caulfield12

Don't forget Gates BBQ and KC Masterpiece (which is a bit sweeter sauce). Big fan of the pulled pork sandwich at Oklahoma Joe's, and yes, it's the other side of a gas station/convenience store on the Kansas side of the state line, although it's very close to the border. Gates is one of those famous places (like The Varsity in Atlanta) where the waiters/waitresses are a bit famous for yelling at you or being somewhat aggressive or maybe pushy would be the best word. And yeah, Fiorella's Jack Stack BBQ is very good as well, in the Freighthouse. BTW, thanks for bringing that up, lol, my ex wife worked there as a waitress on the weekends and occasional weeknights when she was attending UMKC.

Orioles in a battle of wills, 15th inning in Seattle, still tied at 2-2. About to go into the 16th all tied up... Balt won 4-2 in the 18th, 20 games over .500 again and tied with the Yankees.

The path through Kansas City won't get any easier for the Sox. Because Luis Mendoza suffered a bout of strep throat, Sox nemesis Bruce Chen was moved up and now will pitch Wednesday night against Chris Sale. Jeremy Guthrie, who hasn't allowed an earned run against the Sox in 232/3 innings, was moved up and will start Thursday night against left-hander Francisco Liriano. Ventura said catcher Tyler Flowers probably would start Wednesday, and that he was leaning toward giving Rios a rest Thursday. So much for the theory that the Royals were deliberately setting up with a match-up with Guthrie because they hate the White Sox and want them to lose. KANSAS CITY -- The Royals' pitching plans for the rest of the week were scrambled on Tuesday when right-hander Luis Mendoza came down with a throat ailment. Mendoza was scratched from his scheduled start on Wednesday night against the White Sox. The Royals didn't play on Monday so left-hander Bruce Chen can move up a day and take Mendoza's spot, with right-hander Jeremy Guthrie opposing Chicago on Thursday night. "[Mendoza] came in today and was feeling horrible," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "His throat was all infected. We think it's strep throat. We sent him to the doctor." The rotation for the weekend series against Cleveland at Kauffman Stadium remained uncertain, pending Mendoza's health and ability to pitch. Mendoza, left-hander Will Smith and just-arrived Jake Odorizzi are in the mix. It's possible that Odorizzi, promoted from Triple-A Omaha, will make his Major League debut on Saturday night or Sunday against the Indians. It all depends on Mendoza's availability. "We may just skip his whole turn, I don't know. We've got to wait and see," Yost said. Mendoza's illness will prevent him from going head to head against White Sox ace Chris Sale for the fourth time this season. Sale topped Mendoza twice on July 15 and Aug. 6, with Mendoza beating Sale on Aug. 17. It sets up a Sale-Chen rematch of Sept. 8 in Chicago. Sale beat Chen in that game. www.kcroyals.com

Am going to go ahead and guess that the Tigers will start Smyly Sunday at home against the Twins and then put Scherzer back into the rotation, giving him a full 10 days of rest and recuperation. But it's a tough decision...as the White Sox might gain another game in the next 2 days, and that would put even more pressure to use Max on the weekend as the numbers start turning against DET and they're forced to play each game like it's Game 7 of the World Series to stay alive in the race.

I think it's great. Go out and beat Chen (we did last time) and Guthrie, too. Prove that we belong there in the playoffs, instead of taking the back door route in. Beat their best.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 19, 2012 -> 12:08 AM) I don't think any team would risk paying that kind of money for Rios with his past history of alleged laziness. He's having a great year. He'll remain a White Sox IMO with no offers coming KW's way. We just should be happy he's turned it around. Look at Cubs' Soriano. He's been a waste for years making all that loot. Rios hopefully has reinvented himself. That swing is a thing of beauty now. But really, you're only looking at a down year in 2009 (still had 71 RBI's after only putting up 9 for the Sox in basically 2 months), a very strong 2010 where he did tail off at the end...there's only 2011 that is the outlier, and a lot of that can be blamed on Ozzie and the general malaise around the entire organization, the split between KW's "side" and Ozzie's "side," etc. Also, one has to remember that he was taking playing time directly away from one of the most popular Sox players in Jermaine Dye, and that must have caused some level of discomfort in the clubhouse as well, in terms of the team chemistry, having been jettisoned by the only organization he'd ever played for in the Blue Jays...etc.

Bueno=BAD In this case. Drat. Could have used those 2 insurance runs, tough for AJ against LHP.

Just 2 hits through 5 innings. With Cy Chen and Cy Guthrie looming. This sucks!! Not to mention a dangerous and desperate Angels' team on the road, clinging to playoff hopes. I think I'd rather play the Tigers 2 more times (instead of the Royals), now that they've seemingly gotten over the hump against them yesterday.

Gee, yet another Alex Gordon outfield assist. Not smart baserunning there AJ. Wasn't even really close.

Thought that ball was long gone off Rios' bat. Just missed it, to quote a Harrelson-ism. RISP doldrums continue to befuddle the Sox line-up.

For once we catch a break against KC. Need to take advantage with RISP.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 18, 2012 -> 07:40 PM) Stephen Drew must hate the White Sox. Villarreal is one tough customer though, hard to expect to come through against that guy consistently. 5-1 Tigers now. Momentum shifted quickly from nearly a tie game to this. Smyly would go into the Tigers' rotation if Scherzer is out for a start or more.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Sep 18, 2012 -> 07:43 PM) Can someone fill me in on how we're trailing to the Royals? Floyd? Typical Gavin Floyd brain cramp/brain freeze challenging Sox Killer Billy Butler with a free base and runners on 2nd/3rd, one out (amazingly, Escobar and his 482 BAA the Sox was retired).

Good idea not to hit a ball at any Royals' CFer. Cain, Dyson, Lough, whoever they throw out there seems to be a great defender.

Might as well wake up Hosmer, too! Center cut fastballs tend to do that.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Sep 18, 2012 -> 07:25 PM) It was. Which is why pitching to him was so smart. Except Perez is just as dangerous as Butler, at least against us. It's an argument that has two very strong sides, but you don't want to give up a grand slam in the 1st. Tigers' pen hopefully will get burned up today. The problem, though, is that it SHOULD be well rested with Verlander going tmrw, and Sanchez also pitched well his last time out, carrying a no-hitter late into the game. That A's line-up doesn't test you, other than a slumping Reddick and Cespedes, it's 75% their pitching and 25% timely hits and homers.

Billy Butler, of course! What a nightmare, that Royals' line-up is for our pitchers this year. Hopefully Sale is an exception tmrw.

Escobar with a career 482 average against the Sox coming into that AB.

Undefeated string for Griffin in danger. He and Jered Weaver the only rookies to start 11 games, no losses, sub 2 ERA, in their MLB careers.

Oakland with a schedule from hell down the stretch. DET, Yankees, 2 series with the Rangers.

His velocity was down a bit and he was going a lot more sidearm/three-quarters arm slot...maybe something is bothering him physically. He's had a ton of wear and tear on that arm/shoulder/elbow...both him and Verlander, due to Leyland consistently leaving him in so long.

Impressive. Peralta catches a pitch and lashes it for an opposite field homer. Especially to do that in cold September Detroit weather. 2-1 Tigers. Not a good idea to trade Alexei Ramirez and replace him with Stephen Drew. Note for Marty34. Tigers 48-21 when Jackson scores a run. We probably have a similar stat with DeAza.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 18, 2012 -> 06:31 PM) Scherzer getting an insane amount of swing and misses so far. And that's with his "B" fastball in the 93-94 MPH range. What is impressive is how much movement he's getting with that change-up...the tailing action is similar to Colon or Peavy in his prime.

1-1 in the Tigers game. Oakland mounted a 2 out attack against Max Patkin, AJ Griffin pitching out of 1st and 3rd no out situation after giving up a SAC fly to Miggy. Top of the 2nd. Tie game. Griffin has an impressively slow curveball, 67-69 MPH, about the speed of Shingo's frisbee curve. 4 of the first 5 Oakland outs are K's by Scherzer. Man, he's on a roll. Now he's going to a 3/4's arm slot occasionally to throw in a new look. But 2 walks and 2 hits as well. Velocity at 93-94, almost 40 pitches through 1 2/3rds. 44 pitches...bottom of the 2nd now.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Sep 18, 2012 -> 12:07 PM) Kenny Williams is a very good GM and has been that for many years. He's only made a couple bonehead moves (Teahen, trading for the wrong player, the Thome situation, the CF situation for years), but those aren't the ones people focus on. The "misses" he gets stuck with were either all win-now moves (Edwin Jackson, the first Swisher deal, etc.) where he traded good-but-not-great prospects for highly talented proven players, or else low risk/high reward types that didn't work out (Sisco, Massett, MacDougal's extension, etc.). Pretty much everything Kenny Williams has done in the last 10 years has either been a great move that the Sox have benefited from or at least a decent on-paper move that only looks bad viewed in hindsight. Let's not forget that some of the "worst" moves Kenny has ever made, at least when you go back and look at the fan reaction when the deals were made - trading Brandon McCarthy, giving up Miguel Olivo AND Jeremy Reed plus Morse as a 3rd player which was a huge haul for rental Freddy Garcia, trading the now-injured Dan Hudson who I think we should all finally agree is NOT what many here trumped him up as, etc. - these have all been pretty good moves or at least haven't really stopped the forward progress of the organization. Kenny's bad farm system rankings are going to start to turn around fast now that Mr. Club Burn is out of here and the new CBA has put the Sox on pretty even ground. Watch Kenny build and then maintain a consensus mid-tier farm system while constantly depleting it through trades. Meanwhile, watch what Theo does on the North side. It'll be apparent rather quickly who the better GM is. And finally, one more thing to throw out there about Kenny & his farm: there are about 20-30 prospects per organization for the national "prospect evaluators" to pay attention to, plus the players who have graduated/fallen out of list contention, plus the players in the upcoming draft, plus the guys coming out of the Dominican as teenagers, or out of Cuba or Japan, etc. There are literally several hundred "prospects" out there for these national guys to pay attention to. Most of the time they are working on old 2nd or 3rd hand information that may account for nothing more than a couple of observations. These guys are desk jockeys who sit there and try to use their own criteria to come up with ranking systems more or less based on nothing. They are not pro scouts and their opinions & rankings mean next to nothing. If they get to see a good amount of video on a particular prospect then it's probably such a big name prospect that any fan with an internet connection can see the same thing. They are the Joe Cowleys of the prospect world, i.e. they have their "sources" which in general seem to account for very little and are really the only advantages they have over the average educated fan with an opinion. The Hector Santiagos and Jose Quintanas and Eduardo Escobars of the world always fall through the cracks with these guys, and only through posting otherwordly numbers in the minors do they ever get attention. The problem with that is that players like this account for a good percentage of the players actually competing in the Major Leagues. KW, Rick Hahn, Buddy Bell, etc. are showing that they have a system in place that is working and is producing actual results. Who the f*** cares if Keith Law doesn't like Chris Devenski or Matt Heindenreich? I doubt Houston does, and I certainly don't because I kind of like having Brett Myers coming in late in the game. So basically f*** these prospect guys, kudos to KW & the Sox. And next time KW trades a prospect nobody knows anything about, don't sit there and say "KW is a thief" like an idiot just because Keith Law says so, maybe give KW & his group a little bit of credit for finding a prospect that another team likes enough to bother trading a proven veteran for. Good post. However, I don't think ANYONE ever considered Escobar a potential force, any more than Andy Gonzalez, for example. And to characterize Gio Gonzalez as a "good but not great prospect" is slighting one of the best young pitchers in baseball. When all is said and done, there will be more complaining over dealing Gio for Swisher than perhaps any other trade that has been made, other than Todd Ritchie for Wells/Fogg/Lowe. But yeah, the Juan Uribe/Aaron Miles trade was another example of an under-the-radar trade that clearly led to 2005. Bobby Jenks and Sergio Santos also deserve/d mentions in the original article as "dumpster dives" that panned out incredibly well. And there's bound to be grumbling about Z. Stewart and Molina, although Stewart partially ended up getting us Youk and one of the players traded for Quentin led to the acquisition of Liriano, who has given us some decent starts down the stretch and helped buy time for Sale and Gavin Floyd, as well as Jose Quintana.