caulfield12

QUOTE (Jose Paniagua @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 10:18 PM) Viciedo's a joke It's 49 at-bats. Relax. It's not like anyone in the majors has been hitting this guy so far, at least not that well. He's still got an OPS hundreds of points better than Beckham and Morel. And he's played better defense than Brent too this year. Finally and, he's much younger than both those guys.

Well, you knew that one was coming with how Viciedo's been struggling. Why wasn't Alexei Ramirez in motion? So much for that...at least it's a quick game, even without Mark Buehrle.

Got just a little bit of extra velocity and got it in on his hands so he couldn't extend. Good job so far for Gavin, 61 pitches through 4. More of our "opposite field" attack. Good approach on low-and-away cutter.

Got just a little bit of extra velocity and got it in on his hands so he couldn't extend. Good job so far for Gavin, 61 pitches through 4.

Got him to fish on that outside curveball....good location, not out over the plate.

Double no-hitter? When's the last time that came close to happening, where two pitchers both had no-hitters through at least 7 IP in the same game, facing each other?

LaHair involved in another Cubs' 9th inning comeback. Seems to be in the right place at the right time, this time with a solo homer to tie it up. Poor Royals! Poor Ozzie/Marlins. Reddick's really got to pick it up for the A's or nobody will pitch to Cespedes. So many holes on that team. Ironic that Ryan Sweeney came into today 6th in MLB OPS. Millone pitches 1-45, .176 avg. for opposing batters 45+=.238 Makes sense, takes at least one at-bat to adjust and he loses his stuff as the game goes on, but not by much.

Shades of Mark Johnson and Royce Clayton. At least we have five hitters who are raking, and Alexei's a slow starter and hopefully Viciedo will be okay. 7 straight and 9 of 10 retired, despite the righty-dominant line-up. Just the ball that Hughes messed up. That's three errors in 2 nights...and the jet lag excuse isn't going to fly for very long. BTW, Sogard is the ONLY player in all of MLB to wear prescription eyeglasses on the field or at the plate. Lasik eye surgery has come a long way. That, and most players have very good vision by birth, at least hitters.

It's amazing how many more runners we've thrown out this season compared to last. Nice play, Alexei. Tyler's 3/3 in throwing out runners, I think.

Dammit Morel, at least play good defense. Cespedes can actually run down the line.

Would those balls that Alexei and Dayan hit have been out at USCF?

Webb and Olacio got beaten up a bit. Walker 0/4 with 3 K's but still at .281

It's the players who failed, not Ozzie. Thanks, Greg.

Rios has an 11 game hitting streak coming into tonight's game. Mariners threatening to give another game away the Tigers. Up 6-4 in the bottom of the 8th, but Cabrera and Fielder have started the inning with 2 consecutive singles against Wilhelmsen, who didn't look all that great against us out in SEA. Boston crushing the Twins again, already up 7-1 in the 4th. Looks like our timing was one week off with them. They might have turned the corner with last night's dramatic win. Got out of it, Young and Peralta are struggling this year. That Gameday Scout feature actually predicted Wilhelmsen would go after Avila with curveballs instead of loading the bases for Austin Jackson (with the theory that Jackson had a higher OPS by about 300 points and that it would have put the go-ahead run on base). So what does he do, down in the count. Throws 2 curveballs in a row, and eventually gets the K on a very tough hitter.

Can Cooper also fix Dontrelle Willis? Seems like he would be a better option than Wil Ohman at some point in the future. BALTIMORE -- Dontrelle Willis filed a grievance Tuesday afternoon against the Orioles. He left the team's Triple-A Norfolk affiliate without the organization's permission after being placed on the Minor League restricted list. Matt Sosnick (same guy who was Josh Hamilton's original agent but was essentially fired for not being Christian later...Sosnick is Jewish) is Willis' agent and told MLB.com on Tuesday that the pitcher wanted to get back to being a starter and not come out of the bullpen. "We have not been contact[ed] by one team," Sosnick said. "We don't have a job lined up ... all we want to do is find a job in Triple-A where he can start. Out of respect for the process and the rules, Dontrelle never would have left if they told us he couldn't. He's having a really hard time going through the process of relieving. He's much more comfortable starting and going through the process of starting." Johnson earns the save00:00:314/22/12: Jim Johnson strikes out Howard Kendrick in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Orioles a 3-2 victory over the AngelsTags: More From This Game, Jim Johnson, Baltimore Orioles, pitching, save, highlightShare: Twitter Facebook Email Related Video Johnson seals the winReimold's two-run dingerAndino's terrific catch Willis asked for his release last Wednesday or Thursday and has been gone since Thursday. O's executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette confirmed to MLB.com on Monday that Willis had left Norfolk, and there were no plans to grant Willis his official release. At the time, Duquette also told MLB.com that he hasn't spoken with Willis since the pitcher left Norfolk. The 30-year-old Willis sat down with Duquette while the team was playing at Gwinnett (Ga.) on Thursday, and Duquette said the organization laid out a plan to get Willis the innings he needed to build him up to be a successful reliever. Duquette said Willis didn't have a problem with the plan at the time, and the organization is still holding out hope that Willis will return. Signed to a Minor League deal by Baltimore after being released this spring by the Phillies, the plan from the get-go was to have Willis learn to become a lefty specialist. He suffered a left forearm strain April 12 and was placed on the restricted list -- with no specific reasoning for the move -- on Sunday night. www.mlb.com

Mitchell with yet another walk. Saladino finally back up over .200 (let's hope Morel and Beckham can follow soon). Leesman pitching quite well tonight. Brian Omogrosso, not so much. Might not be long with the White Sox at this rate. Seems the injuries really set him back and he's never gotten his stuff or his control back to 100% like he was 2-3 years ago.

Scherzer getting ripped up by the Mariners at home.... Royals in danger of losing yet another game, this time to the Indians in CLE.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 05:21 PM) Isn't Bard in the bullpen now? He had a tie game in the bottom of the 8th, a runner on 3rd with no outs and Mauer coming up, and he managed to get out of it. Got Mauer to ground out on the infield, later they walked Morneau and got Doumit for the 3rd out. Then Ross homered for the 2nd time in the top of the 9th. Aceves got the save in the 9th.

What about AJ? Is he also taking more pitches and going with them to LF, as well? Or most of his hits have been pulled to the right side? It seems like he's serving/flipping a few more outside pitches the other way than in recent years, but maybe it's just what our eyes WANT to see with a new hitting coach and there's no new trend. That's mostly the case when DeAza hits the ball on the ground (pulled) for single and doubles/triples down the RF line, but he's also gotten a few balls up and in the air to the opposite field (one almost went out).

Some team will pick up Whisler, stick him on their major league roster for one game, and start him against us. And we'll end up with 3 hits and 11 K's.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Apr 24, 2012 -> 03:57 PM) I'm looking at Sale, Reed, Jones, Santiago, Morel, Beckham, Viciedo, Flowers as developmental guys. That is about 1/3 of the roster. If you want to go really crazy, you can include Lillibridge, Escobar and DeAza, although DeAza's 28 and more of a finished project. Humber's "only" 29 and still developing at the major league level, too. Include Zach Stewart (or whoever's in that spot this year, whether it's Axelrod/Doyle/Castro...as long as it's not retreads like Stults or Bruney), you're saying half your roster is close to being in development stage. Which leaves Ohman, Crain and Thornton AJ Alexei Paulie Rios and Fukudome Dunn Floyd, Danks, Peavy

I found it. This year, our WCIU games are up by 7 (25 appearances). We've also lost 2 WGN games, and 11 CSN, our biggest moneymakers. So, theoretically: 25 WCIU X $200K=$5,000,000 30 WGN X $350K=$10,500,000 101 CSN X $450K=$45,400,00 TOTAL=$60,900,000 PLUS the shared pool money from FOX/ESPN/TBS/TNT But we have lost about $4-4.5 million compared to previous years with more WCIU and fewer CSN games as well. Or one Mark Teahen/Jason Frasor.

Except every time we "sacrifice" a win for projected future innings and contention in August/September (with Axelrod/Stewart/Doyle starts), it's going to a very unpopular move. It's a tough call....we were within a few games of the Tigers going into August (something like 4 1/2 or 5 1/2) and then they just annihilated us and nearly everyone else down the stretch. This isn't like 2005/06 when we really had SIX legit starters with El Duque/McCarthy and then Javy/McCarthy. Unless there's a significant percentage of our minor league experts who have watched Axelrod and really believe he's going to be a legit major league pitcher. We probably can't say that about Doyle, if they were willing to leave him unprotected. Theoretically, we could catch lightning in a bottle yet again with pitching (last year Humber) and someone like Simon Castro could re-emerge from the minors and tear it up, earning a legit promotion. In the end, we've beaten Mariners and A's teams that just don't have much offense in pitcher's parks. We absolutely own the M's the last 3 seasons. Can we win at home? Can we start drawing more crowd support and home field advantage at USCF? Can we beat the Twins, Indians and Royals consistently this year? Yes, we've played better than expected. Yes, we could have won 3 or 4 games against the Orioles and expectations at this point would be even higher than they are now. We've played 2 of the 3 best teams in the league to a standstill (Rangers/Tiggers). We're playing better within our own division, etc. We've had a lot of "false starts" with these Greg Hibbard "great expectations" threads the last 2-3 seasons. Hopefully this one is more sustainable.

completed an almost unfathomable 0-10 home stand, which now occupies a slice of big-league history. Only one other team has opened the season by losing its first 10 home games — and that was 99 years ago when the New York Yankees did it when, heck, they were in their first year of being known as the Yankees. Those Yankees, previously tagged as the Highlanders, lost their first 10 home games before managing a tie (yes, really) against Boston. New York then lost its next seven home games before breaking through with a 3-2 victory over the White Sox. So while those Yankees didn’t win until their 18th home game, they only lost their first 10. Now, the Royals are at 10 losses and counting after a series of crushing failures to execute with runners in scoring position. Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/23/35725...l#storylink=cpy

One big difference from last season is he's throwing more sliders and less change-ups. That might mean he's feeling healthier or more confident in his arm/shoulder. His FB velocity is up by about 1/2 MPH from last year. Seemed that OAK had a slow gun last night. In other games, he's been in the 92-93-94 range...maybe once or twice this season at 95, not positive. I remember that Cubs game last year, most of his pitches were in the mid 90's, then he was never the same again after that.