caulfield12

Xbaza rocks!!! It's a veritable blitzkrieg attack now with the fireworks.

Gordo skyrockets up to a 509 OPS and 167 average. Just call him Alejandro XBaza.

YAY, JINXED Beckham there, lol.

Sale through 45 pitches, opponents hitting .158 45 and up, .273 Sounds like Peavy last year. Definitely the concern about both stamina and being exposed too many times to the same hitters in a game. There are 180 qualified hitters in MLB for OPS right now. Ryan Roberts is 180th and last at 482. Alexei Ramirez is barely in front of him at 178. Beckham and Morel aren't even within hailing distance of Roberts unless they both hit for the cycle or something totally cataclysmic like that occurs.

QUOTE (fathom @ May 1, 2012 -> 08:38 PM) Watch an NL game, and his swing looks on par with most pitchers. Not Dontrelle Willis or Zambrano, lol. Can we sign Willis and convert him to a 3B?

I looked up Royce Clayton and Mark Johnson from 2001-2002. Royce had 708 and 661 OPS numbers and seemed like an automatic out. Mark Johnson 590 and 720. As bad as they were to watch, Beckham and Morel are in a whole new league of awfulness.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ May 1, 2012 -> 07:34 PM) Who's 30th, Oakland? Indians, and not even close. They're around 15,000 per game.

Only 2nd walk of season for Dayan. Good plate discipline....Jimenez is bringig more heat this year than last, up in the 95-96 range instead of low 90's. And you've now reached the BLACK HOLE section of the Sox line-up. Where the OPS numbers are sucked closer and closer to the void that is a SUB .400 OPS number.

AJ at least a month ahead of last year's pace offensively. Salary/contract drive!

He can dial it up to 93-94-95 when he needs it. Normally, he's throwing in the 91-92-93 range in the early innings, but it fluctuates. So a good LFer would have made one or both of those plays? Can't see it, just following on GameDay.

You can cancel the post-game show. Which nobody would have seen tonight anyway. Well, that's not good. Have to get LH hitters out in that situation, Chris.

Or Rios there...I think Ventura would try that first, before Dunn 2nd.

It's very conceivable that we'll fall to 29th in MLB attendance and overall average will be standing below 20,000 per game...if not after tonight, definitely after this series. That's pretty shocking. 23rd-26th, okay, expected...but 29th?

I'm sure Sanchez has a lot more upside than say Escobar, Kuhn or Andy Garcia, the question is HOW MUCH more he can improve and how much (if any) power he can develop? Of course, that's true of 95% of middle infield prospects, that are usually all field/no hit types in the Jack Wilson mold.

Looks like we've got a game, even if nobody is there or watching. 2 quick outs for Chris Sale. Attendance below 10,000 officially tonight? It's going to be close. Considering it's technically a game for first place in the division... Alexei Ramirez is 0 for the season on sinking fastballs over the heart of the plate...unless you consider his success in hitting the ball on the ground into DP's the last couple of seasons.

http://www.weather.com/weather/map/interac...+USIL0225?role= Looks okay now...especially to the west.

Saw "Beckham suspended for 50 games" at mlb.com and part of me actually hoped it was Gordon and not Tim. But then it would be REALLY hard to explain why he's fallen off a cliff offensively.

Guess someone needs to take all the "wishful thinking" out of the current thread title that he was actually suspended...

Still a very good OPS for a 19 year old middle infielder in a league that's always been more known for pitching than hitting. The problem is that Sanchez and Saladino don't really have 3-4-5 tools...solid players, but not projected to be impact players. Well, hopefully he can continue that high walk rate and continue to improve defensively.

White Sox would have to lose 11 in a row now to equal their 11-22 start from last year. 2011 started off 6-3, then the horrid streak losing 19 of 24 games. Be careful with that Kipnis...another local product (Northbrook) who got away and looks like Beckham was originally projected to look like offensively.

Tigers start out with five hits and an ill-advised Hosmer throw to home plate resulting in an error CONSECUTIVELY. Looks like batting practice against Hochevar. He's definitely not 100% after that ball went off his ankle in the Royals' home opened when he gave up 7 in the first inning to the Indians. All of his pitches look fat and lazy, not a good recipe for success against DET. 5-0 lead now and 7 batters in a row have reached. Only 17 pitches thrown so far. Still no outs. Runners on 1st and 2nd. Yost has absolutely got to be fired and soon, this is a complete mess. Finally Santiago hits into a double play. Hosmer mired in the 180's, although supposedly he's been taking good swings, just hitting in bad luck. And Yuniesky Betancourt should never be allowed to play a middle infield position with his complete lack of range. There was a play Beckham easily would have made, which would have resulted in a tailor-made DP and the Royals would still be in the game.

Hate the idea of surrendering nearly 5-7.5% of our guaranteed yearly revenue (if you kick in concessions/merchandising/parking). And certainly more up for these games as a fan than 90%+ of the other interleague match-ups. This year, not even the Red Sox in town can overcome the weather, fan apathy and elevated prices for "premium games" (if they're still doing that like last season). It seems only the Yankees' series is enough to draw even somewhat similar numbers to the Cubs, and the Tigers' series drew respectable numbers on Sat/Sun.

QUOTE (greg775 @ May 1, 2012 -> 04:32 PM) You really think the guy should have been suspended or fired for ill advised twitter humor? So Greg, you at least you admit that YOU would be fired at YOUR workplace if you said those things, yes or no? And your defense of Cowley and Ozzie is that you're NOT a public figure and that you're NOT paid to be OR encouraged by your superiors to be entertaining/clever/humorous/opinionated/controversial and to drive web traffic and subscriptions, right? I'm guessing you definitely didn't follow my advice to repeat any of those things and see what happens/happened...

I'm surprised Dick isn't using those last 6 weeks to blame Manto for what happened to Brent Morel. Beckham, we all pretty much expected or perhaps feared, was lost for good, at least with the Sox. Then again, with that Braves' team you have the best hitting catcher in baseball (McCann), Chipper Jones (Hall of Famer), Uggla, Freeman, Heyward...except for Michael Bourne, there's a lot of thunder in that line-up. But Heyward is below .200 right now. You also have Prado, Pastornicky and Juan Francisco. If Jack Wilson, Bourne, Prado and Pastornicky start putting up 800+ OPS numbers, then I'll be duly impressed. And it didn't really matter what Rios or Morel did the last month of the season, it was already over then.

I must admit, I'm completely oblivious about how to use Twitter because most of this time since it became truly popular, I was in China and it's blocked unless you use a VPN or proxy and there was really nobody interesting worth following until recently. I will be interested in seeing if DeLuca, Telander or Phil Rogers reply with a personal comment. In the past, Phil Rogers, the couple of times I sent him something, always responded promptly and informatively. In this case, they're probably afraid to say anything for public consumption on this situation, except to say it's "unfortunate" and blah blah blah.