detroit in the head to heads by at least a 6-4 margin IMO to win the division. At least the Sox still, if the season ended today, would be in the playoffs. I used to hate when they were 10 games out, people saying that they had 13 left against Minnesota, so they still had a chance. That was pretty much BS. The well paid and highly decorated starting rotation needs to pick it up. Contreras and Garland have pitched very well, but the other 3 need to start earning their paychecks starting tonight.

Not surprising KW couldn't find any takers, considering the home run derby has already been held.

I'm pretty sure Stewart is on the radar to be the back-up next season, and is pretty likely to get called up when rosters expand, having a 3rd catcher would be nice. Obviously he's not a top prospect, but could be a solid back-up, and I doubt he would be any worse than Widger in any fase at this point. Who knows, if Widger throws out the runner on the pitchout the inning before, that's one less stressful out Contreras has to get and the next inning could have been different. It may be a stretch, but it is possible. The White Sox are one AJP injury away from being in serious trouble.

QUOTE(fathom @ Jul 20, 2006 -> 02:59 PM) I had a terrible feeling about this game when I heard Garland tell Mike North how tired the team was and how much they were looking forward to getting home. On get-away day against a guy like Kenny Rogers, it was a recipe for disaster. They are 6 games after the AS break and the team is tired? Good night Irene. The playoffs will be a pipedream if that's true.

The Sox look like they are in a hurry to get back to Chicago.