caulfield12

Flowers seemingly can only homer but never hit with RISP in clutch situations.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ May 16, 2013 -> 09:04 PM) No excuse I am tired every other day De Aza doing something stupid costing team wins. Waiting for the WAR argument that DeAza's the best position player...3, 2, 1...? Quintana season ERA at 3.80. Coming into the year, that would be considered a number a bit better than most expected...yet it still feels a little disappointing. Secretly, many were hoping he would be the "stealth ace" he was in the first half of last season. Well, at least he didn't completely go south like Phil Humber. (Crosses fingers.)

The way this game/thread is going, we'll have a mini-Crusade breaking out with more Hamilton comments, lol.

3 hits and 1 run for the Sox and it's wiped out in a matter of 2-3 minutes. SIGH.

DeAza with bad base-running or just nothing he could do there?

QUOTE (fathom @ May 16, 2013 -> 08:45 PM) Rios with some great throws this week! Seems he went into a stupor both offensively AND defensively but is waking up again.

Another scary thing for PK. He was 5/11 for his career coming into that AB against Williams. This is starting to remind me of how Roberto Alomar and Sandberg just completely went south almost in the span of 6 months to a year and weren't even close to the same players they were before. Not a gradual fall-off. Last year, we all credited the wrist bone fragments with being the main problem. Yay, defense? Or was it just a really bad decision to send the runner home by the 3rd base coach?

FWIW (and it's probably not much!), the Indians will be back in a first place tie if the Tigers/Rangers score holds up.

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ May 16, 2013 -> 08:41 PM) good thing Dunn is tall Almost another error from Keppinger?

Well, this has to be penciled into the (so far) 5 most boring games of the season category.

Well, that was fast. Jerome Williams always was terrible (at least it seemed that way), but he's stuck around for a long time with the Angels. And he has a good ERA this year as well. Thought of him more as a fifth starter/long reliever than an integral part of a rotation (and part of the reason for him starting is Weaver's injury).

Here's my recent reading list for anyone who wants a review Black Holes & Time Warps (book that new Christopher Nolan movie INTERSTELLAR is based on) Wild, From Lost to Found on the Pacific Trail Inferno Ready Player One Gone Girl, Sharp Objects, Dark Places=Gillian Flynn, local Kansas City/KU writer Pound Foolish (for those interested in investing) What Money Can't Buy (Harvard philosophy professor Michael Sandel) The Racketeer Man Gone Down Newlyweds People Who Eat Darkness 11/22/63 The Fault in Our Stars...great book, more for someone between 14-22, but extremely well-written Divergent Insurgent The End of Your Life Book Club Outliers---Malcolm Gladwell Pacific Rims (about the love of all things basketball/NBA in the Philippines, chronicles a PBA professional team for one year) Deciding from for next book....The Bling Ring OR http://www.amazon.com/And-Mountains-Echoed..._dp_s_cp_3_EENZ

I liked the Dan Brown book...but I'm not sure it's worth buying. Better to reserve it from your local library. (In my hometown, there's a program where you can pay $2-3 for "rapid read" popular books that just came out). However, here in China, had to buy through NOOK/Barnes&Noble. Better than the Lost Symbol, about equal with Angels & Demons...personally, I enjoyed the "overpopulation/Malthus/WHO" scientific side of it, but that was kind of underplayed compared to the travelogue of Florence, Venice and Istanbul. There weren't nearly as many symbols or codes in this one, so if you really like that aspect of his work (going back to Digital Fortress and Deception Point), then you'll surely be disappointed. Same formula....international intrigue....nefarious forces, hooks up with brainy/troubled/enigmatic sidekick girl in late 20's/early 30's with a hint of romance in the air but also the age difference hanging over them, etc. etc.

Verlander has already walked in two runners in this inning alone. That's coming off a 110 pitch performance against the Indians where he was lifted after only 5 IP. Pounded into the ground. 8 runs allowed, pulled after 2 2/3. ERA still "only" 3.10. Reminds me of the start he had last year where the Royals torched him. Has to be some concern in Tiger Land now, with the Passan decreasing velocity article...now these last two starts.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/05/16/cann...the-bling-ring/ Very positive review of new Sophia Coppola movie (personally, one of my favorite directors) and Cannes/European take on why The Great Gatsby is doing so well despite the mixed reviews...

http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb...0,4196401.story Arte Moreno falling on his own sword out in LA, at least so far...

RS/RA differentials 1. AL Central, +91 (4/5 teams with positive differential) 2. NL Central, +76 3. AL East, +38 4. NL West, -2 5. AL West, -99 6. NL East, -104 American League=+30 National League=-30

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ May 16, 2013 -> 03:34 PM) The Beatles were still technically a band when Mariano Rivera was born. He was born 4 months after we landed on the moon. Still in the bigs. Are you sure that really happened? Dammit. Thanks for reminding me how old I am!!! I'm 26 days older than Mariano. Can always say "I'm a Sixties Kid," haha. When Vizquel was playing not so long ago, it was comforting to know there was at least one player in MLB older than me, along with Jamie Moyer. Ken Griffey, Jr., is right around the same ago, too.

QUOTE (SI1020 @ May 16, 2013 -> 05:28 PM) I could not possibly disagree with you more. You just can't look at as Lee the fearsome hitter vs Podsednik the weak armed slap hitting outfielder. 2005 was the only year in recent and not so recent history that the Sox didn't have an all or nothing approach to offense. Yeah they hit a ton of homers but they got off to that great start with Pods and Iguchi leading the way. Didn't they take the lead in the first 37 games that year? Podsednik totally changed the dynamic and it's no coincidence that they struggled when he started having his injury problems. Like Caufield mentioned the Podsednik trade opened up the other possibilities and fortunately Kenny was at the top of his game. Scott Podsednik is a big reason why I refuse to become a stat slave to WAR. Kenny doesn't make that trade and we're looking at 95 years and counting. Wasn't the consecutive games (taking the lead) at the start of 2006 when the offense was just killing people (including the team that would go on to win the World Series, the Cardinals)? Hmmm, can't remember anymore.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ May 16, 2013 -> 10:38 AM) Adrian Beltre still hates when you touch his head http://mlb.mlb.com/fancave/blog.jsp?conten...bid=Yp6liHwYHO9 Tigers getting to Darvish early in the "Showdown of the Century." 3-1 Tigers in the top of the 3rd at the Balpark in Arlington.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 16, 2013 -> 05:36 PM) http://www.milb.com/scoreboard/index.jsp?s...mp;ymd=20130516 Another steal for Johnson. Beck with an awful first inning, continuing the trend of the starting pitching struggles. Just goes to show you the danger of those at one time "elite" pitchers whose names are thrown out a year before the draft. One set of mechanical problems, bulking up, a shoulder injury or mysterious loss of velocity and they're done with...except for those consensus top 1-2-3 guys, it's almost impossible to distinguish and project, especially for high school pitchers. I remember about a decade or so ago the Royals taking this kid named Colt Griffin from Texas. You don't have any way of knowing if these kids were using PED's at the time, but back then, any high school kid throwing 96-100 on the radar guns was automatically projected to be a future star, almost. The problem is the "falling in love with the radar gun readings" syndrome. On the one hand, you have a guy like Axelrod, the shortest RH starter in baseball and the one with the lowest average fastball that opposing annoucing teams make fun of... It is a bit amusing that our pitching successes (recently) are guys like Quintana, Axelrod and Santiago who were nowhere close to the first round or picked up by the minor league scouts. None of those guys are/were "hard throwers" in the typical KW mold, although Santiago can definitely get it up there in a hurry. Maybe Johnson or Beck will be exceptions.

Better than the weekend games. Same with Cangelosi...those usually mean waking up at 1-2-3 a.m. For these games on the West Coast, they start at 10 a.m. China time, so it gives me something to do during lunchtime or when I'm not teaching and am stuck with "office hours."

QUOTE (Tex @ May 16, 2013 -> 10:42 AM) Kids behavior gets out of hand in hurry. Something as silly as holes in jeans have become a major source of distraction here. It is so annoying trying to gain the attention of the class while the boys are discussing whether they could see some girls underwear or WHAT!!!! through the holes in her jeans. So why should the school have to deal with jeans with holes? But, even if the kids wear uniforms, the boys will "sag" and sooner or later, their pants will be falling down completely. The girls will show up at school with skirts below the knees and then magically they'll be mini-skirts later. Or the girls will order white button-down blouses that are 2 sizes small...or wear sexy stockings to show their individuality. It will always be something, right?

Or Zach Stewart. Or Daniel Hudson for Jackson after Hudson only had 3 starts.

Or Zach Stewart. Or Daniel Hudson for Jackson after Hudson only had 3 starts.