caulfield12

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Aug 1, 2012 -> 08:13 AM) 16 out of 19 after the All Star break on the road and they are guaranteed to come home in first place. Things are looking good.(Except for Danks) And Youk, and Beckham....and pretty much the entire bullpen. One would describe them as shaky at best. Crain survived unscathed two times but looked horrific in the process of being "effective" (the 1st and 3rd, no outs escape was nicer), Thornton seems to have a penchant for giving up liners all over the field. Fortunately, both of those guys had our defense playing well behind them, and good positioning. Hard to blame Myers, he's the only one who has looked decent, but he gave up a leadoff hit to a bottom of the order hitter, too.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 1, 2012 -> 07:49 AM) Apparently Tigers brass and Jim Leyland aren't on the same page: from espn.com: I think it was ALL about protecting Verlander. He would have had the pressure of leaving him out there to continue his super long streak of going at least 6 innings each start. And of course he didn't want him to get injured on that mound...not to mention he had 35-40 pitches in the first inning, including a bases-loaded walk. At least that way, with the loss from ahead last Thurs against CLE and this game, he's absolved of any blame with how he's handling him.

Can Coop fix YOUK? We seem like we have the streakiest hitters in baseball, but I'm sure fans of all teams feel that way. Too bad we don't play the Red Sox again, to get him heated up. OTOH, we're 2-6 against them, so maybe not such a great idea after all.

If not for the Danks contract, we could reclaim Mark Buehrle. That would have been something...feel sorry he's stuck with a rebuilding team down there in South Florida, but he did it to himself, partially. Not that he had the option to return unless he gave a HUGE hometown discount. But you know JR's kicking himself quite a bit now for keeping Danks over Mark.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Aug 1, 2012 -> 05:52 AM) Lefty starter + day game after night game = Flowers probably starts for AJ I only say probably though, because AJ is on a roll and tomorrow is an off day. No doubt, we'll either see Dunn at 1B or Konerko not playing at all. We need Paulie's bat in there against a funky LH, please, Robin. Not worried about Tyler playing....he's looked better recently and can stop the running game...but taking AJ out against his former team with an offday looming, that's never a good idea. He does have showtime homers in 2 consecutive games, after all.

I don't know what to suggest with Reed. Maybe it's where he stands on the pitching rubber. Somehow, he might need to rethink his angle of attack...sometimes, he gets a favorable line, like with his K for the second out. OTOH, his fastball is pretty darned straight. Not Billy Koch or Cliff Politte straight, but darned close. Blackburn's ball was moving all over the place at 90-91. It's almost like he is overthrowing it and it flattens out. You always gets the feeling he's one of those guys who got so comfortable with his fastball at SD State and in the minors that he can't start to become a pitcher yet at the major league level until he keeps getting hit on that #1 pitch. Some days, it will be stuck at 93-94-95. Other times, it will pop in the 96 or even 97 range. There's a huge difference there when it goes in a straight line. You notice the same thing with Crain and Thornton. Heck, every pitcher in our bullpen but Myers right now. You read the scouting reports, they tout his slider as the best in the organization...but Jones, when he's on, actually has had better results with his offspeed stuff. Neither of them have thrown it for a strike more than 20-25% of the time. It's like Gavin or Phil's curveball....just not consistently reliable.

Not only do we miss Weaver, we also miss CJ Wilson. Fortuitous bounce there. That and the Tigers/Red Sox game getting called with the Tigers having a chance to go ahead. Imagine how pissed off we would have been in that same situation? So between the missed call on the Konerko throw home (2 times in 3 games, with Adam also failing), the rockets hit all over the place against our relievers, the fact that final play of the game MON didn't turn out to be a blown call after all, Verlander being "below average" for him in two consecutive games...we're pretty fortunate to be right where we are at. You could argue we could or should have beaten up Feldman, De Vries and Blackburn, that we gave them essentially 5 runs on SUN/MON...but this team is just so inconsistent offensively, we stopped the bleeding before it became infectious last night and we ended up getting swept again heading into the huge upcoming Angels' series at home.

Saturday night, with about 65 hours to go until the trade deadline, the Twins pulled the trigger on an increasingly inevitable Francisco Liriano deal by sending him to the White Sox for left-hander Pedro Hernandez and infielder Eduardo Escobar. Both players have spent time in the majors for the White Sox this year and figure to be September call-ups if the Twins don't promote them before then, but unfortunately neither player is considered much of a prospect. Escobar draws strong reviews for his defense at shortstop and also has experience at second base, but he's never hit at any level and has spent most of this season glued to the White Sox's bench while going 16-for-82 (.195) with 22 strikeouts. Chicago letting him collect dust as a big-league utility man at age 23 doesn't make much sense, but it does suggest they weren't particularly concerned about his development and perhaps viewed him as a marginal player. And rightfully so, as Escobar hit .266/.303/.354 with four homers and a 104-to-27 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 137 games at Triple-A last season and is a career .270/.315/.351 hitter in the minors. He's still young enough to improve at the plate and if Escobar's defensive reputation is accurate he won't have to hit much to be valuable, but so far the switch-hitter has shown almost zero power along with terrible plate discipline and no ability to control the strike zone. Hernandez was traded from the Padres to the White Sox as the lesser half of a two-prospect haul for outfielder Carlos Quentin on December 31. He debuted for the White Sox two weeks ago and got knocked around by the Red Sox, allowing three homers and eight runs in four innings before an immediate trip back to the minors. Based on both his track record and raw stuff Hernandez is a typical Twins pitcher with modest velocity, good control, and few whiffs. His fastball tops out in the low-90s along with a slider and changeup, he's induced more fly balls than ground balls, and in 145 innings between Double-A and Triple-A he's allowed more than a hit per inning while averaging 6.5 strikeouts and 2.3 walks per nine frames. Those numbers combined with fly-ball tendencies and underwhelming velocity make it tough to project the 23-year-old lefty as more than a back-of-the-rotation starter or long reliever. Terry Ryan revealed after the trade that the Twins and Liriano never talked long-term deal, which isn't surprising from either side's point of view. Liriano is two months from being able to hit the open market and take bids from all 30 teams, so unless the Twins blew him away with a huge offer it made little financial sense to pass up free agency. And after living with his ups and downs for seven years the Twins can't be blamed for avoiding a long-term commitment. Under the new collective bargaining agreement making a "qualifying offer" to Liriano was also an option and would have led to either re-signing him to a one-year deal for around $12 million or receiving draft pick compensation when he signed elsewhere. I'd have preferred a draft pick to what they ended up getting and keeping him for 2013 without the long-term commitment wouldn't have been such a bad thing either, but clearly the Twins felt otherwise. Getting a pair of C-level prospects is certainly preferable to letting Liriano walk for nothing, but I'm just having a difficult time believing that's the best the Twins could have done. To believe that you'd have to assume the numerous local and national reports about no fewer than a half-dozen teams being interested in Liriano were mostly false or at least that the half-dozen interested teams were only willing to offer the Twins marginal prospects in return. Maybe that's true. After all, trading Liriano to a division rival--the Twins and White Sox last made a deal in 1986--suggests Ryan felt it was definitely the best offer and for as well as he's pitched since rejoining the rotation in May he's still a two-month rental with an inconsistent track record who turned in a clunker in front of a collection of scouts last time out. Of course, plenty of other two-month rentals are being traded for vastly superior prospects this month. My expectations for a Liriano trade were never particularly high, or so I thought. I certainly did not expect the Twins to land anything close to an elite prospect and thought even a prospect in the B-plus range was probably wishful thinking, but to wind up with two likely role players who didn't crack the top 10 in arguably MLB's worst farm system is disappointing. If this is truly the best the Twins could do a lot of people wasted a lot of energy reporting and speculating. Nine years ago in one of the best trades in team history the Twins acquired Liriano from the Giants along with Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser for A.J. Pierzynski. At the time Liriano was 19 and universally viewed as a high-upside arm, but coming off an injury wrecked Single-A season he rated behind Bonser in most prospect rankings. Bonser ultimately proved to be a bust, but Nathan developed into an elite reliever and Liriano ... well, that's a bit more complicated. Following the trade Liriano was healthy and dominant in the minors, establishing himself as one of baseball's top 10 prospects. As a rookie in 2006 he worked out of the Twins' bullpen for six weeks and then joined the rotation in mid-May, doing the impossible by upstaging Johan Santana with an 11-2 record, 1.95 ERA, .162 opponents' batting average, and 105-to-28 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 93 innings spread over his first 14 starts. He had a mid-90s fastball and a devastatingly unhittable slider that racked up a combination of strikeouts and ground balls rarely seen. He was simply as good as a pitcher can possibly be. And then he got hurt. After an unsuccessful comeback attempt Tommy John surgery followed, knocking Liriano out for all of 2007 and leaving him at Triple-A to begin 2008. He returned to the Twins in mid-2008 as a much lesser but still effective version, but then struggled in 2009. Liriano seemingly put it all back together in 2010, posting a 3.62 ERA and 201 strikeouts in 192 innings to show that he was still very capable of dominating despite missing a few miles per hour off his pre-surgery stuff. And then he unraveled last season, throwing away all the progress he'd made, and began this year with a 9.45 ERA in six starts before the Twins demoted him to the bullpen in May. Three weeks and a handful of unspectacular relief outings later Liriano rejoined the rotation and put together an 11-start stretch in which he posted a 3.68 ERA, .190 opponents' batting average, and 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings. His raw stuff was still closer to the excellent, post-surgery 2010 version than the otherworldly, pre-surgery 2006 version, but Liriano's strikeout rate and swing-and-miss totals were as dominant as ever. He picked a bad time for his one clunker during that 11-start span, failing to make it out of the third inning while allowing seven runs in Chicago last Monday night, although doing that damage against Liriano didn't stop the White Sox from trading for him. Coming into the game Liriano had gone at least five innings in every start since April 27, but he allowed three homers in 2.2 innings after allowing a total of three homers in his previous 71 innings. It's unlikely that one ugly start significantly altered Liriano's trade value and by trading him for a pair of middling prospects just 12 hours before his final scheduled pre-deadline start the Twins certainly showed that they didn't think one impressive outing would give him a big last-minute boost. So now in an odd twist of fate (or at least scheduling) Liriano's next start will come Tuesday at Target Field, against the Twins. And his new batterymate? A.J. Pierzynski. Liriano's time in Minnesota was both amazing and maddening, but it's hard not to think back to that unhittable rookie and dream about what could have been if only his elbow had held up under the pressure of a high-stress delivery and overpowering raw stuff. He left his mid-90s fastball on the operating table and never learned to consistently throw strikes with lesser velocity, which is how limitless potential turns into a 4.33 ERA and two marginal prospects. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- www.aarongleeman.com

Second base never was the Tigers' most pressing concern this season. But Detroit is a town that feeds off obsession more than it does reality. If the Tigers don't make the postseason for the second straight year -- the last time they went back-to-back was consecutive American League pennants in 1934-35 -- it won't be due to getting next to nothing offensively out of second base. It'll be the lack of a dominating No. 2 starter and the inability to get sustained RBI production out of the middle of the batting order that brings them down. It's about Doug Fister, Delmon Young and Brennan Boesch delivering the numbers expected from them at season's dawn. It's why -- though the Tigers did nothing further as the trading deadline passed Tuesday -- they aren't done making moves. Big bats and arms, with even bigger contracts, will be available once they clear waivers in August. The Tigers will act then because they'll have no alternative. The biggest hole in the batting order is the fifth spot. Young has wasted three of the American League's top 10 in on-base percentage hitting ahead of him in the lineup -- Austin Jackson, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder. According to Baseball-Reference.com, Young is 0-for-8 when batting with the bases loaded. That's inexcusable. The Tigers aren't getting the big, explosive innings they should. And it's not because of the bottom of the batting order. The Tigers rank 12th in the American League in RBI production from the five-hole in the batting order, but they fall to last place from the No. 6 spot in the batting order. Those are RBI positions, and Young and Boesch aren't getting the job done consistently enough for anyone to believe they can be trusted in what promises to be a tight divisional race in September. General manager Dave Dombrowski didn't specifically mention them by name when he addressed reporters in Boston on Tuesday after the 4 p.m. trading deadline passed. But he clearly meant Young and Boesch, among others, when he said, "Some of the guys that are on our club have to pick it up themselves. We've got guys who have to do that." But I still think Alfonso Soriano winds up in a Tiger uniform in another two weeks. Dombrowski insisted he never had one discussion with the Cubs regarding Soriano. Soriano is owed $38 million over the next two years. Do the Tigers want four $20 million-a-year players on the roster? The Cubs can wait a little longer to get exactly what they want for Soriano -- a team to take his entire salary -- because the new wild-card playoff arrangement has made the summer a seller's market. They're no longer forced to accept a deal simply because the calendar says July 31. The pressure rests squarely on the buyers now. The Tigers are reasonably confident Fister is gradually returning to his dominance of September 2011, when he outperformed eventual MVP and Cy Young winner Justin Verlander. They had better be right, because they can no longer afford the luxury of waiting much longer for the middle of the batting order. They have to make another move. It's obvious now that the Tigers didn't solve their primary problems when they acquired middle-of-the-rotation starter Anibal Sanchez and everyday second baseman Omar Infante last week. www.freep.com/sports (Drew Sharp)

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-leag...Y3Rpb25z;_ylv=3 For some reason, the acquisitions of Myers and Liriano only rate 9th on this list, behind Broxton and ahead of Ichiro. Stupid.

Addison is going to get KILT if he throws 90% straight fastballs at 93-95 MPH in the playoffs. He needs to rediscover that 96-97 MPH fastball or figure out a way how to get that slider across. What a nerve-wracking game. In some ways, we got saved by the umps this game with the ball that Konerko made an ill-advised throw home on. Viciedo looked much better at the plate his last 2 AB's, had a SAC FLY and the game-saving catch, perhaps. Crain struggled and survived for the second time this week. AJ always come to play against the Twins. We needed that win in the worst way facing the troublesome lefty in Diamond, their ace, tmrw.

Plus we have all the waiver moves in August. That's when Soriano will move, in all likelihood.

That would be pretty hilarious if we brought back C-Lee and Uribe, but never going to happen in a million years... At least not with Lee. Pretty interesting Ozzie hasn't had much to say over the last couple of weeks. The team has been speaking more often than him, specifically on the Ramirez thing. Wonder if he has a gag order from Loria and Samson?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 31, 2012 -> 09:38 AM) Soriano's had a good year at the plate, especially since he went to a lighter bat in May. Honestly, if the rumors are true that the Cubs are willing to pick up a large portion of his remaining contract, then I'm surprised more teams aren't interested. Well, I'd definitely pick him over Juan Pierre, in our dream scenario where we're trading half our minor league system and Viciedo for Felix Hernandez.

What bat are the Tigers going to get? Young and Boesch are up and down, but is Soriano really he answer? He would obviously DH, well, not sure...it's a crapshoot who is worse out there, him or Delmon. Soriano might actually be a defensive upgrade there, funny as it might seem.

Here's a counter-argument (using the Royals' pen) why having so many good young relievers is another version of Moneyball...exploiting a new market inefficiency, largely because of their horrible starting pitching The reluctant revolution will be these Royals’ lasting legacy. Our own miniature Moneyball situation is playing out almost every day this summer now, the Royals trying to get outs in a way no team in baseball history has ever dared. They planned most of this, an interchangeable group of relievers capable of throwing 95-mph fastballs for any matchup against any team on any day, but already the team’s vision of building baseball’s most effective bullpen is being stretched beyond any precedent in the sport’s long history by a starting rotation that right now is just Bruce Chen and a whole lot of live batting practice. This isn’t what general manager Dayton Moore wants for his team, of course. Moore grew up in baseball watching Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine build Hall of Fame careers in Atlanta. Moore always judges teams based largely on their rotations. He gave Gil Meche the largest free-agent contract in Royals history. He likes to draft pitchers first, pitchers second, and once that’s all taken care of he likes to draft a few more pitchers. The fruits of that philosophy are being at least delayed by an outbreak of Tommy John surgeries to the team’s top pitching prospects. But you can’t argue with economics. So once the Royals looked at what they could realistically afford, Moore did something entirely out of character and shifted his focus away from starters and toward the bullpen. The result is the Royals are using their bullpen more than any other team in baseball history. Again, not all of this is by design. The starters have been mostly awful. But as it turns out, to whatever extent the Royals are shifting their focus and resources to the bullpen, they may be pioneers of baseball’s next frontier. So far, 14 men have made 190 relief appearances for the Royals. They are rookies and veterans, skinny and fat, first-round draft picks and unsigned free agents, from as close as Parkville and as far away as Venezuela. One of them made the All-Star team last year. One of them is a backup outfielder. Two of them fit into a pair of another one’s enormous pants. These men have thrown 222 innings of relief, by far the most in baseball and on pace for nearly 30 more innings than the previous “record,” set by the 2003 Rangers. And while most of the rest of the team has underachieved, the bullpen is the biggest reason the Royals have played above .500 the last six weeks. Now, one more time so there’s no excuses or misunderstandings: The Royals would prefer not to break the Rangers’ record. No matter what else, having your relievers throw so many innings is a clear indication that something’s wrong, like a football team whose cornerbacks have the most tackles. The Royals sometimes carry two long relievers, and they’re wearing out I-29 sending tired arms to Omaha in exchange for fresh ones. But the Royals’ plan on asking more of their bullpen — in an ideal world, with competent starters, they’d have around 35 fewer relief innings and rank around third or fourth in the AL — is an inspired move. This all comes down to money, as most things do. Relief pitchers are cheaper than starters, more plentiful than starters and more replaceable than starters. Just think what the Royals bullpen would be with a healthy Joakim Soria, for instance. The Royals won’t be able to afford Cole Hamels this winter. They’ll only be contenders for Zack Greinke if they can use familiarity and comfort to their advantage. But they can afford a top-level bullpen, and in a baseball world where salaries for starters are rising along with the overall usage of relievers, this is not only smart but absolutely necessary for the Royals to compete going forward. CC Sabathia is baseball’s highest-paid starting pitcher with a contract that averages $24.4 million per year. Mariano Rivera is the highest-paid reliever at $15 million. Advanced metrics indicate the Red Sox had the AL’s best bullpen last year, and their top eight relievers made just under $24 million (most of it by Jonathan Papelbon and Bobby Jenks). The same advanced metrics indicate the White Sox had the best rotation, and their top five starters made $34.3 million (that doesn’t include $16 million to Jake Peavy, who made 18 starts). That’s indicative of the baseball climate. Starting pitchers made an average of $4.9 million last year, compared with $1.9 million for relievers. Accounting for a roster of five starters and eight relievers, that’s vaguely in line with how many outs each group gets. But the Royals’ place in baseball means they’re in an especially good position to take advantage of a market inefficiency, partly because the relievers’ pay scale is much more top-heavy than starters’. That means young and resilient bullpen arms are available at basement rates. For instance, Greg Holland, Tim Collins, Kelvin Herrera and Louis Coleman are each making less than $500,000. Jonathan Sánchez and Luke Hochevar are making a combined $8.7 million. This is the Royals’ loophole. Even on their record-setting pace of reliever usage, the Royals are paying more for each inning from the bullpen than they are the rotation. But the Royals’ spending level is much more likely to buy good relievers: witness a 5.08 ERA from the rotation through Friday and 2.99 from the bullpen. As the Royals wait — and hope — for prospects like Jake Odorizzi and Mike Montgomery to make an impact in the rotation, they have a steady stack of effective relievers already getting outs. That’s generally how it will go, because relief pitchers are usually better early in their careers compared with starters, and injuries are easier to compensate for. One of the unmistakable trends in baseball over the years is heavier use of bullpens. And even if the Royals got to this extreme place by accident, it’s a place they need to stay. This is one place they’re ahead of the trend.Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/09/36501...l#storylink=cpy

Few general managers balance the benefits and costs of in-season trades quite like Ken Williams of the White Sox. Prospects surrendered in July deals, with few exceptions, seldom fulfill their potential. Most grow into complementary players, if they make it all. On the other hand, veteran acquisitions typically return expected value, even if the cost in terms of salary and prospect assets seems steep at the time. For Williams and the White Sox, the benefit of making the playoffs for the first time since 2008 would offset the costs associated with trading talent from a farm system that ranks among the shallowest in the game. Winning the American League Central would give Chicago its best chance to make a deep playoff run. So even with his White Sox holding a 2 1/2 game advantage on the Tigers heading into the home stretch, Williams completed his third summer trade, this time acquiring 28-year-old lefthander Francisco Liriano from the Twins. Chicago sent lefthander Pedro Hernandez and shortstop Eduardo Escobar, a pair of modest, 23-year-old prospects, to Minnesota. The White Sox join the Angels, who traded for Zack Greinke, and the Tigers, who dealt for Anibal Sanchez, as AL playoff contenders who have reinforced their rotations through trade. Already this summer Williams had dealt for Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis, who has batted .273/.387/.495 through 27 games with the White Sox, and Astros closer Brett Myers, who has made four scoreless relief appearances since joining Chicago last weekend. (You can assess the cost in talent yourself at Trade Central.) Perhaps Liriano will be subject to similar small-sample success as Youkilis and Myers, because he's been anything but predictable this season. In fact, the White Sox roughed up Liriano in his last outing on July 23 (seven runs, seven hits, three homers in 2 2/3 innings), but in six starts from May 30-June 25 he struck out 40 in 37 1/3 innings while logging a 2.41 ERA and 0.64 WHIP. Liriano has reached those heights infrequently throughout his career, but if matched up against the lefty-heavy offenses of the AL Central-rival Indians, Royals and Twins down the stretch, then he's capable of big things during his final 10 or so starts. Lefty batters have batted .195/.287/.286 with one homer versus Liriano this season, which is in line with his career .593 OPS allowed to lefties. A free agent after the season, Liriano's wildly-fluctuating results made it unlikely that the Twins would have made him the qualifying contract offer necessary to receive draft pick compensation. So while neither Hernandez nor Escobar project to be future impact players, each possesses at least one plus tool and can help the Twins in their organizational rebuild. That's certainly better than nothing. baseballamerica.com/tradecentral

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 31, 2012 -> 07:03 AM) We had to "Rescue" the pen because the highly paid guy in the bullpen, Crain, got hurt. And you'd have to argue that Nathan Jones was going south or sideways. Both were about equal factors.

Well, from where they're at right now, they've got a very good shot at the playoffs. And the cost for that "ace" is going to be prohibitive. What starters on the market out there would you pick to start a one game sudden death playoff over a healthy Chris Sale? Just a couple.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jul 31, 2012 -> 07:01 AM) Mitchell has been there for about a week, and put up nice numbers so far. Except for the K's, but he's still at .300 and still walking at a good clip. Has to clean up the baserunning miscues a bit.

Look at how much Dotel, MacDougal and Linebrink cost us salary-wise. Of course, we had to "rescue" the pen with Myers, but they shed Ohman and Frasor and have been able to use that money in other places.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 31, 2012 -> 05:57 AM) Fire KW It was actually ONE double and 2 walks, but still impressive.

But nobody would have taken that contract. We could still have a huge debate over whether someone would take Rios' contract (because of his age and his every other year tendencies) just assuming the contract alone. And he's arguably our best player right now. Certainly best all-around player.

QUOTE (balfanman @ Jul 31, 2012 -> 06:06 AM) Isn't he the guy that Pierzynski didn't get along with in San Francisco, or am I confusing him with someone else? Brett Tomko

MINNEAPOLIS -- After the White Sox's 7-6 loss to the Twins on Monday night, it was difficult to find anyone who was concerned the team's recent fielding woes would turn into an epidemic. And the numbers suggest no reason for alarm; the White Sox entered Monday's game having committed just 44 errors this season -- the second-fewest in baseball. [+] Enlarge Jesse Johnson/US Presswire Alexei Ramirez committed one of the White Sox's three errors on Monday. But there's also no denying that despite a solid defense, lineup and pitching staff, the White Sox are only 55-47, a game and a half better than the Tigers in the American League Central. And for the second time in as many days, errors played a key part in a White Sox loss. Chicago made three fielding gaffes on Monday night, spotting the Twins three unearned runs. The final mistake of the night -- A.J. Pierzynski's wild throw to first on Brian Dozier's sacrifice bunt in the ninth inning -- moved Alexi Casilla to third, putting him in position to score the winning run on Jamey Carroll's game-ending sacrifice fly. And those mistakes came after Alexei Ramirez's fielding error led to an unearned run for the Rangers in their 2-0 win over Chicago on Sunday. "That's just something we've got to clean up," manager Robin Ventura said. "The big ones are the unearned (runs). You just give them something they really shouldn't have." The White Sox also got an unearned run in the fourth inning after Dozier's throwing error put Ramirez on base, but they lost the game in part because of some stellar defense; Denard Span leapt at the center field wall in the fifth inning, taking a home run away from Alex Rios. In the end, there were more than a few defensive plays that directly influenced the final score. Had the White Sox won on Sunday and Monday, they'd be 2 1/2 games in front of the Tigers, and they'd have a little better positioning in the tight American League wild-card race, should they need it. Instead, they were talking about stamping out something that they wouldn't have expected to be a concern."We know that the teams in the division are coming after us," Pierzynski said. "Minnesota's trying to keep their season alive, and whenever we play Cleveland, Kansas City and Detroit, they're obviously gunning for us. We just have to play well. We've been playing really well. Tonight was hopefully just a blip on the radar. We made some mistakes. The one in the ninth inning was the big one that I made. But things happen." Wouldn't we be 3 1/2 games up then, at 12 over, the Tigers 5 over? HMMMMMMMMM. Guess the Twins are leading the AL in runs scored for July.