caulfield12

Atta boy, Alejandro. Huge pick-me-up run there, momentum to Sox now.

3-0 Tigers. Cabrera/Martinez duo has been quite deadly tonight. Beckham somehow safe at 2B, five steals. Avila single, 4-0. Bad luck with the ball hit off the side of the hill kicking to Donald. Should be 3-0 right now, at least. These missed opportunities have seemed to come back to bite us all season long.

Seems like the only way for Beckham to reach base these days. C'mon Brent, get him into scoring position. Productive at-bat, por favor.

Verlander with only 8 pitches in the top of the 5th. 80 through 5. 4 k's in a row for Floyd. Since when did Gavin add that flat slider or cutter? He's been using that effectively in this game so far. 6 outs/5 K's Why isn't Kipnis playing? Just decided....Morel looks like Edward Burns with a bigger nose

What new, Dunn? You just can't play him any longer. They're going to have to use Lillibridge or DeAza. Have to knock pitchers like Jimenez out in the first couple of innings before they get a rhythm. The longer this goes on, with Rios and Dunn both coming back in 2012, it gets harder and harder to sell any season tickets.

Verlander with 72 pitches to get through 4 innings...2-0 going into bottom of 4th.

Gardenhire, why in God's name are you pitching to Miguel Cabrera with 2nd/3rd, 2 outs and a base open? Must be from the Ozzie Guillen School. 2-0, Tigers. Twins had a good chance to escape 2nd and 3rd, no outs and blew it.

Off the top of my head....the Twins have DL'ed Thome, Span, Kubel, Nishioka, Delmon Young, Mauer, Morneau and a few of their pitchers. The Indians have lost Hannahan (although Chisenhall had arrived already), Alex White, Choo, Sizemore, Hafner, Carmona (I think)...maybe LaPorta, at any rate, they've both lost more valuable players for much longer time periods than us. Not even close to say it's like 2001 or 2004.

I swear to God, if the pitching staff suffers in AJ's absence (while he hits about .175 with Dunn's K rate) and we finish 7-8 GB in the division and someone says "well, we'd have won the AL Central if we wouldn't have lost Pierzynski," and that is used as yet another excuse for bringing back Ozzie and KW, I'll.... The Indians and Twins have each had 8-10 more major injuries than the Sox this year.

The problem is if they don't keep Kubel and/or Cuddyer around. $16 million/2 years for Cuddyer isn't going to get it done. Span looks like a shadow of his former self, and they can't go with both Span and Revere in the outfield, not enough punch....especially if Morneau never returns to form and Mauer decides to put up Tommy Herr numbers with a higher batting average. They also have Slowey who should be coming off the books. MINN just screwed themselves not bringing JJ Hardy back. The guy is outhitting everyone on the White Sox but Konerko and Quentin.... And their middle relief has been a joke...when you don't replace Breslow, Reyes, Rauch, Guerrier and Crain, you're cruising for a bruisin'. Finally, Capps has been a big disappointment. Smith and Kenny Williams are brothers in bad moves the last 2-3 seasons. Luckily they had all of Ryan's talent in place and in their primes. Might have to let Liriano go as well...when the return will be minimal compared to what it once might have been. Same with Young after last season.

Whatever happened to Nuke LaLoosh?

What does Katie Upton actually do? Modelling, I'd guess? Singing? Actress? Groupie like Rachel Uchitel for Tiger? Is she 1/32nd related to BJ/Justin? Harrelson joke inserted.

Home of Delray Brooks, right?

I'm pretty sure it's up to 12 or 13 now, just in CLE. We don't have that for the entire season...games that we've won in the 9th inning or extras, home or away.

Maybe facing really good pitching the next two weeks will work out better than it did in April. It's certainly not as humiliating as losing to Bruce Chen 3 times out. Jimenez isn't so scary as Masterson, though. Do we face Carmona, Carrasco or Tomlin in the other game?

With how good the Indians have been at home this season, you take your chances that the home/road splits at some point return (regress) to mean. With the way we're struggling with RISP (STILL), you'd expect at least a couple of walkoff wins at Progressive Field. (Of course, we've said the same thing about Adam Dunn. Happened with Uggla, but not our player, of course). If you take away the six in a row we recently lost at home against Boston and the Yankees, it's not SO BAD. But sure, we should be 10-12 games over at least (at home). Not Brewers good, but c'mon, this is unexplainable.

Are lap dances REALLY $50??? I remember $10 and then $20, but $50??? Is that at SCORES in NYC? Must be 15 years or so since I've set foot foot in one...I guess the economy is working well for some professions, or inflation.

Doesn't seem like any team in the top 3 of the division will be "put down for good" until the final week of the season. Just glad that KW didn't do something silly like claim D. Young and end up paying him the same as Quentin for 2012 and then trade Carlos. No way you could have Young and Viciedo in the same outfield together.

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/marlins/201...logan-morrison/ The irony, of course, is Morrison's twittering has only been less controversial than Oney and Ozzie's in all of MLB.

If they beat each other up (let's say the Indians go 5-4 or 6-3 even), how would that be bad for the White Sox? It would just mean we need to take care of our own business against the Tigers and Indians when we play them head-to-head. Of course, if the Tigers go on a huge run against them for the remainder of the season, it significantly dimininshes our opportunities to pick up ground. Are 6 of those in DET or CLE? If they're in CLE (which I'd doubt, since their most recent series was there), it's really good for us. Otherwise, advantage Tigers.

Like Kevin Costner in Robin Hood...terrible accent, always happens when Americans try to go for the British accent rather than vice-versa Final Destination 5/3D, not bad, especially considering one of the best uses of 3D in a long time, Cameron apprentice directed.... Change-Up...don't waste money (i snuck in halfway through), BUT Olivia Wilde, hot hot hot! Downloading THE WHISTLEBLOWER, supposed to be excellent. Also want to see THE INTERRUPTERS (Chicago gang intervention doc)

“As ridiculous as it sounds, it would be unfair to the Yankees, Red Sox and Phillies to have the same salary structure as Kansas City, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. We’ve got 500,000 people to please here. They’ve got 18 million to please in New York,’’ he said. Votto isn’t an expert on moneyball, but he’s well versed. He has thought about it. He knows that ownership gets the better deal for the first six years of a major leaguer’s career, before the pendulum swings dramatically. He knows that NFL and NBA players reach some form of free agency at least two years sooner than baseball players do. He says, “Over that first six-year span, you’re probably paying a guy 15 to 25 percent of what he’s worth. He’s getting the minimum for three years, then 40, 60, 80 percent, roughly’’ of what the market says he’s worth. “You get to call a player up, whenever you want. You get to delay his (arbitration) clock. It can be very fair for all the small market teams. Look at Minnesota. Tampa Bay has had a pretty good stretch. Payroll matches market (size), with some exceptions. Baseball is doing a pretty good job,’’ Votto says. This is all snooze-button stuff. Until your team loses its best player because of it. The Reds will do all they can to keep Votto. Without a significant payroll increase, keeping him would weaken their team. You can’t devote 20 percent of your payroll to one player. As Votto says, “You’re never going to win if you put too much emphasis on your superstars. It’s such a shared responsibility to win. I won the National League MVP, and in 85 percent of the games I wasn’t changing the game. In the NFL, if I’m the MVP quarterback, I’m changing 12 out of the 16 games, maybe higher. Superstars can be overrated in this game.’’ Teams such as the Reds have a limited window of years to get everything right, before their best players emigrate to larger markets. That’s the worst thing about this disappointing summer: The Reds are in one of those window years. And they’ve squandered it. Joey Votto will continue to be a very good hitter, no matter his circumstance. “I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I see the pitcher’s best,’’ he says. He’ll continue to grow and improve. He took a piece of advice this summer, from Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder. “I was frustrated I wasn’t hitting homers,’’ Votto recalls. “(Fielder) said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Homers aren’t hit. Homers are thrown to you.’ That changed the way I thought about hitting. It was like a let-go.’’ www.cincinnati.com/sports

If it was sweeter for Chen because of the derisive comments by White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen after his last victory over Chicago. Let’s just say Chen refused to revel in any revenge. “I have no problem with (Guillen),” Chen insisted. “He’s just trying to do what’s best for his team. I just go about my business and pitch my game. The satisfaction is that we stopped a (four-game) losing streak.” Melky Cabrera’s three-run homer in the ninth inning against Matt Thornton broke open a tight game. That was no guarantee, though. Remember, Cabrera hit a three-run homer Wednesday in the ninth inning, and it wasn’t enough to prevent blowing a four-run lead. No collapse this time. “I had a good pitch to hit,” Cabrera said. “(Thornton) threw a slider, and I needed to do something because Bruce Chen was outstanding.” Billy Butler staked the Royals to a 2-0 lead before Cabrera’s bomb. Butler had an RBI single in the first inning and a leadoff homer in the sixth — both against White Sox starter Zach Stewart. Afterward, Butler admitted it was nice to get away from Tropicana Park and four days of strong Tampa Bay pitching performances. “The Rays’ pitching staff was real good,” he said. “Let’s just leave it at that. It’s good to get here and put some runs on the board and win a ballgame.” Chen baffled the White Sox for the third time this season by pitching six shutout innings before handing that two-run lead to the bullpen. He permitted just one hit, though he walked three and hit two. The secret? “They’re in our division, and I’ve faced them a lot,” Chen said. “So, obviously, I’ve been learning what works and what doesn’t work. I feel I’m more focused when I face them, and I make better pitches.” And this time, Guillen offered only praise. “Well, same old movie,” he said. “We did much better than the last time we faced him. This kid pitches well against us. We have one pitcher (each year) who always dominates our team.” Chen, 7-5, has now yielded two runs and nine hits in 21 innings to the White Sox with two victories coming here at The Cell. TIP YOUR CAP! Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/12/30737...l#ixzz1UqdtgV7g

Thanks be to God for the Cubs/Zambrano, high school and college football, the Bears and PGA championship. Nobody will notice the game played last night by SOME of the members of the White Sox.

Trayce Thompson with HR #19. Walker's at least showing the ability to steal bases...but, not unlike Juan Pierre the first 2 1/2 months, it doesn't help if you can't get on base frequently enough.