caulfield12

Overtime in Detroit...

Way too many pitches for the first inning... Let's get out of this, Chris. Seemed a little tentative to go after the red hot Hairston. Heart of the order up for the Tigers in the bottom of the 9th, tie game, against Matt Belisle.

C'mon AJ. Not your strong suit, moving your body instead of stabbing with the glove. Crossed up?

Maybe Sale has too much adrenaline going for this match-up. Normally, he has been more effective ranging his fastball from 89-94 in the early innings, then dialing it up into the mid 90's whenever needed.

Heading for 250-260 K's, has cut down the pace a little bit. He might as well go ahead and put up a 300 just for another remarkably anomalous season in the history of baseball, to go with 50+ homers. Haven't been following the Marlins, just know about the closer's issues, the recent Heath Bell blow-up and that (surprise) Logan Morrison has been struggling with Ozzie as his manager.

So much for Dunn having no bat speed. 94 mph fastball that was actually high and out of the strike zone. Is that the MLB lead for homers now, all by himself?

Marlins are really imploding. Wondering if JR seriously would consider bringing back Buehrle if they ate 25-35% of his contract? Probably too early for Loria to consider throwing in the towel, but that team (and manager) is in all kinds of trouble.

Too bad there's no "Twilight Zone" where another manager could have been inserted in the Marlins manager's office to see if there's any difference at all in the attendance for the Marlins in their new stadium. Just not buying that Ozzie is drawing any fans at all after the initial excitement wore out. I think the theory of having a "marketable manager" versus having a first place team was erroneous. Then again, nobody could have anticipated the Nationals would be this good, this soon.

Indians beat the Pirates, 2-0, behind Masterson. 1 GB. Tigers/Rockies tied in the bottom of the 7th in DET. Rockies with 8 game losing streak. Giambi's hit into 3 DP's, that's not easy to do, with two of them going to Cabrera playing SS essentially with the overshift.

Somehow I have a feeling the tale of this season won't be, "well, if we'd only inserted Doyle into the starting rotation in June (July/August/September), then we'd have won the division for sure." It's not like Thome vs. Kotsay/Jones. Could see the White Sox looking at Dice-K as a FA reclamation project this offseason. 2nd year back after TJ is always the better one, but he's one of those guys who drives you crazy with the nibbling. If he could find a pitching coach who could change his approach (see the transformation with Contreras) to get him to become more aggressive, attack hitters and trust his stuff, you might really have something. Plus, it'd be good for marketing/box office.

Rockies had a great chance to blow the Tigers out of the water...already scored 2 runs and bases loaded, no outs, and Crosby got out of it with a force at the plate and double play when Giambi forgot there was only one out and dogged it down to first and looked back over his head at the plate. Now it's 2-2 and the Tiggers have all the momentum. Three doubles in a row by DET. Francis just doesn't have an out pitch to go to, had a 21+ ERA when he started this game although he's been good against AL Central most of his career. 3-2 Tigers now.

QUOTE (GO CHI SOX! @ Jun 16, 2012 -> 05:41 AM) https://twitter.com/#!/pgammo I hope that's legit and not just a rumor, like the Blue Jays being in on Darvish but not really, only to appease the fanbase and create the perception they "could have been in" on him when it wasn't actually a reality. If we legitimately have that much money to invest in Soler, we just picked up a similar player in Hawkins...then there's leeway to improve this current 2012 team somehow by taking on salary and not being forced to give up a Nathan Jones or Mitchell.

God, if we could have traded Santos for Middlebrooks or Reddick, we would have been set. Unfortunately, we had Morel and Viciedo/Quentin/Rios/DeAza at those positions. But we're both a bat and starting pitcher short right now...

QUOTE (SouthSidePride05 @ Jun 16, 2012 -> 02:20 AM) This also explains the low attendance at US Cellular. For the average baseball fan, it takes a couple years to get with the program. They still think AJ deserves the hate, and they still think the Sox suck. I was actually at a party last night, and a group of people started talking about the Chicago baseball teams and how bad they are. Not one person knew the Sox were in first place. Yep, they're still stuck in the Dunn/Peavy/Rios/Beckham suck and must be booed "loop" and already tuned out in early 2011 after our 4-18 stretch pretty much knocked us out of contention right away in April/May.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 16, 2012 -> 02:07 AM) They won't. The last rumor was the Cubs were willing to send all but a million dollars a year of his salary in order to get some real players back in return. Ricketts really can throw all that money around, at Zambrano, Soler and Soriano in the span of less than 6 months? If the Indians have $3+ million to spend, wouldn't they prefer other alternatives, like Quentin? They already have Brantley and Choo, if Sizemore can come back in the 2nd half, they don't absolutely have to acquire another outfielder. But it has hurt them that LaPorta and Damon have been so bad, along with Chisenhall. The biggest concern of all has to be their starting pitching holding up and Santana turning his season around offensively. He's absolutely lost right now, and has been in a fog for most of the season.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 16, 2012 -> 01:25 AM) The series vs. Detroit broke the record for highest attendance for a 3-game series. Never mind that like 75% of the fans were rooting for the Tigers. Yep, over 124,000, and now they have the Red Sox in town. Doesn't seem fair. Wish we could get half those numbers of Tigers' fans for Sox games in Chicago, at least we'd be making more money to go out and improve our team, and it's not like it would affect our home record all that much since we don't play that well at home anyway. But I can't imagine actively marketing Sox tickets to Tigers' fans...that would be crazy, although some colleges do it.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jun 16, 2012 -> 12:50 AM) Well, you sure can't say the Sox aren't trying everything to sell tickets. Just got a personalized email from someone in the ticket office, even though I live 288 miles from the stadium. I did tell him that if he helped me find a job in Chicago/NW Indiana, I'd guarantee to buy at least a 9-game package for 2013 :> How did they get your e-mail address in the first place?

QUOTE (pittshoganerkoff @ Jun 16, 2012 -> 12:34 AM) No, I agree that the Sox can't go out and make a big name acquisition right now (although I'm not sold on attendance being the main factor there). But the original post didn't state that the Sox needed to go out and grab that big money guy. It just stated that the Sox need to start thinking about getting some help...and that's the truth. Soriano won't cost them anything, and he would be help for them. This is a perfect example of not having to worry about money (or attendance for that matter) when it comes to getting some help. Except the Indians can't afford to pay for the entire remainder of his deal. The Cubs aren't going to eat as much of his salary as they did with Zambrano, or they're going to ask for some decent prospects back. Soriano's deal goes through 2014, right? So that trade will be entirely about economics. Ricketts isn't going to just eat $30-40 million, just like JR wouldn't do it with Rios.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 15, 2012 -> 11:53 PM) We aren't going to be able to look for players if we can't pay them. The problem is that we'll NEVER see the benefits of higher attendance until we're in the playoffs or the following season. So, by definition, adding any player will never pay for itself in the shorter term. However, they can go through this cycle every season (adding Peavy/Rios in 2009, Ramirez/Jackson in 2010, Dunn in 2011) and wait for a competitive team to bring about increased attendance...or make a concerted effort to build a great team that they can keep together for at least 3 and possibly 4 years. They're still stuck "in between" again just like every season from 2006 through 2012, with the exception of one year, 2007. It's always going to leave them as a 75-85 win team. Every time there's moment, like 2006, 2009 and going into 2011, they kill it and it takes another couple of seasons to build the interest back up....the problem is they keep losing 10-15% of where they started in 2006 every time they go through that cycle.

Revenue >>> Attendance To just look at the surface and say that our attendance 26th or whatever and that we can't make any moves because of that would be exactly what the fan's conditioned himself to believe. It's up to JR and KW. If they want the fans to come out, they're going to have to give them something to believe in, especially if they want to keep charging "dynamic" prices. Dynamic prices are only justified by a dynamic ballclub. We have SOME pieces, but we're at least one pitcher short. If the Indians have the lowest attendance in the majors and much lower average ticket prices than the Sox, there's just no way they're in a "clearly better" position to add than the White Sox, especially after making the Jimenez move last season. Not to mention the fact that if teams like the Padres are fetching $800 million and upwards, we have the leverage to take on at least one more big contract, especially with Peavy off the books for 2013. Obviously, making it a shorter term commitment would be better at this point.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 15, 2012 -> 12:28 PM) He's hurt. Sox sucking last 3 series. Bummer. We didn't play well against the Astros, but the Cardinals series wasn't about us "sucking" as much as the 2nd game was a great pitcher's duel and we just couldn't come up with the timely hits. It's not like we got completely blown out of the water by the defending champs, far from it.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 15, 2012 -> 12:38 PM) They didn't hire him for his managerial skills. They hired him for publicity to help fill seats in their new stadium because Florida has the worst fanbase in pro sports. He was probably overrated in the sense that he was a protege of the former manager who won the World Series in 2003, Jack McKeon. Perhaps there was also the attendant idea that his style of play was more suitable for the NL. Most importantly, big name, the ability to appeal to Hispanic fans in South Florida...but last time I checked, their numbers were ONLY about an average of 27,000 per game. So in their first year, the bloom has already worn off because of hte fact that they've been a disappointment for most of the first two months, except for the one run similar to the one the White Sox had that put them at 8 games over before falling back to .500 again.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Jun 15, 2012 -> 11:48 AM) Silverio and Short also made the list. It's only the "top prospects" for the Sox. Not much of a list, then. KW JR should be promoted to Charlotte, YAY!!

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 15, 2012 -> 10:15 AM) My question is how in the world did Molina dominate as much as he did last year if his fastball is so mediocre? I would love for someone to analyze his stuff from last year and this year by someone who's seen him both years. Maybe all pitchers who go from the Blue Jays to other organizations lose 2-3-4 MPH on their fastballs.... Happened to Stewart, too.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 15, 2012 -> 11:11 AM) I'm sure we are afraid to demote Gavin on the chances that we will make him immovable in the offseason. I get that, but we need to at least skip him and give him some time to think or something... Say what you want about Quintana's "luck," but he's light years ahead of Floyd right now. DL Floyd with "missing testicles" and bring up another kid, for all I care. He can't be any worse than Gavin right now. Gavin's deal is a $9.5 million club option for 2013. There's no way they're going to exercise that, so we don't have to worry about him being immovable unless things dramatically change the next couple of months. You'd have to say with Danks still iffy and Humber on the way out (along with Peavy), Cooper and KW have to be thinking there's one last shot to get Gavin turned around this season or just turn the page with someone like Axelrod and cross their fingers they can survive or tread water while waiting to add a veteran.