caulfield12

Quintana has the velocity still, but his command has gone with the innings overload.

Atta boy Dayan. This is getting to be like Big 10 basketball, win at home, lose on the road against the good teams and hope to play .500 or above against the weaker teams on the road.

The run with RISP was 2/32 before the two late Konerko and Beckham hits last night. Now we've had 4 in about 6-7 AB's in the same situation. Meanwhile, Balt threatens to tie up the Yankees. Who do you give Manager of the Year to....Showalter, Melvin or Ventura? Melvin, probably, by a neck.

Almost nobody in the bleachers tonight. Lots of empty seats (rare sight) in Detroit as well.

1 1/2 game lead (thanks to the blown Red Sox Thursday night game the night before, should have been 2 1/2) the first time we got swept, 3 this last time... Leadoff Avila double stranded, 3-0 going to top of the 4th...survived liner to 2B and back to Masterson

Then you have another poll question... Who do you most trust to beat Justin Verlander in Game 4? A) Chris Sale B) Hector Santiago C) Dylan Axelrod D) Jose Quintana E) Phil Humber Those are our five options, realistically.

Of course, it's Mendoza/Chen/Guthrie against us, haha. Wouldn't have it any other way. But going.... Sale vs. Porcello Peavy vs. Fister Liriano vs. Scherzer (rematch) Quintana vs. Verlander Might be the better option. It all depends on how Quintana looks tonight, and Santiago/Axelrod this weekend. I wouldn't be 100% opposed to Santiago getting that start in Game 4 over Quintana if he beats the Royals this weekend. You have to go with the livest arm. The only concern I would have is using Liriano and Santiago back to back. They're a lot more similar than going Liriano and Quintana. Then again, if Axelrod pitches another gem, you could change things up by using him, but I still am not ready to trust Axelrod against Verlander YET. Want to see how all 3 guys look the next time out first.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Sep 4, 2012 -> 09:43 AM) Why? It's not like the other starters in our rotation have beaten up KC lately, and it's not like Axe and Santiago have been automatic losses lately either. Therein lies the dilemma. Have Sale start the opener, and then you can push Quintana back. Do we trust Quintana at this point in the season to go out and beat the Tigers and set the tone in the all-important Game 1 Monday? That means Liriano (coming off a couple of shaky starts), Santiago and Axelrod against the Royals. Or Liriano, then Axelrod, then Santiago, so you don't have 2 lefties two days in a row with similar fastballs. Then Sale/Peavy/Liriano/???? (Quintana/Santiago/Axelrod/Humber) against the Tigers. Dangerous to go into the match-up with Verlander throwing our 5th/6th/7th/8th starter. But maybe a better strategy than using Sale against him again.

Axelrod has 5 ab's against him by current Royals hitters. 0/5 with BB and 2 K's. http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/batvspitch/_...hector-santiago Current Royals hitters are 0/11 against Hector in his career.

TUES Quintana WED Peavy THUR Off day FRI Liriano (extra day of rest) SAT Sale (extra day of rest) SUN Axelrod or Santiago MON Quintana TUES Peavy WED Liriano THUR Sale Maybe you pitch him (SALE) Monday in the opening game of the series against DET with 7 days of rest (3 extra)...and avoid matching him with Verlander on Thursday, in order to try to get an early victory in the series. That would also allow you to push Quintana back or out of facing the Tigers. Of course, the downside is you end up losing two games to KC with Axelrod and Santiago both starting. Which puts even more pressure on Sale and Peavy to win in Games 1 and 2 before facing Scherzer and Verlander in Games 3 and 4.

And it's the third or fourth start he's made in a season against the same team... The advantage usually shifts to the opponent the more times you see a pitcher, unless he's absolutely on that day in terms of stuff or command. And Peavy's pitches just aren't as crisp as they were the first half. Same with Sale and Quintana.

DISCUSS...

Carroll's homer ended his streak of 1,438 at-bats without a home run, the longest by an active major league player. Despite his exceptional performance, Santiago didn't guarantee himself another start. Dylan Axelrod will be promoted Tuesday from Double-A Birmingham and could start Sunday against the Royals. The White Sox hope they can change the thinking of left-hander Francisco Liriano with as many as six starts remaining. Two days after Liriano tied his career high with seven walks in only four-plus innings in Detroit, pitching coach Don Cooper worked Monday with Liriano on changing his planning. "He's trying for corners," Cooper said. "He's picking. He's thinking more physical, and there's some matador in him. There's some, 'I don't want you to hit it.' We've got to get him to grasp the first part of the plan — which is get strike one, get to 0-2, 1-2. Make them hit the first, second or third (pitch). "Our point of emphasis has to be the first three pitches to get to that position. And that's what he's not getting to enough. And he's putting himself in a lot of danger." Opponents are batting .181 when Liriano is ahead in the count, but the average jumps to .281 when the count is even and .278 when Liriano falls behind. Liriano has limited batters to a .199 batting average on 0-1 counts, .110 on 0-2 counts and .145 on 1-2 counts. "We talked nothing mechanically," Cooper said of Liriano's bullpen session. "It's all about three-pitch sequences. And his sidelines have been great. But the difference is (in) the electricity of the game, the big moments of the game, he's thinking (throw) harder. That's not the answer." Floyd update: The big test for Gavin Floyd will be Thursday when he throws breaking pitches in his second bullpen session. Floyd said he felt "a little achy" after throwing 20 pitches Monday in his first bullpen session since being placed on the 15-day disabled Aug. 27 because of right elbow tendinitis. "It was a step in the right direction," Floyd said. "I'm pretty excited." Hickey tribute: The Sox held a pregame tribute to former pitcher/pregame batting practice pitcher Kevin Hickey, 56, who died May 16 after being found unresponsive April 5 in his Dallas hotel room one day before the Sox's season opener. The Sox named their batting cages in memory of Hickey, with a plaque commemorating his achievements to be placed outside the cages. Get well soon: Manager Robin Ventura was hopeful assistant hitting coach Mike Gellinger would rejoin the team later this season. Gellinger blacked out Wednesday in his Baltimore hotel room and suffered trauma to a vertebrae. www.chicagotribune.com/sports/whitesox/ mark gonzales

Pretty funny stuff. Kate Upton has to be in it, SOMEHOW. Bayer Aspirin, if only Chris Sale and Quintana were taking it daily, their weary shoulders and elbows would be rejuvenated like Justin's. Fathom and Marty34. Greg775 and Al Davis. The Royals...the rising nascent power of Butler, Moustakas, Gordon, Perez and Escobar. Gene Lamont, just because of his former Sox managerial connection. Same with Dombrowski and Leyland. Hic-key/Hic-man, and Moose, for tribute purposes. The porn stache that makes Konerko look like one of the 3 Musketeers or a sous chef in Ratatouille. Delmon Young can be yet another villain.

White Sox 70.5% Tigers 46.8% Jumped back up just with that one game...White Sox with easiest schedule remaining, 4 games at home

QUOTE (VAfan @ Sep 3, 2012 -> 06:04 PM) Tonight already, comes up in first with one out, Youk on 3rd, Dunn on second. Pitcher starts him 3-0. On 3-2, weak fly to right not enough to score Youk. In second inning, bases loaded. After two outs De Aza singles, Youk and Dunn both walk. Konerko ends the threat again. If Dunn can play first, I'd rather we have Viciedo DH and have Wise play in LF to rest Paulie some. Konerko looks as bad as I've ever seen him. He also turned around a Verlander 97 MPH fastball and ripped it into LF. He's far from Dunn. I'd still rather have him up in a key situation than Dunn, and maybe even Rios, too. That bone chip or fragment must still be floating around in there and rubbing against something....the treatment this year hasn't worked as well as in 2011, for whatever reason. They should really go in and get that cleaned up this offseason. Seems to have knocked off his power as well, to an extent.

2-2 or 3-1 for the Sox. White Sox are a MUCH different team at home, the Tigers are not so dangerous on the road, and this will be the "Last Stand." You have to be pretty sure the fans will all be into these games and all will be well-attended if the Sox come into next Monday with the AL Central lead or no more than 1 back. Now everything changes if the Sox lose the first two and are then facing Scherzer and Verlander WED and THUR. Then you'll see true panic start to set in...

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Sep 3, 2012 -> 10:08 PM) Are RBI's an important statistic for you? By that stat, Alexei Ramirez is the most effective SS in the American League. Runs scored and runs driven in=runs created, right? It's Steve Stones' favorite stat, it seems. By OPS, Ramirez is 8th out of 10 qualified hitters. By WAR, the 10th best AL SS out of 33.

The problem is that you could argue the same old Viciedo argument and 95% of the board knows Dayan has to be successful with us as an everyday player in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 for the Sox offense to amount to anything at all. 23 year olds who post "average" OPS numbers with his low OBP at age 23, with his raw power, and his throwing arm...apparently they are a dime a dozen, and you can identify 10-20 similar players in the high minors who could replicate what Dayan has done. Same with Beckham. And since Paulie's only one RBI ahead of Alexei Ramirez, shouldn't we be trading BOTH of them before their value further erodes next year?

Dan Johnson is a journeyman/AAAA player. Check out the back of his baseball card.

It was Caesar. But in another thread somewhere, it was pointed out that it wouldn't be enforced by mods. And that many good posters have made similar threats in the past, so better to not start a precedent, no matter what the tenor and tone of some of those game threads was starting last Monday.

Couldn't resist the opportunity to bump this thread. However, I was 5 months off in my prediction... Was also WAY off in thinking Sale would stay in the bullpen at that point, although nobody could have been sure in the middle of 2011 what we had exactly in Chris.

Carlos Sanchez was 3/3 to finish at .256 with the Knights. When do the playoffs start for the Knights? Thompson finished sub .200 as many would have predicted, in quite limited at-bats.

Starting to feel like the end of the 2008 season all over again...although you'd have to argue the Tigers are a lot more talented than that Twins' team.

Game over. Almost took TOO much time there, but was patient enough to wait for the play to develop instead of rushing the throw to 2B. Back in first place again. This feels familiar.