caulfield12

If CLE throttles us this weekend at home, that could be the end. 5 1/2 back if things continue where they are at the moment tonight, 4 1/2 behind Tigers.

And even Beckham made an error tonight. Just very mediocre defense by the Sox. In the end, though....our offense is still killing us. You could have predicted it simply based on the line-up, facing an unknown pitcher with really top-notch stuff and pretty erratic control.

Laying in the weeds defined by Cabrera. Short and quick, study it Dunn/Rios/Beckham. We should be preparing to send Sale down to AAA soon to start if things keep going against us. We'll know in 2 more weeks for sure.

Masterson and Liriano in 1-0 pitcher's duel. Indians leading again. Twins would be 8 games back after being so optimistic on Sunday.

Once again Ozzie too late with the bullpen. Peavy's just not going to have his good stuff this year. It might never come back....but hopefully. Still nobody up. They just can't make a desperation move for this season based on a 10-15% of making the playoffs. There are 3 other teams (possibly) in this. Unless Peavy can throw 92-95 MPH, he's never going to be more than the most expensive 4th/5th starter in baseball not named Barry Zito. Sale finally warming up. Maybe they'll get out of this down by just 1 run.

Cabrera with horrible baserunning....2 mistakes. No way you can end up at 1B. Gordon never should have left when he saw Cabrera moving. Royals trying to "outbad" the White Sox.

Bad throw by Beckham...threw it right into the runner who was going on the pitch. Thrown too hard. Everything's going against us in this game. Rare Konerko error, had the K against Cabrera almost, now the Beckham error...

Lillibridge and Morel are not going to scare anyone these days. Elijah Wood's twin is as cold now as he was hot the first 6 weeks. And DET puts up 7 runs against a guy entering with a 2.16 ERA. God, it's scary to think what KW will do if they make a big move near the deadline.

Farmer absolutely hates Buck Showalter. Ripping on him for calling MLB offices trying to get an error changed to a hit for Adam Jones. "I'm just trying to get this guy to be a major league baseball player." That's not the job of the official scorer, to boost Hosmer's ROY chances. There's just no way that should be an earned run for Peavy.

Why is NOBODY covering 2B? Peavy with pitch grooved right down the middle. C'mon, there's just no way you can give Hosmer the single there, that's ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. That damned TREANOR is killing us this year.

Matsui with 2 run RBI single, 3-1 A's. Wish the A's would have blown this game open early, but Moscaso's got a miniscule 2.16 ERA coming into the game. Rare Konerko error there on a pretty simple play. Base hit? What???????

That's encouraging. Got a strikeout with the slider. But we've seen Jake start out some recent games well for an inning or two and then give up a big crooked number. DET-OAK tied 1-1 in the 5th. Pitcher's duel with Moscaso and Porcello. Morel OPS now at 550, yikes. Reminiscent of Mark Johnson and Royce Clayton at the bottom of the line-up there. Heck, Royce Clayton's a real slugger compared to Morel, at least the one we've seen so far this year.

88-92 for Peavy so far in 1st.

Only the A's and White Sox could so easily blow a bases-loaded, no outs situation. Still 0-0 in DET.

Well, I thought I could do it, too. I was always telling them I could get a hit in one of the games....and NO WAY could I get a hit in the major leagues. When I worked for the Augusta GreenJackets, Bruce Tanner (former Sox pitcher, Chuck's son) let me take BP one day. He kept sawing me off inside and I was flipping a bunch of balls to 2B and Crede pop-ups to RF. I'm sure he was probably throwing only 70-80 MPH. Then I had the bright idea of hitting with the fungo bat and I swung so hard that it flew out of my hands way into the stands down the 3B/LF line and the fungo bat shattered. That was the end of my taking BP with the team, lol. Those fungo bats are expensive, and there's not really any good reason for one to break, so I appreciated that they covered for me with the Pirates and got a new one sent and I didn't have to pay for it. They also timed my "fastball" and it was 78-80 mph, haha. The scout said he did like my "long arm action" and release.

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/20110...-are-black-fans I actually prefer this game at NASCAR events, SEC football games, Michael Bolton concerts (joking) and at Augusta National. The funny this is that the person who suggested it was my African-American date when I went with her to the Master's. We didn't get much over 10 either. Groundscrew/workers, but not patrons as they call them. Don't think Nolan Ryan will be too amused by this, not with his recent health scare and then the fan falling to his death.

Except even then Ozzie would still sit him.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mari...ers_owners.html It might take this thread in a totally different direction, but it's a very LONG but well-thought out piece on the Mariners "rebuilding" project...and we can see lots of similarities between the White Sox and Mariners situations if the Sox come up short again this year. Using the logic that you have to build up the offensive strength at 3B/1B/DH/LF/RF...you can see where the White Sox are coming up way, way short offensively. Dunn, 3B, and, to a lesser extent, Juan Pierre. That's 3/5 "power positions" on the field. In a power hitting stadium. Theoretically, you can even cover for Alex Rios in CF (hitting 160 on the road with a 400ish OPS) if you're getting the OPS production from those 5 positions. In a sense, Alexei Ramirez and Beckham up the middle can also hide or mask these problems to an extent. In a perfect world, Tyler Flowers at C and Dayan Viciedo at 3B and hitting like they were projected to at those 2 positions would have given us a huge advantage, and both those projections just didn't work out, unfortunately, for KW. To me, it points out the flaw in the logic of getting another slappy/low OPS leadoff hitter next year and just replacing Quentin with Viciedo. It's the same problem as this year's team is dealing with all over again. Going forward, they need BOTH Quentin and Viciedo in the same outfield, and much better production from 3B. Dunn and Rios, there's nothing you can do for now. Zero. Except bench either of them. BTW, what is our current team OPS+ average? I know we're one bad game offensively from 11th in the AL in this category, in terms of "pure" OPS. Finally, Kotsay/Jones over Thome, another fail in this category, big-time. Which led directly to signing Adam Dunn...

Other than Beckham (recently), that's a pretty terrible back end of the line-up after Quentin. I wouldn't even pitch to Carlos unless I absolutely had to...same thing with Dunn when he's right behind Konerko. The only positive out of all this is at least Dunn's not in the line-up, let alone hitting 3rd/4th.

And that post-season magic is limited to a once-in-a-century occurence at this point. We just can't actually GET to the playoffs enough for that POSSIBLE magic to be worth waiting for again. I'm starting to think Gardenhire and Guillen should just switch jobs. Then nobody would be happy, probably.

The Pirates aren't that desperate. Since their problems are more offense related, acquiring Morel would do nothing for their future (at this point). They'd lose Jackson after two months and get the comp pick back. And have Quentin for only one year. That's just another version of the Hudson/Holmberg for Jackson deal. They're not ready to sell THAT low on Alvarez yet. It also reminds me of the potential deal with the Reds with Dye almost going for Homer Bailey. Plus, you never know what's going to happen if you ask a player to adjust to a new league in the middle of the season. It's a very tough adjustment for MOST hitters. And USCF covers up Quentin's defensive inadequacies a lot more than PNC Ballpark would in RF or LF. And they don't really desperately need starting pitching. So they're getting Jackson and Morel, two players they don't even need...just to acquire Quentin. And giving up two highly talented and cost-controlled young players in the process, plus the other minor league prospects that you're proposing to send.

If KW REALLY wants to alienate his fanbase, he'll bring in Cora or Bell. Nobody in the world would be excited about either of those guys. It would cost us season ticket renewals. Whether it's fair or not, there's the perception that he's "too close to Ozzie" or would mirror the Guillen style as a manager, which is definitely not what this franchise needs. Plus, he's been passed over for a number of jobs that opened up when the White Sox as an organization actually looked like they had it all together (2005-2008) and knew what they were doing. Finally, I don't think he'd consider "crossing" Guillen after being his loyal/faithful lieutenant for so long. Obviously, Walker wouldn't stay with Cora, would he? Hopefully, he'd go with Guillen. I'd wonder if maybe Ozzie would like to see Cora fail (and that's more likely than not unless KW pulls a rabbit out of the hat again like before 2008) just so he could say "told you so, Sox fans!" Greg, your experience argument only counts to an extent. We all live in a "what have you done for me lately" universe. In fact, Ozzie had very little actual managing background (just as a 3rd/1st base coach) when he was hired. I'm trying to think of an analogy and maybe it doesn't fit, lol. Let's say it's a former president who came in with very little experience but was "tremendously" successful and popular in the earlier part of his career, but things kind of fell apart at the end of his assignment. Would you want him to come back? Heck, there's a very good chance that our current president won't be re-elected because so many people are scared and uncertain about their economic futures. Let's say President "B" was manager of the White Sox from 2004-2007, and President "O" was manager of the White Sox from 2008-2011...the arguments against EITHER manager being provided an opportunity to manage the White Sox in 2012 would be very difficult to SELL to the White Sox fanbase. Fans (and voters) always want the fresh face and don't have the patience to ride things out. Look at what happened with LaRussa, for another example. He wasn't given nearly as much time as Ozzie after having great early success turning things around as a new manager.

Because they got burned by Contreras, Burnett (to a lesser extent), Igawa, Irabu, Pavano, etc. Unless it's truly an elite pitcher like a Sabathia, Cashman has learned slowly, over time, to be much more careful with long-term pitching contracts. They can also look at their rival and see the issues with the likes of Dice-K and Lackey.

Just imagine if we HAD traded Viciedo for Dunn...as it stands, we lost that first round draft pick, but the pitchforks really would have been out in full force were Viciedo putting up similar numbers in the majors (for the Nats) to what he's doing in AAA. It would be even more amusing with Morse also raking and our obvious offensive problems back in Chicago.

Maybe Halladay is the opposite of Alexei Ramirez?