caulfield12

It's almost like Sale has been hearing all the whispers and seen the rankings of him 5th or lower among AL starters so he's out to prove that he's a legit member of that conversation about the best pitcher in either league. 94-95-95 to Ichiro. Goodbye. CRUISING.

DET leading 3-1, bottom of the 6th. As expected, no help there...and Verlander tmrw. Then they've got the Angels and Royals.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 07:37 PM) Farmer was not asked to pay $42.00 to sit in upperdeck either. And I also doubt he's ever paid a cent in his life to park at an MLB stadium. Stone's much richer, but he's smart enough not to jump on the fans and he has a more basic understanding of economic reality than does Farmer, whose ego is even bigger.

QUOTE (Real @ Aug 22, 2012 -> 07:34 PM) farmer ripping sox fans for not showing up, I love it because it's true It's hypocritical to RIP the fans when your team is gouging them to the amount of $200-500 per ticket. If they want to lose their home field advantage to make more profits, it's up to them. But don't dare jump all over the fans when you've institituted this dynamic pricing nonsense. If they wanted to sell out the stadium, they could easily make tickets more affordable. That would help the team just as much as making a LITTLE more profit but having 2-3-4,000 fewer fans in attendance.

Nice to see the first half version of Chris Sale back. Maybe it's all the adrenaline from the match-up with the Yankees, but the added rest seems to have finally rejuvenated that left arm of his and brought life back to his pitches. For a month there, it was all duct tape and baling wire to get by.

Sale's at 93-94 MPH with his fastball in the first. That's VERY encouraging news. 95 to Cano. Lowest was 92. Unfortunately, TB and OAK both won and the Tigers are playing against a crippled Tigers line-up and Aaron Laffey. Not good.

Amen, and Viciedo wasn't too far removed from rookie status entering this season, as well.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,5444853.story Humber or Santiago will be inserted into rotation if Floyd fails next time out...seems that way, at least. Hopefully Santiago, although that's a LOT of pressure on a rookie. After all, we got rid of Hudson after JUST 3 starts in the heat of a pennant race that was only in June/July, and only one of his starts was "bad" by any definition.

Liriano in 5 starts with the Sox. Team Record 4-1, personal record 2-0 26.6 IP 24 H 11 ER 9 BB 23 K's 3.71 ERA Winning a higher percentage of starts (80%) than Justin Verlander for the Tigers.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 21, 2012 -> 11:27 PM) He's probably going to wind up hitting .250. Like I said, just bat him ninth the rest of his career and forget about it. Pencil him in for the next 10 years but bat him 9th. He'd have to hit WELL over .300 the last 40 some games in order to get his average to that point. 43/137=.317 (to finish) gives him .250 for the full season over 555 at-bats.

Under 25,000? Against the Yankees? First place lead of 2 games? Wow. And this was after the exciting comeback the night b4. LIRIANO RULES. 4/5 good starts, much better than GREINKE.

Tigers win, Rays lose.

Rasmus flies out. Encarnacion with one last chance to hit a go-ahead, 3 run homer here.

YOUK has been streaky, but he definitely has Academy-Award timing with his homers for the Sox. Jay threatening, 1st and 2nd, 1 out, top of the 9th. 5-3 Tigers. Hopefully Encarnacion gets a shot at Papa Grande.

Konerko just moved ahead of Viciedo in RBI's, 58 to 57. Ramirez with 54. New ballgame.

KC/TB still scoreless in the 8th. Nice to see ONE pitching staff shut them down.

Hopefully we can get Liriano through 6 at least...although only 5 isn't out of the realm of possibility. 65 through 3.

Maybe we're more comfortable coming from behind. Both the DET and Sox games are starting out ugly tonight. Hopefully Liriano can right the ship better than Gavin did.

I'm going to make a guess that Hammerhead has never seen Trayce Thompson play once in his entire life.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 21, 2012 -> 05:45 PM) Pathetic performance by Romero tonight. Thing that sucks is Sox need Toronto to play Baltimore and Tampa tough the rest of the way as well. Should be 5-6-7 to 0 now. 3-0 is still a game. But Farrell can't leave Romero in much longer if he wants to stay in this game. See Floyd, Gavin hook last night, similar lead and situation, although Gavin was getting hit harder rather than just walking guys right and left. Incredible 230 baserunners in 150 IP for Romero this year. He, Lester and Danks just all disappeared...although Lester has righted the ship recently.

Romero is just done. Another bases loaded walk. This is Ankiel-esque. 3-0, bases loaded, no outs. Just guiding and pushing the ball towards the plate. Cabrera hit into a bases loaded DP and they got a flyout to Rasmus, but 6 walks in the first two innings, two forcing in runs.

Three straight two out walks plates a run for the Tigers. God, Romero is awful. Guess he's lucky, because there was also an error in there by the Blue Jays, and the lead's "only" 1-0. Hopefully they can win at least one game in DET this series...and the Angels decide to wake up and make one last run. Nothing would be worse than Derek Jeter was the MVP and Gold Glove winner again, which very well might happen if LA continues to collapse with Trout winning Rookie of the Year but not the MVP. Blue Jays with 13 on the DL. Bautista, Lawrie, Lind and Arencibia...Encarnacion has been out, too. Mind-boggling.

You can't DFA a player from the DL until he comes off.

QUOTE (Jake @ Aug 20, 2012 -> 05:58 PM) Alexei Ramirez with RISP: .350 AVG, .846 OPS 2 outs, RISP: .318/.788 WAR: 1.1 bWAR, .7 fWAR The thing that sticks out to me in Alexei's numbers is that his walk rate is way down. I don't have a good explanation for this other than perhaps the lack of power has pitchers unafraid to go right at him. I would say it could be related to his somewhat diminished role given the breaking out of Dunn, Rios, AJP, Youk, ADA...but it isn't like Alexei was ever a truly featured hitter. It could easily be the opposite of what I think, that a poor eye is preventing the power from coming out rather than vice versa. Because Ramirez has forgotten how to hit the ball to all fields. He pretty much has become a dead pull hitter...particularly any ball he hits on the ground, it's to 3B or SS about 95% of the time. We've seen Dayan fall into this bad habit quite a few times this year and then temporarily pull out of it, same thing with Quentin in the past as well...or Konerko, for another example. If Alexei goes up the middle and to the right side more often, he'll still get fastballs he can turn on for doubles, triples and homers. But he's just a much more limited hitter using just the left side of the field. And he's never adjusted to become a consistently dangerous hitter against off-speed stuff.

He gets at least half of 2013, then all bets are off if the team's still underperforming and more or less healthy.