caulfield12

Throw beat the runner....but AJ wasn't in a great position to make the tag, too far out in front of home plate for some reason. Well, let's just put that run on AJ, pretty much, taking one away from us and giving one to them.

After the hit, an abysmal inning for AJ. Should have had Gordon dead to rights if he didn't rush it.

Yanks scored a run to draw within 5-3. An Ichiro double scoring Swisher, of all things.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 7, 2012 -> 08:22 PM) Wow that was so much fail. I wanted a good bunt, not a f***ing pop up. Doesn't make as much sense with Olmedo and Beckham coming up (compared to DeAza/Youk). You'd trust Danks over Olmedo, but it's surely a sign he wasn't confident Jordan would do much besides K against Chen.

I hope we don't want Danks to play over Viciedo...

Another run for Tigers. Thanks, Chris Perez.

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Aug 7, 2012 -> 07:42 PM) Bench Tank NOW! And play who?

Not sure why Girardi even bothers to pitch to Miguel Cabrera. 4-2 Tigers. Hughes is already done, into the bullpen for Yankees.

What happened to DeAza and Youk? Sorry, I've been travelling for the last 48 hours. Happy to see Sale looks back to normal. Tigers just tied Yanks at 2-2.

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 08:57 PM) W-S is going to the playoffs, so doubtful. Wouldn't be surprised if Sanchez gets moved back down after the end of the regular season. He's going to get a ton of chances to impress people, between post-season play for W-S and the AFL. Let's hope he can continue to demonstrate his rapid progress...really need someone to push Beckham. A little competition usually brings out the best in a player. One would doubt that Gordon feels he's in danger of losing his position at all, but, then again, he's always been a super confident player, which has both its positives and negatives at this point in his career.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 09:17 PM) Dude, who is that in your avy? First I thought it was Selena Gomez but she looks like she's 10. Is that Victoria Justice? Yep, saw the trailer for "Fun Size" movie that's coming out and decided to kick the cartoon character to the curb. I think she's 19, lol. Maybe she will be the next Minka Kelly, albeit with better acting chops. Poor Minka with the latest cancelled t.v. series and "The Roommate" has fallen even below Jessica Alba in terms of credibility, if that's possible. Although I might have to bring back Jose Contreras' World Series ring pose if needed for the next Tigers series.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 09:13 PM) Consistency? He's been one of the worst starters in baseball. ERA well over 7 since the perfect game. Guys like Gavin Floyd and Matt Garza are inconsistent. Then you have Humber. Good move by the Sox. There's a division title to be had and we can't afford auto-losses right now. I would take Phil to the airport if we could get Nick Blackburn back for him...and Blackburn is horrible. Followed inevitably by someone pointing out we won his Red Sox start and came back to win his Friday outing as well...parried by, yeah, but didn't Danny Wright get double figure wins in XYZ year and he was almost as bad. In the end, ERA is more indicative of performance than wins and losses for a starter, because our bullpen has really skewed Jake Peavy's record, for example.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 09:54 PM) So wait, according to you the home record doesnt matter because of their recent good run skewing their previous bad record, but their road record doesnt matter because of a 7 game bad run overshadows a previous 3 month good stretch? WTF? Ummm....I don't think it's quite so dramatic, and I don't recall where I said it doesn't matter. But, okay. If we had consistently won most series 2/3 or 3/4 at home over a three or four month stretch, it would probably be more indicative of a long-lasting trend. HOWEVER, the composition of the team has changed with the additions of Youkilis, Myers and Liriano, that's part of it...along with the fact that we've actually started to draw good crowds now for home games, which also can't be hurting the cause. We beat the Rangers, Angels and Blue Jays, as well as the Twins, so it's not just fattening up on the dregs of the league, either. I'll let Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting develop an algorithm which can sort of what's the true underlying cause.

QUOTE (Cali @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 04:56 PM) Another thing I think favors our boys is how much more consistent they are both at home and on the road. Sox are +6 at home +5 on the road. Detroit is +10 at home -2 on the road. This season will come down to this: 9/7-9/16 10 Game Road Trip for Detroit @ LAA for 3 @ SOX for 4 @ CLE for 3 Also the end their season with 6 straight away from Comerica (@ KC @ MIN) It seems consistent, in an overall sense, but the reality is quite different. Take away our current run at home (what is it now, 12-2?) and things are looking quite different. We were one of the best 2-3 road teams in baseball for the first three months of the season until we went to BOS and DET. Who really knows what we are, but winning more consistently at home (especially when there are big crowds and more of an advantage than earlier in the year) is obviously going to be critical. It's kind of like when every analyst speaks for 10-15 minutes before a big NFL or college match-up and then throws out the, "well, it always comes down to special teams." Win your home games, win your games against divisional opponents, things will take care of themselves.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 08:35 PM) I would think the media coverage of this incident will not be as great as the Colorado massacre. These things usually happen with a great amount of time between the first incident and second. These came so close together.... Because of that fact, this should get even more coverage, but the shock value isn't here because of the recent Colorado tragedy. Do all you TV folks agree with this? I think if we have one more incident like this in the next couple weeks, Obama is going to have to have an all-out assault on this type of crime. Our country is in serious jeopardy, folks. These incidents are starting to occur with great frequency, signaling a huge problem with society and values of people today. No, but the media coverage part is right. Poor Mother Teresa didn't get nearly the sendoff she deserved because of Lady Di, but Diana's life was filled with so much tragedy and ended so early in life that it was an impossible story for the paparazzi to resist, whereas Mother Teresa was already quite old. A lot of it has to do with the news cycle...if another story comes along which takes all the focus and attention. In Colorado, you have/had the echoes of the past with Columbine, the "honors student gone bad" angle, the "could it have been prevented?" 2-3 days of media chatter, court appearances, juxtaposed with a cultural event that many tried to tie together, the premiere of the final movie in the Batman trilogy.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 03:55 PM) Can't really answer the question until we know the outcome of Danks' surgery. Sale is going nowhere (although given his tremendous value I'd shop him and see if someone makes a stupid good offer), Quintana shouldn't be either given performance vs. cost + control, and it's hard to have 4 lefties in a rotation. Danks vs. Liriano is the question I think since you don't need 2 expensive lefties when you already have 2 good, cheap ones. I think Floyd is gone for sure. Kenny has been shopping him for a long time now and he hasn't done enough to warrant an extension. Humber will likely be moved and I'd expect Peavy is a good bet to come back on a reworked deal. Actually, the more I think about it, I'd definitely shop Sale. He'll be getting to arb quickly and he'll be worth a ton there, and the innings & durability questions would make me pull the trigger if some GM offered a sick package of prospects headed by an MLB-ready All-Star caliber position player, specifically a 3B. I wouldn't move him though unless I got a package of players that made me think I had at least one MLB-ready All-Star and 2 near-ready above average starting pitchers or position players. And at least 2 of the 3 would have to have high floors. In fact, if you trade Sale I'd try to get Liriano on a nice deal to kind of replace that top-of-the-rotation kind of lefty and then market Danks if he comes back strong. Lots of possibilities exist with the Sox current rotation depth. Except you're not going to get that offer on Sale for the same reason KW would be scared to death to extend him 1-2 years into FA instead of going year by year on him. You'll get a very nice package, but it's always going to be mitigated by those underlying injury/durability concerns. He's probably worth a lot more to us than other teams at this point. I mean....imagine you're the GM of another team, would you trade them your own equivalent of 2008-2009 Gordon Beckham, another Top 50-100 prospect and something along the lines of a Simon Castro or Mitchell? That's a hell of a risk there.

Sounds familiar. All that came with 2 outs against Perez. Five freakin' runs. Incredible. Let's hope the Yankees can cool them off (it's at Comerica though, where they play great) and we can take care of business and not look past the Royals or take them for granted.

Is Floyd worth $9.5 million? If we had to choose between him and Liriano for the same amount of money (or less), you probably go with the potential of Liriano. There's more risk on both sides, but it would be worth it.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 4, 2012 -> 09:43 PM) I haven't heard of this controversy at all Morrissey talked about it in the new Ozzie book quite a bit.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 4, 2012 -> 09:38 PM) Thornton's slider has been more effective since the ASB than Reed's been, IMO. Thornton's big problem is his fastball has absolutely no zip to it, and he struggles to get the pitch up and in to righties (he used to be amazing at this). And it's as straight as a Billy Koch 2003 fastball to Carl Crawford. Watching Blackburn or Greinke, it's amazing the difference in how their pitches move compared to Matt. For whatever reason, I think Ventura's going to end up trusting Myers more in the end. If not for AJ throwing the ball down the line because the baserunner was in the way in the Twins' game, he wouldn't have any negative results so far with the Sox.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 4, 2012 -> 09:40 PM) Player development takes a very distant back seat to post season baseball. In August and September that shouldn't even enter the discussion for a right-thinking franchise. Laugh all you want about Pierre, but slot his .381 obp behind De Aza and the lineup becomes more formidable. And KW is more likely to bring his son up to start in LF for Viciedo than to bring back Juan Pierre. In a billion years, it will never happen. Forget it. We've been doing "development" with Gavin Floyd for 4 years now. And with Humber for a full season now of struggles. They're hurting the team just as much, if not more, than Viciedo and Beckham.

QUOTE (Caesar @ Aug 4, 2012 -> 09:38 PM) If Danks isn't ready to start the year next year, I would put myers in the rotation and trade Floyd and sign Liriano depending on how he does the rest of the year. He's going to have to end up finishing 45 games for his option to get picked up. If Reed blows a few more games, it's possible, as they will have to turn to Myers. At least Crain has come around this last week after looking REALLY shaky last week.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 4, 2012 -> 09:34 PM) Honestly, I'd love to have Pierre on this roster right now so he could start a few games a week against tough RHP and to provide speed off the bench. However, I don't think the Sox would be interested in him again. NOPE, too personal. Ozzie's and KW's feud right there, all over again. KW wanted Viciedo playing full-time from May on, Ozzie absolutely refused to bench Pierre and felt he would lose the respect of the veterans and essentially the entire team if did that to Juan. That's where you had these brushfires with those two and also Walker, over Beckham, over Viciedo and to a lesser extent over the use of Hector Santiago.

Thornton is still essentially a one pitch pitcher...and Reed has a better slider than Thornton's, but he still can't throw it very often when he needs it or when he's 2-1 or 2-0 or 3-1. Myers is the only guy who can throw 3 pitches confidently for strikes. He'll get hit when he gets behind on the fastball, but that curveball is the great equalizer and nastier than Gavin's at times.

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 4, 2012 -> 09:28 PM) I know you'll get blasted on here for saying that, but I'm beginning to agree with you. Viciedo just doesn't bring enough to the table against RHP right now. As for the bullpen, I wish Ventura had more confidence in letting Nate Jones start an inning. Two straight games where he left the starting pitcher in way too long and both times resulted in a Pujols homer. But who exactly are we going to get? We never made Dunn or Rios platoon players despite their struggles last year, it doesn't seem to be the answer to do that to a 23 year old if we want him to develop for the future. The White Sox have been playing so well at home recently because of home runs, mostly. Putting Juan Pierre in LF is not only going to be pointless, it will scare Matt Thornton from ever pitching again in the 9th inning again if Juan is out there.