stretchstretch

a year ago, we all thought a dynasty was in place, cannot believe how quickly the castle could crumble? the only positive I hang onto these days is at least they didn't get to the first WS in almost 50 yrs and lose the damn thing. I'll always have a WS win in my lifetime and the memory of being at games 1 (with friends) and 2 (with father), can never be taken away....imagine being an Astro fan, or even an Indians fan. The sting of the 2005 Illini still lingers, the Sox loss would have been 1000X worse.....

Since we're playing the highest paid, lowest performing AL team, which still gets more FOX and ESPN tv time than any other tomorrow, we get to tag along on their 3rd day of ESPN HD coverage in 4 days. Will this be a chance to showcase our 3 runs of offense through 4 innings, zero through 9 and giving up 5 in the eighth or a way to break out of this mess??? The worst thing for the Sox right now is this stretch against sub500 teams, they need a Boston or Cleveland to absolutely kick their teeth in to raise whatever shred of pride these millionaires have left, or God-forbid put some fire in our lineup!!

QUOTE(joesaiditstrue @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 12:30 PM) i'm a new member, this is my first post just an observation i've made about the struggles of our pen the last few weeks, and coming into this series the book is out on our pen, in terms of the teams that we're playing as far as the mind set of the opposing hitters, when we bring in our pen, it has to put their confidence level up to another level knowing how badly our pen is performing, which could then perhaps give them an even better chance to hit and score runs off of us just something i've been thinking about lately. our pen's lack of any good pitching sans jenks and thornton (and some could argue masset), is probably having a two-fold counter-effect on us. they're obviously not hitting their spots and walking too many guys, but it's also probably helping the mental approach of the opposing hitters as well anyway, i like the board (i generally post on the ESPN forums, which are garbage to be honest). it looks like it has a nice established list of members, and generally always has a hot thread with activity in it Losing is a disease ...as contagious as polio... ...as contagious as syphilis... ...as contagious as the bubonic plague... ...attacking one, but infecting all.

QUOTE(BearSox @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 11:50 AM) Isn't that what people have been saying for the past two months? The reality is that we had a few guys with career offensive highs for one half of the 06 season. Outside of that, since July06 we've sucked on both sides of the ball, in 2005 we had mediocre offense with incredible pitching, prior to 2005 same mediocre offense with avg pitching. I'm coming to grips with the fact that we had one magic season with mediocre offense, ultra solid starting pitching with automatic shutdowns from Cliff and Dustin, and a bunch of great breaks in the playoffs (AJ's drop 3rd, Dye's HBP, Graffanino's through the legs). Outside of Apr-Oct2005 this team has never had the real makings of a sustained contender Top 8 down 3-4, haven't scored since the third and won't again in the next 30mins, lock.....

afer we score our 3 run limit by the 4th inning, let the opponent bat their remaining 5 times all at once until they get 15 outs, that way we can see if the relief can hold the two run lead, and skip our own five innings of men LOB..... all under an hour.......leaves plenty of time for fans to be productive and not waste an entire afternoon/evening

QUOTE(briguy27 @ Jun 3, 2007 -> 01:50 PM) when was the last time pierzysnki threw out a runner attempting a SB? I have to think back to which season, let alone game it's been so long

QUOTE(Wedge @ May 28, 2007 -> 03:39 PM) ok, so new strategy. The bullpen pitches innings one and two. The starter starts innings 3-8. Jenks pitches the 9th if we're winning. this is one of the most brilliant things I've read. if we're going to shakeup the batting lineup, why not the pitching lineup. Clearly our guys can't come in with anything but a 0-0 score, so let's give them that and bring in the guys who can give up less than 4 runs to give their 7 inninges later. well done! Meanwhile we just sit and watch the playoff get farther and farther away as they try to fix this pathetic crew of a bullpen

are there any replacements for Guillen out there who can motivate players into battling for wins and working through struggles. all the talk about the pen, lack of speed injuries, etc doesn't cover up for that "dead look" of the players. MN came back from a 12gm deficit last year to win the division because RG WOULDN"T ALLOW them to stay down. OG has no sense of being able to demand and get the most of his players. Can an entire pen of 6-8 guys go from unhittable to horrible without SOME blame on the coach?

QUOTE(fathom @ May 28, 2007 -> 03:24 PM) How's it luck? It's called making contact. are you kidding?? It's luck because instead of a chopper to the mound or any other fielder, ONLY MN, IN MN, gets the one that bounces behind the plate 70 ft straight in the air!! In no other game this month will that occur anywhere in the entire MLB.....except of course when we're tied at the M-dome with bases jacked and 2 outs, against a sub-500 team. Then Aardsma get hit not just hard, but of of course in the gap, if this was Cleveland, it would have been a bullet hit straight at someone. Against Santana on the road this team, seriously should just forfeit. My wife just asked why they took that other pitcher out for this other guy? I had to explain that Ozzie has no choice but to insert the most unreliable guy on the staff in a super high pressure situation. Hell, why are we even fu&&&ng around, why not just bring Jenks in with the bases loaded and hope for some K's and a DP?? Then use the mentally screwed guys later when at least there's no one on base????

Tribe 10-12 on the road and MLB best 17-4 at home, this is not a good sign for a full season, I like the chances of them fading

QUOTE(danman31 @ May 10, 2007 -> 02:34 PM) Boom! Though I still don't understand why everyone is so obsessed with Sweeney's .259 average. it's when he gets the hits, not how many of them, the rest of the team has had an unbelievable knack this season for getting all their hits when no one is in scoring posistion. I don't care if he's batting .150 if all his hits result in at least one RBI

just got home from the Angel game, enough to make you completely sick. Before even starting with the 13 LOB, all around soft hit grounders, straight in the air popups, and two veteran guys taking third strike when down 3 in the 8th, how about that defense? Contreras bungling the bunt throw to first, then bungling the DP throw to 2nd that led to two runs with Cabrera's hit, then Erstad, ERSTAD for Christ's sake, who played in that field his entire career, loses a 3 out, 2 on ball in the lights???????? Cintron had at least two hard hit balls his direction that required a diving effort, but he just sand bagged everything hit to him. Looking at the bottom of the order's BA on that big screen was pathetic, I watched live as Alex's 0.083 avg dropped to 0.074 Mackowiak, Cintron.... automatic outs have no business even being out there right now, can't even make contact at all. But in BP Cintron and Crede alternating hitting liner and homerun after homerun, wer absolutely pounding everything, AC looked like he did when he came over last year? From the first pitch they just look lifeless though, kicking dirt, hanging heads, AJ stomping on the ground with every weakass throw down to 2nd on a steal attempt. Tell you what, we're all better tuning out for a while until they can get some momentum, because until then, if they play two innings lifeless, you're guaranteed 7 more, they've completely lost their confidence.

will be in sec 209 with my 5yr old son, in black gear and hoping not be be embarrassed. Last time we went was gm4 of the ALCS so hoping to bring back some good karma!!

I can't recall seing an entire team be so good at getting behind in the count, 0-2 or 1-2 is basically automatic, and after taking the first strike, they'll sit on a next pitch right down the middle, or chase something waaayyyy out of the zone. At some point coaching has to come into play here when 9 guys are doing the same thing game in and game out. Konerko's struggles are killing this lineup because DE is the only current threat to actually get on base. When it goes bad it goes bad for sure, to the othe post, no I haven't seen that many luckly bloops by a team in two consecutive games,,,,uncanny......we've had those days ourselves where everything just seems to find a hole, but we're on the other side of that luck now.

it's pretty much official at this point that BA will never be a full timer in Chgo. Just doesn't have the ability to layoff junk, or hit an array of pitches, let alone the vaunted "down-the-middle-at-85mph" ball. And he's not progressed at all, still weak in the same exact areas. Maybe with another club somewhere where the pressure will be different, but on this team he's a marked guy and that's just too hard to come out of when everyone solidly expects you to fail.....

http://hd.espn.com/hd/schedule.jsp I mean I know as well as anyone the east coast bias on that network, but this is simply ridiculous! the coverage of Boston in particular, a team that didn't even make the playoffs last year?? Can they really keep claiming that "it's what the fans want to see" when they continue to make it a self fulfilling prophecy with this type of dedicated coverage? The Cards as the WS champs getting less coverage than the three east coast teams btw, for those of us outside the Chgo area this is a major problem....

anyone else feel like we did everything possible to let MN win the division this series by staring the bench? Granted we took the first two, and hats off to those guys for playing hard, but with the various quotes from MN players in the final month about keeping us out a priority, and the statements from Oz that the best team would take the field, I find it very disturbing he wouldn't do whatever is necessary to not let MN take the central on the closing day? understand Det shouldn't be giving up a 4 run 8th to KC, and our pitching gave up a whole bunch of weakass hits today, but our regular lineup could have done some real damage to Silva and it would have been a great final victory of morale to sweep our rival in the final series and stop them from winning the division. Or conversely do people feel like with the lackluster effort the starters were giving, our best team really is the bench?

QUOTE(BearSox @ Sep 24, 2006 -> 12:39 AM) Oh boy, ESPN just really pissed off. They just said we were eliminated. Didn't even say how we still have that slim chance. And you know what, Yogi Berra said it the best, it is not over until it is over. Guess what, it ain't over. Anything can happen. For gods sake, this is baseball. Anything can happen in baseball. anyone remember MN making up 5 games on us a couple years ago in the final week to knock us out of the playoffs!!! Now I know as well as anyone else that we aren't going to sweep Cleveland and MN, whilr MN loses 3-4 to KC, but there are always improbables in sports that happen. Dont rain on someone trying to have some hope, I'm with you bruh, will be watching every day until the numbers say we're done!!! BTW, MN did just lose 2-4 to Baltimore....they're not exactly on fire

QUOTE(redandwhite @ Sep 20, 2006 -> 07:30 AM) No intensity, no heart, etc. So what do you call the Pierzynski home run against Cleveland, bailing out the bullpen the next night, that eight inning performance by Jose Contreras against Anaheim... These are just examples in the last couple of weeks. I saw two of the greatest games I've ever seen in my life this year, one in Wrigley on a Pierzynski home run, and one in the Cell when the White Sox pulled off the valiant effort against my Red Sox. This team has played with heart, with desire, with intensity? Thing's just didn't go there way. As Rock said, that's baseball. I know on MVP you'll see the White Sox win the World Series, but this isn't a video game. Sometimes people get hurt, sometimes people don't perform as you'd expect them to. Sometimes teams with the most talent on paper don't perform as you'd expect them to. This team played with all of the things many people on here are mocking. Be reasonable and not laughable. You aren't going to win the World Series every year, lose that mindset, or stop watching the White Sox altogether, because seeing them win another championship in the next ten years would be a treat that many fans of teams won't be able to see. You know, I'd love to buy this, but NYY has just won the AL East for what, the 9th straight year? Yeah, yeah their payroll is 3 billion dollars full of all world players, but they get there, somehow someway, and can never be accused of phoning in the season. I think any single person on this board would have been able to get over not making it through round one of the playoffs, but to be 9 up on the WC at the break and be down by 5.5 now, A 14.5 GAME SWING FOR F**K SAKE due to a sub .500 second half with this roster and payroll is waaaayyy beyond forigiveable. The recollection in the other thread of great moments of 06 are almost exclusively 1st half memories. There were just too many game threads in the second half where everyone here was commenting about the entire team's lack of intensity, hunger, and focus, we ALL saw the same thing, and it's not about people fighting injuries, it's about the missing serious high fives at the plate, it's about not seeing guys in the dugout going ballistic, it's about guys not laying down the bunt and running their ass off to first, it's about swinging at ball four, and it's about the manager sitting back way too stoic and accepting all of this, while at the same time heaping praise on the "pirhanas" they're trying to catch. I can say the endless hours I spend as an out of stater "watching" entire games night after night on a freaking computer screen with yellow dots on the bases in espn's scoreboard, waiting every night for the 20 second clip I can catch on sportscenter, the month's pay I dropped to fly in for GM 1 and 2 of the WS, and 60+ nights of actual nausea I've felt in watching them slowly fizzle since the ASB definitely qualify me as a die hard fan. There's unrealistic expectations and then there's this. Boston at least lost a huge chunk of their roster to injury, the White Sox simply caved.........name one other team in baseball to have such a commanding position, with such colossal talent, and literally implode

QUOTE(Kalapse @ Sep 17, 2006 -> 07:57 PM) The saddest thing is, I've lost basically all interest in next year's team even if KW went out and got a new group of players that I actually liked and felt have a chance to will it all I have no faith that they'd be used the right way. NOTHING I've seen this year makes me believe that they'd be put in the best position to succeed. It doesn't even feel like a swift kick to the crotch. I trusted this team, I felt safe with this team, I thought they'd never do a thing to harm me, I opened up to them and let them see the real me. Then the 2nd half came along and the Sox took my trust and used it against me. Frankly, I feel violated. Thanks bruh, this had me laughing out loud in a thread that'd been deepening my depression with every response...............

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Sep 17, 2006 -> 07:31 PM) I can honestly say that this year wasn't even fun to watch. Even in other years (losing years, in fact), they were at least still enjoyable to watch. This year was just one kick in the junk after another. Actually not true.....first half, a pleasure to watch and I don't have enough fingers to count how many times I said to myself "these are good days to be a sox fan"......second half, exact opposite, every day a nailbiter and post game nausea......bi-polar is the best way to describe this year's Sox team

QUOTE(Frankensteiner @ Sep 16, 2006 -> 06:20 PM) I can't take these pessimistic posts anymore. What's wrong with you? ARE YOU IN OR OUT!!!!?? It's just time to be honest about the fact that the Sox have been an average baseball team for almost three months. We have a slightly above average lineup that is extremely strong in the middle and terrible at the ends. We have tens of millions of dollars in starting pitching that has suddenly come around as a unit for the first time in over two months, and we have a bullpen that is simply minor league. EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAPPENS BEFORE THE 7TH INNING IN ONE OF OUR GAMES IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT because we WAAYYYYY to often are giving up 2-4 runs in the last three innings. NO ONE can make the playoffs with this situation, NO ONE. I like Jenks but he is NOT dominant, he routinely gives up a few hits, gets hit hard, and gets out of a jam with a double play or groundball, but Mariano Rivera he is not, don't quote me his save stats because all of you know exactly what I'm talking about. The one thing MN and DET have in common that we do not is the ability to bring in the same reliable cast of 2-3 guys night after night to close a game out!!!! I think Ozzie mismanages in a big way, eg the way he gave Thornton the hook immediately only to leave McDougal in well pas the point the game was over, but I also cannot tell him who to bring in that he can count on week after week, so it's a combination of him and them. This whole thing is eating me alive like everyone else, but today I decided that facts are facts and this team is OUT exactly because of what we saw today: a one run lead in the 7th blown totally out of reach by a combination of the manager and relief pitchers making POOR decisions: McDougal trying to get the best walk-drawing batter in baseball to chase outside with bases loaded and a full count, and the manager leaving him in past his capability!!!!!!! This is not being a bad fan, it's facing facts, in spite of the fact that the situation is killing me....

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Sep 3, 2006 -> 01:20 PM) Didn't we struggle against a bunch of crappy pitchers this past week? How will this be any different? EXACTLY!!!! I'm sick and tired of people talking about us sweeping the bad teams and cleaning up on no-name pitchers, that time and time again own us. No one here should be expressing confidence in anything. I still give us a better chance of sweeping NYY, or NYM than Tampa, KC, or a depleted Boston. We simply play like garbage when we are supposed to romp, and rise only when challenged (on paper)

I keep reading all these rants about who should be in CF, Mack is pleading to not play CF, BA deserves to start, what inning Garcia comes out, should BMAC replace Garcia or Vasquez, PK and AJ shouldn't be trying to pull everything, and on and on and on, but is Ozzie really any worse than last year? is the offense any worse than last year? all anyone has to do is look at last year's playoffs to see PITCHING and BREAKS, with a little offense sprinkled in, allowed us to win it all. Pitching: Runs scored by the opposition in the ALDS and ALCS over 8 games: 2,4,3 2,1,2,2,3 and the WS: 3,6,5,0 Starter goes >6, Cotts, Cliff, Bobby, El Duque do the rest, score>5 runs......ball game!! World Series Championship, Ozzie is a Genius Breaks and critical hits: Graffinino through the legs, Gooch goes long, AJ called third strike, Crede double down the line, JD elbow hit by pitch, PK sitting on first pitch from Qualls, Lidge being spooked from the Pujols experience, Harris punch to left, JD dribbler up the middle Simply put, we do not have the pitching this year to negate lackluster offensive outings, errors, and managerial mistakes. It's not going to happen again this year, and Ozzie wasn't a genius, it was just one magical year where the baseball gods were smiling upon us. If we're going to get into the playoffs or make a statement in it, it's going to have to be done a different way, because this staff is not going to turn it around in 25 days......

I'm a little surprised that so many consider tonight's game a good win. I though Mark was extremely lucky to get out of the first, was getting hammered when they took him out, and we did jack at the plate for most of the game until the end. If MB cannot go 8 against freaking KC, where is he, really? Maybe I'm just expecting too much, but it in no way felt like a solid performance, we lucked out when a guy lost the ball in the lights and our boy BA after sitting cool for strike one, then went on to swing at two curves that he couldn't have hit if the bat were 3 feet longer with no outs and men on 2nd and 3rd and a fly ball would have been a good thing This win and the two against Tampa were absolutely nothing to feel good about. Our 6-1 win against MN was the last "solid" game we've played in a week, IMO