caulfield12

2 runners thrown out at the plate today. So close to kicking that ball out of his glove...this just isn't our day so far.

Konerko is just a professional hitter...takes almost every pitch where it's located. Going to RF more often this season than ever before. Used to turn over his hands and pull those ball on the ground in years past. Still does it occasionally, but not nearly as often.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 04:42 PM) There's about a 5-6 mph difference between fastball and change-up. The Golden Rule of pitching is you should have at least two pitches you can throw with confidence/command/location with a 10+ MPH diffferential between them. Whether it's a curve or change or screwball or slurve or whatever. Maddux even said 20 MPH, and used the example of the success of Jamie Moyer at his age. Baltimore sure isn't sustaining their success against us out in Anaheim.

You almost wonder if the pressure of that contract is affecting Danks this year. Normally, you could blame it on the lack of offensive support, but he just hasn't seemed quite right this year, as we're all noting. He's battling, but the results just aren't there. It's like he's fighting himself right now. That throw over to Dunn really bothered him too and got him flustered visibly.

Seems to me Danks is suffering from the same problem Peavy had last year. FB and change-up/offspeed velocity too close together. You always look for that 10-20 MPH differential, as Mike Maddux said in the Rangers/Tiggers pre-game. 89-90 mph on the fastball, 83-84 on offspeed stuff. Everything at about the same speed. Good call on the interference call by McClelland. Good bunt by Seager. Beckham really selling it by overacting too. 2nd stolen base of the season against us. How did that happen?

That looked like one of Humber's under 10 pitch innings yesterday. It's going to take a season or two to "unprogram" this Sunday/getaway day apathy or whatever it is. Take the first 2 games, shut it down. Not good. We still have four more innings to turn it around, but the body language isn't good right now.

When Kevin Millwood at this stage in his career and after all the injuries is throwing harder, that's not so good. CLE 7-1 on the road...against KC, Seattle and OAK. Good team or not?

There Danks reached back for a little something extra on the fastball, got it up to 91. Well, it's still a ballgame, boys. Offense on paper SHOULD be able to score more than 2 runs against Kevin Freakin' Millwood. Maybe not 5 or 10 years ago, but this version of him.

LOL at our defense this inning. Lillibridge misread a ball that he normally would catch at night. Beckham should have taken the easy out at first. Danks/Dunn miscommunication. The previous inning ends with a great defensive play by Ichiro. UGLY UGLY UGLY

19-3 run against the Mariners is looking to be in jeopardy with the White Sox now scuffling...

Glad we invested all that money in Mark Buehrle, OOPS, John Danks. Because Mark actually might have the same average fastball velocity this season. Dead arm period?

Lillibridge with a horrible break on that play. Whether it's the sun, sky/clouds, not good. At least the DP ball is still in play...interesting to see if he bunts them over to 2nd and 3rd.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 04:15 PM) McEwing being agressive as always, hey look Brent did something. I think Brent and Gordon will hit enough to stick around. Don't see that too often with 2 outs. Pretty much never, with the runner leaving at contact. And it wasn't even really that close.

Morel actually comes through with a run-scoring single to pretty much every RFer in baseball and Fukudome gets thrown out on a perfect peg. Oh, well. When you're paying Danks this kind of money, you have to go out and beat the Kevin Millwoods of MLB, especially with how bad their line-up is.

AJ absolutely hit that ball on the screws, but right at Ichiro.

Pretty much horrible location there on the cutter which should have been further inside. LOL at the Royals starting out 0-9 at home but ahead of us in attendance STILL by about 500 per game. Granted, they had 6 weekend games and we've only had 3 so that will even out next homestand against the RED SOX.

Great job, Mr. 4th starter Danks. Just joking. Well, maybe not. But Peavy's stopped losing skids three times already this season, fwiw.

Now the next debate will be about benching/platooning Lillibridge or Fukudome with DeAza and/or Lillibridge. No matter what, we can never seem to have a season in Chicago where the youth can play everyday without the pressure of always competing for a playoff spot, lol. That's a good thing, but its cost us so much in development, too. That hair-trigger with impatience cuts both ways, especially the Hudson/Holmberg trade.

34 or 35 consecutive saves now for Joe Nathan in his lifetime against Tiggers. That suicide squeeze actually went off Gonzalez's body, so it should have been ruled foul. Got away with one. Rangers and Hamilton are just too good right now....but Fielder almost walked off that game the last ab with a high fly down the RF line.

QUOTE (South Side Fireworks Man @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 11:45 AM) AJ, Konerko and KW get no credit??? I meant for Humber's acquisition and unexpected success for the Sox, not our season as a whole so far.

Colon was great last time out, and Villone pitched really well, but the Oakland offense is like Seattle's with the exception of Cespedes in the middle who's a threat to hit it out every at-bat.

AJ saying "I love ya, brother!" That was cool. This team really does seem to be getting along with each other better...the chemistry is a lot better. I know, winning makes chemistry, rather than chemistry results from winning, but they're co-correlated, lol.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 08:50 AM) The only similarity is the two teams conducting the deal. Santos was not dealt after finishing out the previous season on and off the DL. Sirotka(and pretty much the entire 2000 Sox staff) ended that season on fumes with all of them taking turns on the DL. And let's not forget, Wells wasn't exactly a steal, both teams received damaged goods, and neither team got a return from either pitcher. If Santos ends up hurt this season, I would attribute it to bad luck, not the Sox passing off an injured pitcher. Yeah, we got something like $4-4.5 million back in insurance payments on that contract for Wells. Wonder what the Blue Jays actually got back...and whether they had insured Sirotka against injury when he was acquired? Guess we'll never know.

QUOTE (mumbles3k @ Apr 22, 2012 -> 02:30 AM) The original MAJOR LEAGUE was so bad, I never bothered with the sequels. I'll have to check that out. That and MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING are now at the top of my list. But I haven't seen a lot of these. Really? Maybe the off-the-field stuff with Berenger and Russo was too much, but it still has to rate as one of the Top 10 baseball movies of all-time. The sequel/s, not so much.

Or another former Piranha...