caulfield12

Cutter in, Infante looking for a pitch there to drive and got it. Good thing Q didn't give him that first pitch fastball. Sitting on it. And former White Sox prospect Orlando continues to hurt us. Held him to a double at least. Bottom of the line-up hurting the Sox here.

I guess it's progress that we have the best record in the AL (tied), are dominating the defending World Series champions and the game thread feels like we're a 4th or 5th place team. Mostly just frustration pent up over the last 8 games. Those two off-days didn't seem to help much...stretched out our slump. Cuthbert's father a lobster fisherman off the coast of Nicaragua. Hmm...there's lots of talk he will be moved to 2B in order to learn how to play that position in Omaha and eventually supplant Infante later in the year.

Well, we've lowered Gee's ERA to under 3, so there's that.

Yep, Saladino was also 8/20 entering tonight in his last 5 games. Improving that average slowly but surely.

Saladino with highlight reel defense so far tonight. Shades of prime Alexei. Abreu with a nice swipe tag as well. Had a tricky hop to deal with at short at the beginning of the play. CRUISE CONTROL. Ten in a row. Battle of inept offenses. Red Sox escape a mini-jam, 4-2 Indians going to the bottom of the 7th at Fenway. Kluber dealing since early struggles.

Left hammy...guess he's okay enough to keep playing. Hopefully it will loosen up. Morales just couldn't quite swing through it and get extension, a bit off the end of the bat, too. Quintana masterful so far. Tigers had a chance to tie it up with the Rays but hit into a bases-loaded DP. 6-4 now.

Thankfully we're turning the line-up over to Eaton next inning. Need a two-out rally here, this game has reached a valley of lulls in terms of excitement level. Saladino comes through with a big hit. Eaton needs to keep the line moving. At-bat of the game here. As an added bonus, he could try out for the remake of Flash Gordon with that facial hair. Eaton getting anxious a bit...should have let that 3rd pitch go to get to a 2-1 count. Cy Gee escapes. Feels like last night's game, minus the tension/excitement.

Bottom of the strike zone with that call. Guys like Avi who are free swingers will never get the benefit of the doubt on that. Three consecutive strikeouts, ALL looking. Sheez. Chen warming up for the Royals.

QUOTE (chw42 @ May 20, 2016 -> 07:10 PM) Saladino haters are being silenced right now. He pretty much set the tempo for this game by making that first play on Escobar. If Saladino can maintain a 650ish OPS, then he definitely gets the nod defensively. Then you're playing Rollins only against LHP.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 20, 2016 -> 07:06 PM) Home run total for the team is plummeting compared to other teams. Near the bottom of the AL Which is why they needed an Alvarez or Carter to add one more big threat...to keep pitchers honest. Unfortunately, it's going to cost more in June/July than it would have in January-March when all those guys were available and started taking heavy discounts.

Ortiz has driven in 121 runs in his last 131 games. Says he'll come back next year for $25 million. Gee, that would be a shocker. He'll be like Brett Favre and never go away. Typical. ESPN and Peter Gammons will love it, a least. Quintana on cruise control. Not sure what's worse, Benetti's questioning of Stone or Farmer going on and on about how Jerry Reinsdorf is the greatest owner in the history of professional sports. Perfect location there to get Hosmer to roll over and pull it to 2nd. When he's going well, he'll take that ball to the opposite field.

Farmer pleading Rock Raines' HOF case. C'mon Lawrie, you're heading for 200 strikeouts!!! Shades of Cy Chen/Guthrie with this outing. Thankfully, Q's even better.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 20, 2016 -> 06:47 PM) Thought he was managing a strip club in Baltimore? I think you're confusing it with Dave Wilder's LGBT danceclub in AZ, lol... Luis Silverio and Anderson Gomes shoutout. Lance Johnson and Jack McDowell on the radio. Glory days. Talking about the famous fake to 3rd, throw to 1st play McDowell worked on with Ventura. Guess they're all going out for dinner tmrw night. More Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam mentions. Had to add the stopping Ventura's hitting streak at 58 games when he was pitching for Stanford in the College World Series. That game they won, then Ventura went 4/4 against Ventura in the second CWS match-up but Stanford won. Rare error from Hosmer there.

Quintana with the quietest 1.46 league-leading ERA in recent memory. Orlando chased ball 4 there. Q with only 11 walks in 54 ip, 49 k's. 3 k's, 1-2-3 third, retired four consecutive now.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 20, 2016 -> 06:42 PM) Once again they should have done better. Just seems like the bottom of the order has not been getting any big hits with RISP Our percentage of scored runs out of total situations with the bases loaded has to be in the Bottom 5 of the major leagues. Overall, we're doing pretty well scoring runs in the last month (especially compared to the first three weeks), but just seems like a month since that Frazier grand slam. Every run feels like a struggle at the moment. Having Abreu's homer robbed probably added to that frustration.

Saladino 8 for his last 20 and has a 5 game hitting streak. Got in on his hands, low and inside with the change-up, couldn't do anything with it but push it out into RF. At least we pushed up the pitch count a bit there. Want to get into their pen innings 4-6, obviously.

Well, at least no double play ball there...but sets up the double play ball for Avila. Seems he either K's, singles, hits the ball weakly or walks, though. KC is 21-7 their last 28 games at USCF. But it was just 6-4 last year. Avila walks. Need a big base hit here to get a 2-0 lead. At the very minimum, one run is a must. Jackson just 2 for his last 20 after the 7 game hitting streak. 10th in the league with infield hits (6). Tried to go to RF there. Not sure why Gee would throw a knuckle-curve there and speed up Jackson's bat but we'll take it.

Lawrie 0/14 and just 3 for his last 25. Still 7th in AL doubles, 19 walks....less than 10 under his total for all of last season. Uh-oh. HBP. No way that was intentional, despite the past history with Lawrie. 90 MPH isn't going to hurt anyone unless it's at the head.

Nice to see the White Sox setting the tone early with their new-and-improved defense. That said, let's get some offense.

The irony is the Mets could actually use him with Harvey possibly going on the shelf, Matz dealing with a few setbacks...luckily, they kept Colon around for just such an occasion. KC collected a bunch of journeyman guys, Chris Young, Gee, Chien Min Wang and Mike Minor (Blanton as well)...Sox countered with Latos/Gonzalez/Turner. And, as predicted, Quintana keeps struggling to retire Perez. Nice double play to get out of the inning. Love the faster-paced games. Playing in Boston, and those Rangers' contests in TX...seems like they were all on a 3 1/2 - 4 hour pace.

Great, jinx ensues.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 20, 2016 -> 06:17 PM) More then usual no doubt, probably a lot of KC fans in the house as well. Bandwagon jumpers. They put together lots of tour packages for Chicago, Dallas, Denver and the Twin Cities/Mall of America (lesser extent) for Kansas Citians. Chicago is one of the most popular destinations, typically.

Normally, pitchers who "bulk up" end up losing too many of their fast-twitch muscles and losing some of their fastball (see Chris Beck)...at any rate, pretty incredible (and fortunate) to have three of the top 10 contracts in the game with Sale/Quintana/Eaton. White Sox tend to struggle with pitchers who top out at 87-90 MPH fastballs...77 mph knuckle curve there.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ May 20, 2016 -> 06:04 PM) God I f***ing hate the schedule now. Inter league all year and what, 60 odd games in the division every year? Gets boring. It would only be nice if we had the Twins on the upcoming schedule to get our offense going again. But, if we can't muster any offense against Gee, Duffy and Ventura... Cain and Salvy Perez, those are the two righties that can hurt you in this line-up. That's basically it. Quintana seems determined to match Chris Sale. Throwing 94-95 MPH?

Buchholz sucks. Red Sox are going to have to get their average of 7 runs per game at Fenway. They have 7 consecutive guys in that line-up on track for 80 RBI's or more. Meanwhile, the Indians just scored 43 against the Reds and went from 10th in the AL in runs scored to 2nd (to Boston). Boston desperately needs to add one more starter to go with Price, Wright and Porcello (Sonny Gray?)...Buchholz is a disaster, Kelly's a question mark and nobody knows when Eddie Rodriguez will return from his knee problems. Btw, Blake Swihart is making his debut in LF, with Christian Vasquez at catcher. Lindor saving one run defensively and gaining another with a great slide to just beat the throw home from Bradley, Jr.