caulfield12

2-0 Twins. Now Correa starting to heat up. 5 1/2 GB would be the low water mark of the division race. White Sox have final four months to try to chase down MINNY or at least a WC spot, but not like they drew it up this offseason. Lynn isn't expected back until around June 12th-15th.

Curse of the Best Rotation in Baseball Thread. Just like the Curse of the Best Bullpen last year.

Bradley 7 for his last 12. Good God. Have to pull Cease. He's not as strong mentally as Giolito IMO.

Leury Legend might be in again by the end of this. Or Abreu, to mimic Pujols. Of course, one of those position players would get hurt, somehow. Need to just throw it up there in the 60's like Brett Phillips. Shades of the Lucas Giolito Patriots Day Massacre. I think that was 8 runs maybe? At least 7.

Another offline throw by Pollock. Who knew? Nobody warming up yet in the bullpen. If Bradley's going to start hitting, it's game set match. Kike, too. Loud contact. Pull him LaRussa. Just let everyone in your B bullpen group pitch 1-2 innings. And still nobody out.

3 for his last 31...they might have brought him back too quickly, because Charlotte/AAA at-bats are so misleading. That said, most thought he was down there TOO long.

If it was one of those Eurosport soccer possession stats, 80/20 or 75/25 in favor of the Red Sox...

They've been doing almost all of this without Correa (now back) and Buxton in a terrible slump, all the way down to .217 but 11 homers and an 875 OPS and still playing great defense when he manages to play the field.

Chilly weather, no Robert...pitcher who mastered us last time, most logical bettors would take the under. Obviously baseball betting is almost impossible. Caveat emptor. Moncada just 3 for his last 30. Yikes. "If your best player is your best person and leader, you've got a great chance." Gene Mauch

Pivetta was on a terrible run until he faced the White Sox last time out. Maybe we'll get a reversal. Seems hit back fast or settle in and only score 1-2 runs and basically don't recover in this game.

Obviously Story's season has been incredibly streaky. Saw and heard all the boos the last time we saw them. But we really needed a starting 2B, and it was down to him or Baez. Story's road splits over his COL career were always a bit worrisome, but Arenado obviously made the adjustments and it appears Story now/finally is, too.

Well, we're not going to win anything with a losing record at home... At best, it's a battle with Toronto/Boston/TB for the wild card, along with LAA and maybe the Guardians.

Wouldn't Story be leading all the White Sox hitters in homers JUST IN THE PAST WEEK? That's 7 in a week, and 8 overall. Maybe we can trade them Moncada back for Story, lol.

Cease the definition of laboring. Elevated pitch count. Have to get out of this somehow.

9/25 6 HR's 14 RBI's (24 RBI's in the past month) Story's LAST WEEK Basically outproducing the Sox offense if you took Anderson out.

We might as well be throwing Axelrod, lol. Boston is on a tear offensively. Meanwhile, the Twins get a Tigers' team missing all five starters, at least temporarily. Already up 1-0 against another unknown pitcher and threatening to score more.

https://www.mlb.com/news/trade-talk-with-general-manager-rick-hahn No comment about the second half of the interview/story.

Jimenez can come back and play CF instead of Leury Pollock or Engel. Gotta fit him in there somewhere with Sheets and Vaughn flanking him...because he doesn't consider himself just a DH.

Oops didn't check the date because it was right next to a new Anderson article. Well in that case the odds of the Royals still going after Montas and burning prospects in non competitive years are pretty much slim and none. Unless they want another version of Gil Meche, veteran anchor for a young/rebuilding organization. Even then, he had a five year commitment, not such a limited time frame as Montas offers...so they should be looking for more of a Jon Lester who would sign an extension. Tough tough sell.

More Leury Legend and Engel. As cats, their nine lives would have expired ages ago.

Well, there's basically Cubs/Cardinals and then the Astros since they're pretty difficult to ignore with their ALCS streak, World Series appearances and cheating scandal/s. To be honest, if Trout/Ohtani played on the Dodgers Yanks Red Sox Mets or even Phillies the amount of ink they would be generating would be off the charts. And pretty clearly the two worst divisions in baseball just so happen to be in the middle of the country right now...along with some of the lowest, most non-competitive payrolls other than OAK and TB. And that has been the case for at least six years now.

The Twins are saying all they need to say about this by what they're not saying. https://mobile.twitter.com/dohyoungpark/status/1528943565535326208?cxt=HHwWgMDRlc-E87cqAAAA If that’s MLB’s finding then one game is clearly not enough. Don’t like my take? Don’t care. Save it. Suck it up. Not your column. Your take doesn’t count. Pick any of those micro-aggressions you like. Josh Donaldson saying “What’s up, Jackie” to Anderson? That’s a racist micro-aggression that should pick up at least a few more games from MLB. Donaldson reportedly is appealing the one-gamer. If that defense consists of trying to show the league he’s something other than racist, Donaldson might actually find an unwitting character witness for his defense in the White Sox clubhouse. Said Sox reliever Joe Kelly Monday on 670 The Score: “He’s a douche.” https://sports.yahoo.com/mlb-trade-deadline-cubs-trade-004617941.html

https://sports.yahoo.com/news/nhl-playoffs-avalanche-kadri-racist-comments-death-threats-fueled-game-4-hat-trick-blues-160010941.html Who knew? Hockey...soccer, NASCAR, NFL/Gruden, what is the world coming to? Seems we didn't simply "transcend" this problem as a country or society back in 2008. In fact, the last 14 years have just served to bring racism in all it's various forms more into the open (overt) and out of the shadows.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/9186117/why-african-americans-play-pro-baseball The answer is here, hiding in plain sight. Some will use the word or term alienation. Others simply socio-economic disparity. Whether it’s baseball, golf or tennis, the endemic structural issues are similar. The committee members need to see the industry of youth baseball for what it has become: A business enterprise designed to exclude those without the means and mobility to participate. Over the past 15 to 20 years, the proliferation of pay-for-play teams in youth baseball -- and the parallel proliferation of parents willing to pay for them and coaches willing to cash their checks -- has had more of an impact on African-American participation than anything another sport has to offer. It's become standard in youth baseball for parents of supposedly "elite" kids to eschew the riffraff of Little League and cast their lot with travel teams that play as many as 130 games a year. Both preposterous and routine, it's based on the questionable theory that the more you pay and the farther you travel, the better you will become. Longtime big leaguer LaTroy Hawkins said it directly: Baseball in the United States has become a sport for the rich. ….. The sport does move slower, but why does that make it less attractive to black kids than white kids? There are fewer recognizable and highly marketed black stars than in the NFL and NBA, but is that merely a product of the numbers, a self-fulfilling prophecy? The path to the big time is slower, but why don't more people associated with baseball trumpet two facts -- the number of players who get paid is far larger than the NBA and the money is 100 percent more guaranteed than the NFL?

The day after the incident, when Anderson came up to the plate, it really did feel like the dismal days of Jackie Robinson were being channeled as the Yankee faithful booed him vociferously. In the words of longtime sports columnist David Steele, “It’s ‘Boy Remember Your Place Night’ at the ballpark in the Bronx.” That Anderson responded to the boos with a three-hit game, including a three-run HR game, ironically also echoed Robinson: succeeding in the face of a racist tidal wave by opposing fans. There is a bigger issue here than just the morality play that went down in the Bronx. Consider the idea that Josh Donaldson actually used the word “Jackie” as a racial slur. On one level, this is shocking. Jack Roosevelt Robinson is a hero of the first order who walked through hell in a gasoline suit precisely so players—players like Anderson—wouldn’t have to endure the racism that he faced. His name should forever be remembered not only as a synonym for courage but also as a reminder that baseball—not merely “society”—was extremely racist when he attempted to integrate the sport. The problem with the way Major League Baseball celebrates and remembers Robinson is that it talks a lot about the first part—with abstract words like “bravery”—without discussing exactly what kind of athletic environment he had to be brave in. If the league does discuss context, it’s always that word again, “society,” as if racism was just something in the air—not something that baseball as an institution was actually built upon. Major League Baseball fits Robinson into a neat schema of “segregation, integration, celebration!” Its desire for marketing and patriotism, which are really one and the same, is for baseball to symbolize “post-racialism.” ….. The fact is that Josh Donaldson represents a lasting culture within Major League Baseball. It’s a culture in which Robinson is praised abstractly, but current players like Anderson are routinely disrespected. Alienating Black players with magnetism like Anderson has also discourages a generation of young athletes who choose not to play baseball because of how Anderson has been treated. That will cause the great sport to suffer immeasurably. The entire sport pays a price if it holds up a sign that says, “Not For You.” We also pay a social cost, beyond the generational loss of new talent, by allowing racist ideas to fester in the “national pastime.” https://www.thenation.com/article/society/when-jackie-robinson-is-used-as-a-racial-slur/