caulfield12

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 9, 2013 -> 01:41 PM) Would you move Beckham into the 2nd spot? Not yet. Just leave him alone and let him hit. If he can continue this for another month or six weeks, then you move him (and/or trade Ramirez) up.

Warning track power.

Hawkins 0/3 with 2 K's. Up and down. Ravelo with his 1st homer. There's that. Tyler Greene playing RF today. Veal ERA at 0.61. Confidence in AAA.

DeAza now with 10 hits in the four game set. Looking hitterish.

Great play by Gillaspie, flashing the leather. Santiago through 5 innings now, 82 pitches. 3.20 ERA. In line for his 2nd victory, would be 2-4 (lost in extra innings last Sunday on the walk-off walk against Reddick). The victory was 3-1 over the Rangers and Justin Grimm.

Oakland in their last 7 series. 6-0-1

QUOTE (Friend of Nordhagen @ Jun 9, 2013 -> 12:47 PM) It's entirely possible that both Kenny Williams and Phil Rogers were (and are) inept. That's where I'm leaning. If Phil Rogers won a Pulitzer or a Peabody, then I'd be with you.

Can never seem to get a knockout blow against this A's team. Still, we'll take it. Relatively speaking, an offensive explosion.

HOF Beckham. 2nd RBI of the season in 14 games, haha.

Viciedo 3 for his last 40, lol. Conor 3 for his last 35. OUCH. Another Dayan walk.

Nice job, Conor. Good situational hitting. 3 for his last 35 before that at-bat. Gillaspie and Viciedo have gone south at almost exactly the same time.

QUOTE (ptatc @ Jun 9, 2013 -> 01:13 PM) Could be the reason they want him in the pen right now. But that's the problem. He can't get a feel for his secondary stuff in the bullpen. He's not as comfortable pitching out of the stretch, and he typically settles down in innings 3-4-5 when he would already be out of the game as a reliever. Let's just put it this way. He's a lot more likely to discover himself as a starter at the big league level than as a reliever. Dunn with a terrible read. Not the best baserunner, and certainly not the speed or burst to make up for misreads, either.

Nice 10 pitch at-bat for Dunn. Only his 6th double of the season. C'mon, Paulie.

Can anyone name the only active LH batter with more homers than Dunn?

Didn't realize Pettite had 79 career wins saved by Mariano Rivera. Wow. 250 now total. His son (Pettite's) also drafted the same day he picked up another victory. Must be a proud papa. (Never hated him quite as much as some of the other Yankees like Paul O'Neill).

Weird anomaly. A's facing five consecutive lefties (including Sabathia), then 16 consecutive righties. Brandon Moss feeling left out.

Ramirez not with one of his better at-bats. This offense really feels like the one we had in the late 80's. By the way, they need to have Melido Perez Bobblehead Day. Just to recreate the soul-glo (Coming to America) look of Eriq LaSalle (Dr. Benton from ER), haha. Now I would go to a Sox game this June/July for THAT. As it is, I'll be in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, The Congo (saying hi to Dikembe Mutombo and Ben Affleck), South Sudan, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Thanks White Sox for not making that a difficult decision. I'll be the first, or one of the first, SoxTalk posters from Africa....theoretically.

Tyler Flowers showing some signs of life recently. Homer #6.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 9, 2013 -> 12:54 PM) Today would be a good day for Beckham's first homer Not sure about that. Then he'd get homer happy, end up with 10-12 at the end of the season but another 625 OPS.

All three Cubans involved on that play, haha. Too bad we have the wrong ones for right now.

Uh-oh. Homer #7 for Crisp, all on the road. You can't win any games if you don't score. At least Viciedo is hitting better against RHP than BJ Upton, haha.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 9, 2013 -> 12:38 PM) Definitely. 2011 is when Hector added the screwball and he had pretty much lost it entirely a calendar year later. Impressive that he has gotten by without the pitch that many thought was responsible for his rise through the minors. He has mentioned that the changeup is also new, so even though it isn't good it might be making his fastball better. His curveball is just okay, to me. Might be his best offspeed, though. Which is why having the 8th highest K/9 ratio in all of MLB WITHOUT a great secondary pitch is even more amazing. Someone doing that with mostly fastballs, you're committing a crime if you're not pushing them to get pitches 2 and 3 in your repertoire down. It almost seems that Santiago was consumed with having 4-5 pitches (as a minor leaguer) and trying to throw all of them, and, in the process, he didn't perfect any of them....making them all more or less "meh." When he does throw the screwball, it has a ton of movement, unfortunately, he hasn't mastered the touch and command with it enough to keep hitters completely off his fastball when he gets behind in the count.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 9, 2013 -> 12:36 PM) Agreed on both counts. Rumor had it that Flowers had some tendonitis in the shoulder in the early parts of the season and his throws have gotten eons better. Flowers has had a lot of physical problems considering the lack of wear and tear on him over the last 18 months...back spasms as well.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 9, 2013 -> 12:34 PM) Almost never throws it now. FanGraphs shows it at ~5% last time I looked at it. He told the Score in the preseason that he had to quit throwing it because he can't find his release point in a bullpen warmup. Throws a lot of changeups, which aren't very good. That's why he has to be a starter, and why you can make an argument we could survive and compete in 2014 without Peavy a lot more easily than if we traded Rios/Ramirez.

Lots of walks and strikeouts. Santiago says he wants to build an indoor baseball facility in Newark, NJ. Great kid. Went to Newtown, CN, was also involved in the Hurricane Sandy relief, seems to really treasure the opportunity to be a big league player and using his fame/celebrity to help people in a genuine way. Looks like we got very lucky with the call at 2B, probably was safe.