caulfield12

5 innings without a run in the middle innings...that's not so unusual when we put up runs in the early going.

Veal 1 2/3 with no walks or hits. That's SOMETHING. Jordan Danks has been playing very well down there, has his BA all the way up to .311.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 26, 2013 -> 01:57 PM) I'm not a big Lindstrom fan. He seems like a taller Axelrod (though I do tip my cap to Axe for giving all he has). Nothing alike. Lindstrom used to throw 98-100.

25,464. Marlins' announcers actually thought it LOOKED like over 30,000, because the lower bowl was mostly filled. "Winnin' Ugly" is quite appropriate with the 1983 uniforms.

Great work, Lindstrom. Thornton in the 6th? That would be a surprise. Has to get Green out here....

Axelrod's really lucky today....2 runners out today at home. Axelrod would have been at a 4.70 ERA if not for Viciedo and Rios' league-leading 7th outfield assist (not that Rios has been great overall in RF, compared to 2012). Ozuna must have missed the plate.

QUOTE (bbilek1 @ May 26, 2013 -> 01:48 PM) Hawk said nothing as Keppinger made a great play. Is there really a beef there? Robin out, Axelrod out, Lindstrom in. I think he loves Beckham so much, it's hard for him to be objective sometimes...Keppinger's sort of an outsider and hasn't exactly lit up the stat sheet, either. Beckham's just lucky Keppinger has been so terrible or he wouldn't be guaranteed his spot coming back off the DL.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 26, 2013 -> 01:46 PM) This sweep is not yet guaranteed. With our bullpen woes right now, you're right. Productive out, Ozuna down to 2nd with one out. Axelrod lifted after 5 1/3. Of course, if Lindstrom gets lit up here, Ventura's going to be second-guessed because we're forcing our bullpen (Jones or Omogrosso) to cover the 7th in all likelihood, in order to get to Crain/Reed.

Looks like the next man in will be Matt Lindstrom. Please don't give Ozuna 2nd base...need to hold him, Axelrod.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 26, 2013 -> 01:33 PM) LeBlanc sucks lets hammer him. Well, when a Marlins' fan wrote a yahoo article saying he was the worst pitcher on the team (on one of the 2 worst teams in the majors) and should be released...

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 26, 2013 -> 01:33 PM) LeBlanc sucks lets hammer him. Well, when a Marlins' fan wrote a yahoo article saying he was the worst pitcher on the team (on one of the 2 worst teams in the majors) and should be released...

Looks like DET and CLE are going to win...the Tigers are up 6-1 behind Scherzer. Cubs, Royals and Mariners seem to be competing with the Astros/Marlins for 1st pick in the 2014 draft. Almost want the Royals to win a game or two to prevent Yost from being fired....

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 26, 2013 -> 11:08 AM) It cuts down on revenue. Most other teams would be doing a lot more business than the White Sox with the same track record in the same sized market. White sox fans find something wrong with everything, and then try to come across as a more sophisticated fan. It is a pretty simple thing. Go to a game and have fun. When everyone became a fan, the Sox didn't have a history of going to the playoffs every year and winning multiple championships. Now, all these criteria have to be met to get them to a game, and when those are met, they come up with more. People on this board are actually upset they are trying to win. What they need to do is somehow attract new people, and let the whiners die off. You aren't going to make them happy anyway. Yet somehow...."No Whiners!" or "Stop Complaining/Moaning" doesn't seem like the greatest marketing slogan, either. There's no way of attracting fans without insulting our fanbase? Because if we're waiting for the older fans to die out...why aren't we seeing increased attendance from that younger generation of fans in their 20's and 30's who have grown up with mostly KW teams and a World Series winner? Aren't they also the ones who are complacent and hypercritical, whereas it's more the older fans in their 40's and 50's who have always tended to be more supportive/patient, as they'd already gone through decades of bad Sox baseball....namely, for most of the 60's, 70's and 80's?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ May 26, 2013 -> 11:14 AM) They are looking to add, not subtract. Marty would love the Sox to trade Peavy and Rios, and acquired a few more Simon Castros. He also suggested waiving Ramirez and letting Keppinger play SS. If they can acquire another bat, Paulie and Dunn hit well, Beckham plays decently, they have a chance. Every team has holes. This philosophy of trading all your good players for prospects is quite puzzling. Many here say Frank Thomas is the reason they became a Sox fan. Using this sam philosophy, shouldn't the Sox have traded Frank after the 1994 season? He did get a ring with the Sox, but it was not a very productive season and didn't play in the playoffs. I also believe he was hitless in the 2000 playoffs. Rios, Dunn, Konerko and Viciedo....if 3/4 hit with an 850+ OPS for the rest of the season, then they're surely competitive for at least a wild card spot. However, none of those bats can be replaced by trade at the deadline without crippling our major league roster.

Well, you knew a bad outing from Axelrod was coming...if for no other reason than to give us something to debate. Lucky for Viciedo, or he would have given up more runs than Santiago last time out in LA.

Progress. No Alexei Ramirez/Gordon Beckham/Tyler Flowers/Gillaspie mentions. Interestingly, Crain/Reed not part of the conversation, either in terms of being traded or part of a championship-level team.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...54.story?page=1

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ May 26, 2013 -> 12:40 AM) Let's hear it for the New Edition's . Gillaspie tonight and Keppinger last night. Let's hope they end up better than Bobby Brown...

QUOTE (beautox @ May 26, 2013 -> 12:46 AM) I didn't scoff at that notion at all, Santiago compares very favorably to both Santana and Liriano when you sit down and actually look at it As far as a wait and see approach again i think thats very fair but personally i just want a quick book mark to refer to what their potential could be, wether they reach that will come in time. Sox have been very good at developing pitching, maybe the tide will turn with the likes of Semien, Johnson and Thompson. I'm sure everyone on this board realizes that if you can get one major league regular from a draft class you're doing well. No, I wasn't referring to you...well, it doesn't matter, it's the nature of scouting to make comparisons. As for Daniel Webb, it would be interesting if we could get some confirmation from other sources (for example, radar readings outside of BIRM)...I have a hard time believing he's hitting 100 MPH, but we'll see. You hear that high 90's heat mentioned so much today, you take it almost with a grain of salt...like a sub 4.40 forty time.

In some ways, Yost is in charge of the clubhouse culture. As long as that remains positive — and there are no indications otherwise — he will remain the Royals manager. This is what Yost’s life experience has shown him he should do. That’s frustrating to hear when the losses pile up — especially if you don’t understand why Yost sees this as his only option. He tried it the other way, once. That was five years ago, and Yost didn’t know any better. It led to his greatest professional failure. Cost him his job. In a moment, away from the other microphones and cameras, he will help explain where he’s coming from. Ned Yost literally walked into one of the most bizarre firings in baseball history. This was in Chicago. An off day in September 2008. Yost was the Brewers’ manager, and they’d just been swept in Philadelphia. They had lost 11 of 14. Two weeks earlier, they led the wild-card race by 5 1/2 games. Now, they were tied. The ground beneath them trembled. General manager Doug Melvin called Yost to his hotel room. Yost knocked on the door expecting to talk about what needed to happen to turn the team around. He loved his players, and felt particular ownership after seeing them from 106 losses the year before he arrived to the brink of the franchise’s first playoff appearance in 26 years. When he walked into that room and saw owner Mark Attanasio on the couch, Yost knew he wasn’t there to talk about what needed to change. He knew the bosses had decided Yost would be that change. As best anyone can tell, no manager on a playoff contender had ever been fired this late in the season. Every indication is that Attanasio forced Melvin’s hand. The baseball world was stunned. Braves manager Bobby Cox — a mentor to Yost — was furious, saying that no manager at any time could ever feel safe again. The Brewers closed the season 7-5, into the playoffs on fumes. They quickly lost to eventual World Series champion Philadelphia in the first round. Yost spent much of the next year on a tractor working his land in Georgia, thinking about what happened. When the Royals gave him a chance to manage another team built around another group of young prospects, I met with Yost in his office and asked if he’d learned anything from the experience in Milwaukee. “Yeah,” he said, “don’t lose a bunch of games in September.” Those words are flippant, because Yost is often flippant and he doesn’t like to get into this. He watched that group grow up. Stuck with them when nobody else believed, or cared, or both. Part of Yost’s baseball soul will never get over that rejection. He went from a leading Manager of the Year candidate to fired, all because of a brutal two-week stretch. Many around the team aren’t sure the firing made much of an impact except to keep Yost from seeing the project through. But that experience helped shape the Royals of today, for better or worse. People who were part of that Brewers team five years ago — even the ones who believe Yost was railroaded by a meddling and overly emotional owner — think he changed once the losses came in September. Yost admits this, to a point. The man who spent his previous 945 games as manager complimenting and encouraging and smiling spent too much of his final 14 games with the Brewers cursing and yelling and frowning. Yost became the fall guy in an unprecedented baseball move, in other words, but he wasn’t blameless. If his tenseness seeped into the clubhouse, he wasn’t doing his best job. If his cursing after a double play weighed on the mind of the next batter, Yost wasn’t helping. These are the realizations Yost came to on his tractor, the year after being fired. He is a confident man, stubborn and ornery. He is tough enough that he had gall bladder surgery and didn’t miss a day of work, saying it hurt when he breathed, but “besides that I feel pretty good.” So this is not a man who easily accepts disappointment, or dwells much on the bad. But he does like to recognize his own weaknesses. Here was a mistake he made. So he identified it, and worked on it. For better or worse, the result of the most important lesson he learned in Milwaukee is how you see him acting today in Kansas City. “I pushed too hard,” he says now, away from the other microphones and cameras. “Instead of remaining calm, staying positive, I showed my frustration at times. It bleeds through to them. I’ve worked real hard at not doing that here. Nothing, Not even, ‘Damn, how’d you miss that pitch?’ That doesn’t do any good. “I learned that.” It’s worth remembering that baseball people are, generally, much less panicked than fans. Losing a series to the terrible Astros is a sign of trouble, but you want panic? The Angels have a $146 million payroll and are five games under .500. The Dodgers ($216 million) and Blue Jays ($116 million) remade their rosters and payrolls with win-now moves and both are in last place. The Royals are four under .500 in a season many expected them to finish a few games over. “This is nowhere near time to panic,” starting pitcher James Shields says. Shields was on the 2011 Rays team that made up a nine-game deficit in September to make the playoffs. That’s an extreme case — the biggest last-month comeback in major-league history, actually — but an example of why the players aren’t freaking out. The history in Milwaukee that none of them experienced is why Yost is working so hard to keep it that way. Miguel Tejada has made six All-Star teams and won an MVP award in his 16 big-league seasons. He played for a 103-game winner in Oakland, and a 93-game loser in Baltimore. He’s answered to 11 different managers, through good times and bad, hitting streaks and losing streaks, blown ninth innings and walk-off wins. “For me,” Tejada says, “the most important thing a manager can do is give you confidence. That’s the most important thing. And my manager is doing a good job with that.” These words have a different meaning once you better understand Yost’s background, and his motivations. He and general manager Dayton Moore talked about the Milwaukee experience before Yost was hired. Each man knows the expectations, and Moore is complimenting Yost’s work with maintaining “that clubhouse culture.” This is what Yost is focused on now, to not let the same mistakes that got him fired by the Brewers follow him to Kansas City. That means right now, as the Royals attempt to climb from what could be a season-defining slide, is Yost’s first real comprehension test. He knows he is seen by many as the guy who didn’t make it all the way through in Milwaukee, the one who can take you to the door but doesn’t have the key. He’s trying to change that here, and now. Staying calm and positive is the only way he knows how. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. But he tried the other way once. To reach Sam Mellinger, call 816-234-4365, send email to [email protected] or follow him at Twitter.com/mellinger. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/05/25/42562...l#storylink=cpy

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ May 25, 2013 -> 08:51 PM) I really don't know where you get some of this stuff, caufield. Semien has been mentioned in national pubs as being just outside the top 100 or 150 prospects. He may or may not be a starter, that is still very debatable, but ..."let alone I utility guy in the bigs"? He may never make it, but I don't get your idea that he's not even a likely utility guy. Again with Thompson... Are you just trying to look cool by talking guys down? Worst of BA offensively? Again, possible, but come on now, there is a ton of time between now and 2014. Webb hasn't pitched more than a few games above A+, that's why he's not likely to be in Chicago this year, not roster space. If they think he's ready, which he's probably not, he will be up when they need him. EJ's change has become his best pitch. I think his ceiling is a #2 at this point, but #3 is more likely. His FB is 92-93 ish, scrapes higher. Has the SL and CB as well, and has 2 fastballs. Hard to give a comp, better to say he's got good fastballs with control, strong CH, two other pitches and very good mound presence. Micah is fast, but more importantly, is a smart base runner. But his key is all about OBP. This is a guy who could have been a top 5 rounds kick before an injury at IU. His defense needs work, but flashes brilliance. As long as he can keep up the OBP, and to lesser extents steals and AVG, he will get moved up and challenged. It's like the Royals. The only position player they've produced in the last 20+ years was Bo Jackson, and that's basically saying God developed him, not KC. If/when there is actual production from our minor league position players, then I'll start to have some more confidence in them. When I say Hector Santiago is Johan Santana Lite, that's scoffed at. Of course, most of the people who follow the minors closely tend to get attached to their prospects and start seeing them through rose-colored glasses. It's human nature. Heck, maybe everyone does it...I know that I do it sometimes with Santiago and Viciedo, where in the process of defending them, you become unrealistic in assessing what their true abilities are...so I'd be glad to be wrong about any of the position players in our system, in the end. But, like Thomas from the Bible, they'll have to prove it to me before I will accept it on faith. We're comparing all these guys how might not even make it with major league starters/veterans who have had long careers....Lowrie, Mark Ellis, James Shields (who is an ace on many teams, or at least a strong #2 guy), Chone Figgins, Eric Young, Jr., etc. Our entire minor league system hasn't produced that level of impact in the last six or seven years (looking at position players again). Sure, we can compare Mitchell to Carl Crawford, and Hawkins to one of about 10-15 budding superstars, but that doesn't mean anything to opposing scouts and GM's. You said the comparison of Thompson to Brian Anderson was insulting, yet Anderson had a lot more hype and expectations placed on him when he was drafted than Trayce has ever had...

QUOTE (flavum @ May 25, 2013 -> 08:08 PM) At this point, just take the wins and hope they come around. .500 tomorrow. 26-14 until July 9. They're still a long ways from matching up with DET and CLE offensively. The starting pitching has to be complemented by SOMEONE besides Reed and Crain in the bullpen. However, one certainty, the defense simply HAS to improve with Beckham back, there's that at least. And the catching position. DET can afford to have Avila struggling there with Cabrera slated for 100 RBI's before the All-Star game.

QUOTE (beautox @ May 25, 2013 -> 08:05 PM) a couple of things, is Webb on the fast track? I see he pitched 2 innings down at AA if our pen continues to struggle whats a realistic ETA? Everything I've seen and read with regards to E. Johnson says he will be a #3 with a solid 4 pitch mix and mid 90s fastball, does anyone see more than that from him? what would be some real comps for him? for May Trayce Thompson .296/.436/.423 - .859 OPS in 19 games with 16BB/19SO, is he finally turning those tools into skills and if continues to improve at this pace does he finish out the year at AAA with a cup of coffee in Chicago? What are some player ceiling comps for Sieman and Micah Johnson? Lowrie and Eric Young Jr.? I don't think anyone in baseball is projecting Semien as a starter at this point, let alone utility guy in the bigs. As far as Thompson, it would be great if he could take over CF...but imagine the worst of Brian Anderson offensively (with the pressure already on the O) and you'll get an idea of what would likely happen were he to be the starter in 2014. Defensively, he would be a big upgrade on DeAza, who would either be traded or moved to LF with Viciedo at 1B/DH. Webb probably won't be an option until rosters expand...unless they trade Crain/Lindstrom/Jones (or send down Jones). As for Johnson, Harrelson compared him with Koehler, the guy on the mound for the Marlins last night. Said Koehler's fastball is just a notch higher, so that means 92-93-94 out of Johnson, touching 95. Definitely has a good shot at becoming a 3 if he can perfect that change-up he's working on.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ May 25, 2013 -> 08:01 PM) Pods made up for it. Jenks made up for it in Game 4 (with a little help from Uribe, lol).

QUOTE (flavum @ May 25, 2013 -> 08:01 PM) Is there any part of you that thinks it was stupid to send him home with no out? Definitely. Throw's on line, he's out. Then all the momentum is gone...