caulfield12

Well, if he was pitching for the White Sox this season, it would be on a $90-100 million contract, because the only way he was signing with us was doing it at some point in the first 3-4 months of 2015. Shark's deal would subtract most of the leftover flexibility for adding a platoon LH bat, a starting pitcher and a reliever.

Davidson, Sanchez, Erik Johnson will get...maybe...a useful reliever. Which still could be quite helpful. Delmonico's the interesting one, even moreso than Hayes, IMO (of the second/third tier guys).

White Sox record with Sale/Quintana/Latos/Gonzalez starting: 23-5 Record with Danks/Johnson/Rodon starting: 2-11

Unstoppable! Chris Sale becomes 1st pitcher since 2008, and 4th since 1950, to win his 1st 9 starts of the season. pic.twitter.com/oMeKlXU6Rg 15h

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ May 19, 2016 -> 07:03 PM) What makes Saladino an awful hitter this year and Rollins isn't awful? Going into yesterday, about 60 OPS points. Both aren't exactly lighting the world on fire, and Rollins struggles as LHB and should be lower in the order, but the team seems to play better/with more confidence when he's out in the field. Shields is pitching well tonight against the Giants. ERA around 3 and 46 strikeouts. What are his peripherals at the moment? You just get the feeling he might be motivated to mix it up one more time in the AL Central, especially after the Royals didn't make any attempt to sign him after 2014 (and watching the team he once led win the World Series the following year).

Atta boy, Chris. Takes a deep breath. The 2016 Cy Young Award is yours to lose after Kluber and Keuchel got in the way with anomalous seasons in their careers.

Two outs...

One down. Huge out. Altuve's the best contact hitter of the three.

Couldn't have asked for more potential drama here with the 9th. The best hitter in the AL, the best young player and one of the Top 5-10 young power threats in the game.

Why is Sanchez on the roster again? Just don't understand why he's not playing everyday in AAA...yes, he has nothing to prove there, but he has no future with the White Sox before the year 2018. And Saladino gives you the positional versatility across the same three positions, he can rest Rollins and play better defense there than Carlos and he's also a faster PR and he also has a bit more pop in his bat.

Scott Merkin@scottmerkin Sale gets the top of the Houston order in the top of the 9th. Merkin already predicting Robin will leave Sale in...

Didn't the Astros send Gattis down 2-3 weeks ago because he was struggling so badly? Seems like he's snapped out of it. Streaky hitter, that's for sure, has been ever since he debuted with the Iron Bank of (Atlanta) Bravos.

Evan Gattis is 2-for-3 tonight. The rest of the Astros are 1-for-22. For anyone who actually watched FOR LOVE OF THE GAME with Costner, someone made a funny remark that Gattis looks like Gus Sinski (John Reilly). Man, that was a hard movie to watch...maybe because it was the Tigers.

Uh-oh. Luckily, we just added a run there or we'd all be listening to ominous horror movie piano and violin sounds as a soundtrack.

Scott Merkin@scottmerkin Wilbur Wood (13 in 1973) and Red Faber (10 in 1921) are the only White Sox pitchers since 1913 to reach 10 wins prior to June. Avila at least made enough contact to get a SAC FLY. Should be a BIT of a sigh of relief in that dugout for the moment. Can't let up against that line-up, though. Too many hitters capable of taking a walk and turning it into a 2-2 game.

Looks like Jerry Sands has silenced his critics for another week. As long as you keep him out of the outfield, he can be dangerous...to the other team.

Scott Merkin@scottmerkin Carrer stolen base No. 469 for Jimmy Rollins Nice on there, Scott. Maybe he was thinking of Ezequiel Carerra.

QUOTE (SouthSideSale @ May 19, 2016 -> 07:54 PM) Sale is doing what Verlander used to do for Detroit. I remember the Tigers going in a small funk and he'd just carry them at times. The Tigers have had some other really good pitchers (especially Scherzer and now Zimmerman), but when he was going good from 2006-2012/13, you just couldn't beat him. He would keep adding velocity and become harder and harder to hit as the game wore on. You just hoped and prayed to extend his pitch count and get the game to the pen...of course, at that time, especially early in his career, the White Sox had some excellent fastball hitters, Konerko especially. Sabathia, Johan Santana for almost his entire Twins' career and Liriano in 2006 were the other ones that come to mind.

Swinging 2-0? Okay, but it might be better to work the count even more and get McHugh out of the game. Your goal should be to reach 1st base any way possible, and hopefully add on an insurance run.

Sale's ERA under 1.50 now. Pitch count in the mid-80's. Hate this decision coming up for Ventura...if he "sails" through the 8th, I hope to god Ventura leaves him in and doesn't bring Robertson into the game. Sale's the best pitcher in the world right now, and we really need this game, about as much as any game this season so far.

You might as well hand Chris Sale the Cy Young right now if he records a shutout in this game.

Hinch said "the approach was going to be to hunt fastballs early." https://t.co/OE9yR84jU3 That's not working out well so far. And now we have the most dreaded inning for all White Sox fans coming up, the next half after the offense has blown another big opportunity to add on a run.

REALLY?

There's another vote for the Sale/Eaton ticket. Execution here...desperately need to score this run and get a little cushion. Not so much for Sale, but more for the sake of the offense regaining some confidence in their ability to drive in a runner from 3rd and less than 2 outs. Especially against someone who doesn't have great stuff, have to make contact.

Tough to pick between Altuve, Machado and Eaton for quarter pole MVP. Probably has to go to one of the latter two guys because of where their teams are located in terms of divisional races.