caulfield12

Go Colombia! Dispatch the Biteless Blue.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 28, 2014 -> 08:57 AM) First off, Jones was never the closer. The pen was also horrible at the beginning of the season, but had a good stretch. There are a lot of gas cans in this bullpen, and a lot of guys who have a difficult time throwing strikes. Roles can be established, but it is impossible to establish roles for ineffective pitchers.w You really believe that Lindstrom was the planned closer from the time they signed him in the off-season? I don't remember it being that clear at all.

QUOTE (southside hitman @ Jun 28, 2014 -> 08:35 AM) We don't need a "closer." Go by committee; pick the hot hand. We're on our fourth closer of the season already, essentially. Jones, Lindstrom, Belisario and now ??? (Guerra/Petricka). If you go with the "hot hand," how many blown saves do they get to prove they're not the hot hand? There's just no way that this strategy, with the talent we have remaining in our pen (or lack thereof), is going to yield anything close to an 80-85% save conversion rate. Who would even be the "hot hand" now? Petricka? Putnam? Guerra? They each have their own unique set of pro's and con's. The ONLY time the pen was working well was when Putnam knew he was the 7th inning guy, Belisario 8th and Lindstrom 9th. If you keep changing their roles every night, it just won't work very effectively. Bullpens need to have consistency and established roles...defined expectations.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Jun 27, 2014 -> 07:38 PM) Jacob May with two more SBs. It seems he is snagging bags at will. We've already seen this with Micah Johnson in A ball. When he replicates those numbers at BIRM and Charlotte, then you can be legitimate excited.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Jun 27, 2014 -> 08:41 PM) Just played a clip of Robin on the post-game radio show. Sure sounded like Bella is out as the closer. Said that he was going to shake things up in the pen. Said that he and Coop were going to "hash it out," tonight. Said when he went to the mound he told Bella not to be afraid to throw strikes. Very complimentary of Petricka, but did not commit to him. All of those pitches that Belisario gave up hits on were right down the middle of the plate...he probably also said you might want to try a different pitch than a fastball in the killing zone. Flowers and Danks were also having troubles coming to agreement on pitch selection earlier in the game. Surkamp seemed rattled early but did his job to get the DP ball that Conor whiffed on. That's at least 2-3 times Gillaspie has made late-game errors that were pretty critical.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 27, 2014 -> 08:42 PM) Homers matter: 0 homers: 6-28 1 homer: 12-11 2 or more: 19-5 I wonder how many times the White Sox have lost games they had 4 or more homers? It almost happened tonight. The Belisario "hold/non-blown save" is the most ridiculous statistic is baseball. He gave up a homer, got one out and gave up two more hits and he's somehow rewarded for 3/4 hitters reaching base or scoring.

After the way things have been going, you almost expected to lose that one. Not even really a sigh of relief. Pitchers are afraid of the defense making mistakes behind them, and the entire team doesn't trust the bullpen to hold a lead. The perfect storm. A bit difficult to build a winning/attitude culture at the major league level when there's such a lack of trust. One can only hope that Hahn finds a way to find a more reliable closer before 2015. Another hope would be that we don't put all our faith in Nate Jones, assuming he actually pitches in August-September and looks pretty good.

Reminiscent of Juan Pierre leading off...giving the most at-bats in a game to Leury. RA Dickey climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, there's that (although it's the easiest of the 7 continents in terms of scaling the tallest summit). Beckham close to falling into the .250's for the first time since the 7-10 day period after he returned from the oblique. So much for the White Sox offense. Surely facing a knuckleballer is unlikely to help...

Now DJ is saying it's a "leg circulation problem," whatever that means.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/mlb/cincin...p;vkey=news_mlb Reds sign reliever (hopeful starter) Raisel Iglesias for essentially $32 million over 7 years. Looks like we're getting some competition from the NL Central on the Cuban front.

With this killer offensive line-up, we'll see which Danks (over the last 5-6 weeks) is the real one and which is the imposter.

You can probably cross Russia (unless they fix the draw in their favor) and Qatar off that future list (if the WC's even held there at this point, with the bribery scandal) of host teams getting to the knockout round. Qatar could probably beat Maldives, Afghanistan or Yemen? Maybe Eritrea...

It's becoming a great sport of course for the critics to outdo each other....screaming for attention by coming up with the most outlandish comments they can possibly make about the latest Bay directorial effort, or any Adam Sandler movie. In the end, it makes them furious when those movies are so popular and profitable that they spawn more and more sequels. Transformers, in the end, is about marketing and selling toy robots. In terms of whether it accomplishes that goal, Bay does it better than the Happy Meal (tricking all the kids into buying the food to get the surprise inside) or sugar-laced cereal advertising on Saturday mornings. Then you have the cultural criticism that's intertwined with the tone of many movies that are coming out which are joint ventures between the U.S. and China. The last 35 minutes takes place in China/Hong Kong/Chongqing UNESCO World Heritage Site and is clearly pandering to achieve increased China box office results. At least, from what I understand, Li Bing Bing is more than just a face on the screen, in comparison to fellow Chinese star Fan Bing Bing, who was utilized to negligible effect at the end of Iron Man 3 and also the recent X-Men film. They even had a branded Transformers reality t.v. show, essentially a competition to select and cast 2 professional actors and 2-4 amateurs in the final version of the film...as well as the premieres and promotions in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

“That game just smelled right from the start,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “We didn’t play very well, didn’t hit very well, didn’t play defense very well and it showed.” “I hope it (flat). I hope it looked that way. It was. Hopefully it was getting in late and part of the whole travel thing. We’ll find out tomorrow.” www.csnchicago.com http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/02/...YUPI/story.html Preseason results of managers' rankings from talking to people throughout baseball industry.... Ventura ranked 23rd, with the comment that it's difficult to place him with the changing environment of the team...hopefully you'll see the comments connected to Gibbons at #20 come into play as we head into 2015 with an almost new team compared to the 2013 version. There’s a feeling Gibbons was too laid-back and he has vowed to be more assertive this season and hold his players accountable.

The White Sox should know more on Eaton’s status on Friday. He said the combination of a long game Wednesday with a 69-minute rain delay in humid weather had him in bad shape before first pitch. The leadoff man was removed after one at-bat for precautionary reasons as Ventura was concerned Eaton was vulnerable to a longer-term injury had he stayed in the lineup. Eaton said he must communicate better with his coaching staff about when he needs a day off. “It basically crushed my legs,” Eaton said. “It didn’t look good, didn’t feel good. We’ll be kind of day-to-day right now is what we’re hoping for. They feel even better after some of the treatment. “Hopefully we can deal with it today and get back hopefully. It’s been feeling great for a week or so, like it comes and goes. Last night kind of pushed ‘em back. Hopefully we’ll bounce back, I did almost kind of get an off day. Should be good tomorrow.” Not the most promising of comments for the future. www.csnchicago.com

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 03:54 PM) Lol at Russia. What an embarrassing tournament. They better figure out a way to throw money at the problem and not have such an embarassing effort on their home field/s in 2018.

There's another problem with Eaton, just highlighted in tonight's game. Leaping at the last second for the 1B bag when he's running down the line. Just knocked him out. All these little injuries mount over the course of a season for a player that size.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 12:24 PM) Which is fine, but I was responding to him being the Sox #1 starter in the minors. Maybe they can get Kelly Wunch out of him. Wunschie...that delivery of his. He wasn't the most handsome of men, but he was effective. Was one of about 11-12 Sox pitchers at roughly the same time (2001-2002) to go down with serious injuries. We need someone down in that pen with some swagger and cockiness, like Scott Radinsky early in his White Sox career.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 12:23 PM) If you ever read a gamethread, this is at least a 125 win team if managed correctly. More like a 125 loss team according to soxfest and greg, lol.

1) What the hell was that Bradley? Way too many loose passes all over the field, which caused me to cringe every time the ball came to you...waiting for a breakout the other direction. 2) More Yedlin please. 3) Germany was clearly the better team...dominated every statistical category and we're fortunate Loew stepped on the brakes after Mueller scored or we easily could have been knocked out by that +2 goal differential with Ghana. An assist goes to Boateng/Appiah or Muntari/GFA for messing up their team chemistry completely the last couple of days. 4) Happy for Klinsmann being validated a bit (despite the last second Portugal goal)...it would have been amazing to get to face Russia/Algeria and then France (probably) to get to the Final 4, and done wonders for soccer in America, but we'll just have to do our best to knock off Belgium and Edens Hazard (one of the coolest tourney names). Obviously, we won't be favored against Belgium, so that might work to our advantage to continue to play the underdog role that fits this team's mindset so well...compared to being expected by lots of Americans to beat Russia/Algeria. Well, that's the positive spin. 5) Seems like the US didn't have a legit shot at goal until the two chances in the last 2-3 minutes. That offensive effort was garbage. Seems like they just had a really hard time controlling the ball and making simple passes....granted, the weather was a factor, but it didn't seem to affect Germany as much as the US.

QUOTE (flavum @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 11:55 AM) You're missing the point. It's amazing how many Sox apologists are on this board. Nothing the Sox do can be wrong. Again---what year do the training wheels come off (yes, I know this will take a couple years), and excuses and bad managers can't be an excuse? 2016? 2017? Or will it just be--blame a couple bullpen arms---oh well---4th and 5th in the division again...try next year. We still wouldn't be expected to compete this season with Tanaka AND Abreu. Next year, it will be... 1) Avisail needs a year of recovery time before we can expect quality results 2) No point to spend money on a veteran closer unless you're legitimately within sight of an 85 win team 3) Replacing Beckham/Ramirez up the middle with XYZ player...it will take at least 1-2 years for them to gel as a DP combination and get their feet wet offensively as well 4) It's hard to stick a new catcher out there on the field again and start over (unless it's the 2005 Sox) with a new pitching staff...he'll (whoever replaces Flowers) need at least half a season, especially if he's coming from the NL or AA/AAA 5) LH power hitting and Tier B veteran starting pitching was too expensive on the FA market...we just missed out on a couple of our targets, but we're saving our bullets for 2016 (see Cubs' philosophy) 6) Just wait until Anderson, Hawkins and Montas make an impact, then things will really start to change 7) Lowered attendance and lost sponsorship revenues are limiting payroll.... 8) White Sox won't get to take advantage of huge media deals like many teams have received in the last 2-3 years 9) We can't expect the errors/fundamentals/baserunning to get cleaned up until we start over with all younger, homegrown players....and get rid of DeAza, Viciedo and Ramirez

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 09:44 AM) I'm not saying get a new pitching coach, but if you are going to rip Robin for pitching changes, or having a guy go a little longer than you would like, people should know Cooper is part of the decision. If Robin is really that comfortable putting the game in the hands of Don Cooper, then why does he want to be manager in the first place? Eventually, he's going to have a Harry Truman/General Douglas McArthur moment where he realizes the two of them can't co-exist unless he wants to be totally emasculated as a manager. As far as Cooper goes, Noesi/Putnam/Petricka are all wins for him. Did anyone expect much out of Danks again, for example lower than a 4.00 ERA? If you're going to blame him for Scott Downs, Erik Johnson or Daniel Webb, then we might as well blame Jeff Manto for Keppinger.

QUOTE (Eminor3rd @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 09:40 AM) Why talk about something that will never in a million billion trillion quadrillion years happen??? If they do want to move on without Robin at some point, it won't be announced as a firing anyway. He'll move to a different position in the organization or there will be some type of pr spinmeister press release covering Robin's pride and demonstrating the never-ending patience and loyalty of JR.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 09:36 AM) Still amazed that some folks havent figured out this is a rebuild. But it's not...simply because the majority of the talent's going to have to come from other organizations, it's nothing like what the Cubs are doing. They're telling fans to wait for 5-6 years (this is year 4 and they won't even bring up Kris until June, 2015) for Bryant, Baez, Rizzo, Castro, Soler and Almora to take the National League Central by storm. It's a restructing of the roster, but it's still more of a "win now" mode due to the presence already of Sale/Abreu/Quintana...if it was a true rebuild, they'd start completely over instead of having those three building blocks all in their primes. And they would have waited pulling the trigger on someone like Tanaka because they wouldn't want to waste the best 2-3 years of his big league career on non-contending/rebuilding/restructuring teams.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Jun 26, 2014 -> 09:33 AM) This isn't about husband and wife though. This is like having a car (Ventura) and a house (Hahn) and you can decide whether or not you want to keep them or get different ones. I mean, seriously, Hahn and Ventura have almost nothing to do with each other's job security. The Padres might disagree.