caulfield12

Reynaldo Lopez warming up. 1-2-3 set down in order for 5th time.

No choice. Bullpen can't cover all those innings unless you want to surrender the game.

4/39 must be the worst MLB stretch with bases loaded for any team over a two month stretch in history.

But the pitchers have a big differential pitching to McGuire...especially the high leverage guys. Plus Grandal can't even catch more than 50-60% of the time.

At age 34, and with his injury history, absolutely nothing is a surprise.

Four seamer right down the pike? Everyone sits down.

Uh oh bases loaded situation not good.

Maalox Moment

Dear Hahn: Send down Sheets and get a real LH hitter. Or send yourself down.

Baines is coaching 1B?

Juan Minaya trying to hold down Yankees...4-3 NY a lot closer than pitching matchups would have indicated. 8 k's a season high for Kopech. Four 1-2-3 innings too.

Kopech only three Ks away from career high of 10 against Rangers. More former Sox...Alvarez needs his own Disney movie.

Sounds like WeWork. Or don’t think, just do. The White Sox badly need a rebranding, whatever their motto or tagline is this season...it’s clearly not working.

They might as well fold the franchise if they can’t be consistently competitive in the Central. Imagine if they were in the AL East or NL West…or buried a million games behind the Mets or Astros. That would be even bleaker than current reality. Plus the Yankees are going to do their annual trouncing of the Twins.

LHHers the new Moneyball niche. The week before getting ahead in counts. That said, the Guardians continue to hang in there offensively with a no name offense outside of Ramirez. I mean, who the heck is Oscar Gonzalez and where did he come from? Could be at .500 after tonight and enjoying the easiest June schedule of the three teams. Other than Jose Ramirez, their entire starting lineup has come from just the Clevinger and Lindor deals, and the under the radar Myles Straw move (and extension) when the Astros chose McCormick. And that doesn’t even include Quantrill on the pitching side. Impressive retooling effort as per usual. If they could somehow get the old Karinchak back, they would be even more formidable. Thank god they don’t have double the payroll like the Sox do.

Or it could be the annual game of throwing out other options (Burger at second!) to avoid the appearance of making a trade out of desperate “backs against the wall” positions.

Besides TLR, the only arguable cases are Atlanta and Seattle, and those seem highly unlikely to end in firings at this point.

First time all season that four AL East teams are lined up in playoff position…hopefully they beat each other up the next four months.

Prefect symmetry. Scott Hairston, who had the last Mets’ cycle, the son of former Sox Jerry Hairston. 1.1 fWAR, on pace for 3.5ish…

This can’t possibly go wrong, since we’re on the subject of pitching futures… White Sox: Pitching prospects The White Sox are one of two teams in the Majors without a Top 100 Prospect, per MLB Pipeline. But it doesn’t mean that clubs won’t be interested in Chicago’s ample pitching in the farm system. In the White Sox Top 30 Prospects list: Sixteen are pitchers, including No. 5 Norge Vera, No. 9 Jared Kelley and No. 10 Matthew Thompson. The team’s top pitching prospect, Vera, hasn’t pitched this year due to a lat strain, but his 2021 season in Rookie ball -- 1-0 in seven starts with no earned runs allowed and 34 strikeouts -- makes him a strong target for teams looking to move a veteran player. -- Joey Pollizze https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-trade-candidates-for-each-team-in-2022?partnerId=zh-20220607-622070-mlb-1-B&qid=1026&utm_id=zh-20220607-622070-mlb-1-B&bt_ee=pK4RyObmWhwVVX3kSwxI49OK%2BIqySl5TSY9uq3QcoBHGsDm3R%2Bdj5YIhDy4Qu56C&bt_ts=1654607504202

Now we’re back to the PR team performances/presentations for Machado and Harper without the benefit of signing a player with “panache.” Judge is the biggest name, but Turner is the best overall player but those are pipe dreams after we failed so publicly and repeatedly with Machado last time…especially with bringing in Jay and Alonso, someone didn’t do their homework in the end and assumed that would be enough to get it done. Otoh, look at the Twins and Correa, get creative again.

Sure, we had the same problem with too many outfielders in the minors but now Walker and Gonzalez are elsewhere. Frazier completely went in the tank after his trade last year…but 637 is like 677 or 687 a year or two ago, and we can’t redo the offseason to sign Chris Taylor for that same positional flexibility. In the end, they will keep Leury but Harrison has to at least get up to the 575-625 range to be a viable everyday player. Mendick, Romy, Sosa, Sanchez…none of them profile as major league regulars to the majority of outside scouts…I guess Sosa would be the choice with most upside but they will trade for someone at the big league level first. And we can’t argue Drury will automatically sink while arguing that 637 is what Frazier is when he made the All Star team and was well over 800 ops for the first half last year.

Which is why they will stick it out through the TDL at the very least...this is not the Indians juggernaut of the late 90s the Sox are facing off with.

This description feels almost like 2012-2016 all over again...albeit with a slightly better/bigger core group. Of course we also had prime Abreu at that time too.

That sounds both well-reasoned and practical…