caulfield12

Went to the well once too often on that slider against Ichiro.

Shades of early 2010 with Alex Rios now. Solid line drives. Rios at .306, Dunn at .255. Hopefully it lasts.

LOL at Mariners DHing Miguel Olivo, who's hitting .143. Nasty pitch to wipe out Ryan. Escapes from trouble two innings in a row.

QUOTE (winninguglyin83 @ Apr 20, 2012 -> 08:52 PM) so much more fun to watch with a few runs. Just want to see Morel and Beckham get some confidence. maybe going on the road -- and facing a mediocre pitcher -- was just the thing. And Noesi went 8 innings last outing, giving up 0 runs. The Rangers and White Sox have roughed him up, though.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 20, 2012 -> 08:49 PM) Dunn with the bomb. And he was all over it. If he's not as fat and he doesn't appear as fat, could hit have a decent year?? Sure, why not? No expectations, less pressure. If AJ and Rios continue to be strong presences offensively, he has a ton of protection behind him...obviously, Konerko's one of the best hitters in the game, all that helps. Greg, your Royals are managing to blow another lead late. Speaking of bad. Very good play there by Ryan, unfortunately he can't hit so well.

That'll work. You had a feeling Dunn's confidence was starting to come back with all those walks, the bases-clearing double against the LHP, now a monster homer. 11 RBI's, 2 HR's, highest average of the season since he was 2/5 to start out.

Oppo field attack by Beckham and Morel. Great to see runners moving multiple bases in that spacious stadium...not station to station.

Well, that's the patented Beckham RCF stroke. Seems he has been fouling off more balls recently, 3rd double. Great bunt by DeAza. Like the confident feel of the team right now, they seem to have put that O's series behind them already. No hangover.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Apr 20, 2012 -> 08:38 PM) Sale deserves a medal for shrugging off the error by Lexi. Greg, relax. We're 16-3 against Seattle since 2010. That was a pretty tough play, Alexei normally makes it, but it was ruled a hit right away. If he catches it cleanly or makes an accurate throw, it's an out. It's over now.

Great sequence of sliders against Ichiro, then gets the tailor-made DP ball. Good work.

Getting great at-bats this inning...Noesi's working so slowly, already at 30 pitches. Just can't give them a DP ball, Alex. Good swing there, Rios. Has had very strong results against SEA. CHW are 16-3 against SEA since 2010, 7-2 last year. Could have been a bigger lead, but that's the best series of at-bats from Sox hitters in a while. Made Noesi throw 38 pitches. Dunn now leading the team with 6 doubles. A lot of those will be homers when the weather heats up.

Tough luck there for Konerko. Need to score at least one of these runners.

That's two huge doubles that Dunn has gone with and flipped down the LF line this week. Great to see.

Great approach by DeAza to start the game. Let's get him over, please. Or a steal, but no CS. Team 8/12 stealing now. Brent at least battled there and didn't give in...still fouling everything to the right hand side.

Late starts are great here in China, 10 am on Saturday morning. But tmrw will suck, the game time is 4 a.m. here. Maybe I'll wake up early Sunday and catch the tail end of it, since I probably won't be missing much of an offensive display or excitement the first 6 innings or so. Looking at batters 4-5-6-7 in our line-up, we actually look like a halfway decent offense.

One thing to remember is how big Regents Park actually is... Don't be suprised to see those ERA numbers inflated by at least 0.50 to 1 full run in Charlotte. Plus in Greene, Mitchell and Martinez, more range the defensive ability than our current major league outfield.

J. Willingham having a monster April for the Twins. Bases clearing double gives them a 5-4 lead on the Rays in Florida in the 7th.

Who's that Rodriguez guy throwing 100? Clippard really shut the door on the Marlins in the 8th, Hanley Ramirez was overpowered.

Mitchell with probably the biggest game of his career so far. First homer of the season and RBI single, 2/3, 5 RBI's and only in the bottom of the 4th. 15 RBI's already. 8-0 Barons. Charlotte struggling mightily with some dude named Johan Flande. Josh Phegley with yet another hit, double. One of the other 3 hits belongs to the light-hitting Ozzie Martinez. In W-S, Kevan Smith, Pangilanan and R. Ravelo all with multi-hit games. Ravelo's actually at .404 now. K. Walker with a double. Vance got roughed up a bit this start, but only 2 ER.

Makes no sense if we continue to shed players like Floyd or Crain or Thornton. Not sure if he'd go for a one-year deal, but offering two years at his age and with his wear and tear would be asking for lots of trouble, especially if he was in a year where he was struggling or had to be benched. Let's see where we are at the end of July. We'll have a lot clearer idea of the direction of the franchise at that point, in terms of possibly being able to compete in 2013 or not.

Molina 1-2-3 first. First two balls were hit hard but right at Carlos Martinez's son in RF and at Saladino's shoestrings. Drew Garcia with a great play on a Texas Leaguer into short RF. Mostly throwing FB, sinker, curve. Velocity around 90-91-92 (hence Greg's comparisons to Zach Stewart). .296 BAA him so far this year, 2 homers allowed, 11 K's, LHB are 9/26 (.346) Saladino with a badly needed hit. 6/45, .133, 2nd double. Bunted over, Wilkins with an opposite field (he's a notorious pull hitter) single for his 11th RBI, but still hitting around just 200. Smith and Jose Martinez single, bases loaded for Jared Mitchell with 1 out (sounds familiar for Sox fans). LOL, Mitchell grounds into a tailor-made double play. 2nd inning for Molina, grounder to Saladino, nice curveball for strike 3, jams the third hitter of the inning and Justin Greene makes a nice play in the gap. 6 up, 6 down. 3rd inning, lost my feed, gave up a hit or walk but got a double play grounder and got of the inning with just 5 pitches, has faced the minimum. Yay, Mitchell's first homer, shot to RF out of the park at very deep Regents Park (over the 382 foot sign)....4-0. Best thing about it was it was lefty vs. lefty, guy for the Braves throwing 93-96 MPH tonight. Only Barons' fourth homer of the season but leading SL in XB hits. Last year, Gac (now on the M-Braves) and Wilkins his 56 homers combined. Molina labored through the top of the 4th, gave up a bad hop/spin single down the 3B line but still no runs given up through 4. Saladino with his second double of the game, this time a ball hit on the ground down the RF line past the first baseman. Nice to see some signs of life out of him. Garcia with a seeing eye single up the middle scores Saladino from 2nd.

http://www.milb.com/gameday/index.jsp?gid=...gwiaaa_chraaa_1 Charlotte (Stults) http://www.milb.com/gameday/index.jsp?gid=...msbaax_biraax_1 Another Molina start (0-1, 5.40 ERA) http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...wilafa_wswafa_1 Winston-Salem (Buch) http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?s...lexafx_kanafx_1 Kannapolis (Kevin Vance)

AJ's only had 7 total passed balls from 2010-now. 2006 and 2007, 24 combined. The evidence suggests he's gotten better in this area, actually, not worse.

Doesn't sound like Manto is going to be concerned about averages until they've had 250-300 at-bats this year, lol. It's going to be a long season if they stick with Morel that long hitting 2nd and striking out about half the time.

Cubs and Red Sox heading in parallel directions. 3-11/4-10.