caulfield12

•According to executives polled by Sherman, only the Giants and Tigers could afford to take on all of Carlos Beltran's remaining salary, among potentially interested clubs. If the Mets paid most or all of the cost, teams like the Indians, Diamondbacks, Pirates, Red Sox, Phillies, and Braves would all be in play. •Beltran is on the Angels' radar as well... That would give the Indians an outfield of Brantley, Sizemore, Choo and Beltran. With the Tigers, Boesch, Austin Jackson and Ordonez/Beltran. Beltran could also take AB's away from an ailing Austin Jackson, theoretically, and play CF.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jul 16, 2011 -> 11:36 PM) After Friday's Twins game, I told myself I was done with this Sox team. I will watch them, but I won't get emotionally involved. If they complete the sweep, I might already be back in. The Tigers have now lost six of their last eight series. In none of those six series did they force a rubber game. To put it another way: In six of their last eight series, the Tigers have lost the first two games. That includes their ongoing series at Comerica Park. The visiting White Sox beat Justin Verlander in the opener Friday night, then a former Tiger blanked them Saturday. Right-hander Edwin Jackson guarded a two-run lead from the third through eighth. The White Sox added three in the ninth, then Jackson finished his nine-hit, 5-0 win. Recent trends indicate the Tigers will win today’s series finale. In all five series they’ve lost lately, they dropped the first two games, then pulled out the finale of the three-game set. In the American League Central, a division so far without a powerhouse, that pace has allowed the Tigers to stay in the race. They were seven games over .500 when they plunged into this pattern of losing the first two games of series. Now they’re four games over .500. www.freep.com/sports

Another Matt Joyce though, we could definitely use. Then you could easily replace Quentin with Viciedo and aforementioned prospect.

And once Dunn starts hitting again, KW will never deal him because that would be admitting he was dead wrong. Rios, as quite a few mentioned, should/could have been dealt in the offseason...it would have been a huge win to clear the risky contract from our books AND get anything in return, since we gave up absolutely ZERO to the Blue Jays in order to acquire him. That's an "I told you so" move if ever there was one for a GM. It's pretty clear that Rios HAS only produced in 2-3 of the 8 months we've had him on our roster coming into this season.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 16, 2011 -> 09:42 PM) When Javy Vazquez sucked, who blamed Cooper? When John Danks was 0-8, who blamed Cooper. When Contreras wasn't pitching well, who blamed Cooper? They gave him credit when they pitched well. Its exactly the opposite with Walker and everyone knows it. Apparently most people believe everyone is a .400 ba 1.100 OPS guy until speak to Greg Walker and every pitcher is a 8.00 ERA guy until they speak to Don Cooper. If the Sox had lost today 20-1 Greg Walker should be fired would have been attached to at least 25 posts. Its beyond ridiculous. A lot of hitters have done very well with Greg Walker as the hitting coach. He's not the problem. Those are extenuating circumstances. For most of that time, Danks was pitching pretty decently, we all know his offensive support is the worst or among the worst of any MLB pitcher since he's been here. So, in a way, Walker will even get blamed for Danks being 0-8, right? Because if he pitched for the Yankees during that timeframe, or Rangers, or Red Sox, he'd be 5-3 or 6-2. It's not like he went all John Lackey...who by the way, has a similar record to Danks. Contreras was never the same pitcher after his injury, particularly the back and hip problems. Cooper worked on changing his arm angles to relieve the pressure on his back, but he lost command of his fastball and forkball compared to 05-06. And he never got back that dominating fastball...the 95-97 MPH version. After the injury, he was no longer confident in the FB and overused the forkball and started to nibble. I think EVERYONE blamed Javy's lack of cojones and "testicular fortitude" for his own personal troubles and demons.

If you look at all of Jackson's peripherals, he's head and shoulders over Peavy. Just the eye test....Jackson's stuff right now and Peavy's aren't even in the same ballpark. And when you factor in Jackson's FA status and the fact that any team picking him up willl surely get the compensation/sandwich pick, it's a no brainer to at least pursue him. If nothing else, the guy has a rubber arm and is a dependable 4th/5th innings eater. When he's on, like he was for DET two years ago or with us in the 2nd half, he's a frontline starter, at least a #2 with the arsenal of an ace. He's one of the few pitchers out there who can still post quality starts when he has command of just one of his pitches. For any team (ironically, like the Tigers), he'd be a perfect addition. Even more amusing is that they could really use Matt Joyce right now with the lack of production they're getting from Magglio, not to mention his high price tag.

Dick, I'm not sure that comparison alone is fair. The fact of the matter is that we lead the majors in quality starts since 2003. There's just no arguing with that, it's one of the most important stats you can possibly throw out there. Theoretically, that means you're giving your team a very good chance to win on all of those occasions. It's true, when you remove Thomas, Valentin, Carlos Lee and Ordonez from the offense, it's going to be a lot less explosive. And even Crede, Rowand, Uribe, AJ (when he first came to Chicago), Everett, etc., were much bigger threats than the 5 "worst" guys in our line-up in 2011. And it's really no secret that when the White Sox have pitched very well (2005-2006, 2008, 2010-2011 for long stretches) it's kept our team competitive. As I've said before, a lot of this Walker angst is about Beckham's "regression." There's probably nobody on our team outside of Dunn and Rios that are incredibly off what their normal expected numbers would be...it's really just those two guys. Those situations probably have one million posts attached to them alone. Here's the way I look at it. Let's say Ozzie resigned and announced he was going to be managing the Marlins in 2012. Who would you rather bring back, Cooper or Walker? Neither? Both? Just Walker? If you looked at where our starters were in 2007 (Contreras on his last legs with us as a starter), especially Danks and Floyd, they've made tremendous strides as major leaguers. Most of us didn't think we'd get much at all out of Floyd, and we certainly didn't in the beginning. You know the list. Thornton, Jenks, Loaiza, Contreras (based on expectations when he was acquired from NY), Garland, Clayton Richard, Marte, Floyd, Danks, Santos, Humber...Edwin Jackson last year, and maybe again this year now. It's not really Cooper's fault that KW was paying Buehrle, Garcia, Contreras, Garland, Javy...etc., about 40% of the money that was going into the roster. Pitching wins games. If you want to point at his "failures," you have a much shorter list. Javy, although in all fairness, blaming Cooper for Javy....well no pitching coach in baseball's gotten through to him on a consistent basis. Then you have MacDougal, Masset, Aardsma and Sisco. Interestingly, all those pitchers supposedly were stubborn to listen to him and/or were reluctant to add other offspeed pitches to their repertoire. It just seems like Cooper can make a bigger difference with the individual pitchers than Walker can as the hitting coach. Different jobs, different methods and evaluations. But it's a lot easier to change Greg Walker than it would be to dump Rios, Dunn, Teahen, Beckham, Morel, etc.

Hopefully the Twins will destroy the Indians' bullpen over that series for us. Carmona's coming off the DL early next week as well. Still have no idea why Aaron Crow wasn't used to start the 8th instead of Francis. When you have a tie game on the road against the Twins, you should go with your best bullpen pitchers.

Doesn't get easy for Nathan. Butler/Hosmer/Francouer for his first save as the "new" Twins' closer. Fans giving him a standing ovation after Capps had blown 7 saves already this season. It will be interesting with the Twins facing the Indians (DH on Monday) next week. Who do we cheer for? Split? Kind of mixed feelings. You want the White Sox closer to first place, but everyone's nervous about the Twins getting right back into it. Hosmer with a base hit. One out. Frenchie and Moustakas (only hitting .213,1 HR, 4 RBI's in 100+ AB's) to follow. Popup to RF. So Tigers 1 GB, SOX 4, Twins 6...at one point, they were 17-37. Luckily they blew the game last night at least.

Gregg has somehow managed to load the bases with walks in the 9th. 2 K's, 3 bb's, Indians down by four with a chance to tie it with a homer by Orlando Cabrera. Sizemore next. Needless to say, the Orioles fans are not pleased. Three run double up the alley in RCF by O-Cab when he was down to his final strike (and in a huge slump). 6-5...Sizemore up, Showalter just yanked Gregg. Sizemore has a chance to tie it up or give them the lead with a homer. UNREAL. The Indians have had this knack all season long, but usually at home. Mike Gonzalez on (he's starting by praying on the mound) to try to get the final out. O's escape, Sizemore grounds out to former North Carolina basketball recruit D-Lee. WHEW. Now to the Twins/Royals, 3-3 in the 8th. Why Francis was in there, I have no idea. Aaron Crow relieved with runners on 1st and 3rd (Mauer had singled) and gave up the go-ahead single to Cuddyer. Two outs, Mauer out at the plate, runners on 2nd/3rd. Valencia up. Joe Nathan is now officially back in as the Twins' closer again.

And that's not a surprise when they've gotten rid of Breslow, Portly Reyes (he was almost always nasty against us), Rauch, Guerrier and Crain. There's serious talk about trying to bring back Rauch, even though he wasn't very popular at all in the Twins' clubhouse. Had a reputation for surliness. Indians now down 4-2 (at least) going to the top of the 9th. Hard to sweep a four game series on the road, even with Baltimore so cold. Felix Pie with a rare two-run double, 6-2. Surprised that Indians' announcer Tom Hamilton is giving up on this game ("that's ballgame, folks") already with how many comebacks they've had, even down 3-4-5 runs in the 9th.

Petricka got rocked. Now 0-5. Mitchell hitless with a walk and K. Saladino with his 12th homer.

In all honesty, Gordon was the victim of his own early success. He flew through the minors at least half a year too quickly....and never learned how to deal with failure and/or make adjustments. After they adjusted to him in the second half of 2009 and first half of 2010, he readjusted. In the midst of all those adjustments...his bad habits with that hitch in his swing (down, back and around) just made it harder and harder for him to catch up with fastballs. He's obviously still got a lot of talent. Seems like he'll figure it out sooner or later. And Rios, nobody in TOR could get anything out of him for the last 18 months of his contract there....and Walker did manage to get a great first half out of Rios in 2010, I find it hard to blame Walker for either Rios or Dunn. Both of those moves are 100% on KW.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/07/16/box-...hallows-part-2/ Looks like Harry Potter will destroy every box office record ever amassed by Twilight, Dark Knight or Pirates of the Caribbean. Doesn't even look like it will be close. Most were initially predicting around $150 million and now it has been readjusted to $175-185 million.

And it was nice to see that Gordon didn't let the baserunning "blunder" (well, he was actually not off the bag early) affect him offensively or defensively. He came through twice today in key situations. The entire offense feeds on that...and will get more and more confident. At least until Dunn or Rios are up to bat.

Yeah, that's the key for Jackson. First pitch strikes, keep the pitch count down, work as quickly as possible. I think the largest problem was Edwin hasn't been able to command his offspeed stuff for 6 weeks. He has been taking a long time first/second/third-guessing pitch selection when he doesn't feel confident in his entire arsenal. After the early innings, he just got into that rhythm where you really felt he was going to get a complete game, especially after stranding runners on 2nd and 3rd against Carlos Guillen when they had the opportunity to tie there.

Two very well-played games to start the 2nd half. Jackson was excellent, pitched from ahead in the count with a lot of first pitch strikes. 4th career CG, and a shutout. Still throwing 96-98 MPH in the last inning. Increased his trade value exponentially there. Am really looking forward to see if he can sustain it against the Indians in what is setting up as a huge series. Pierre is now our most consistent hitter, after Konerko. Nice to see him running again, even though he was very fortunate not to be thrown out both times. Maybe he'll start to get his confidence back on the basepaths. Nice to see the WHite Sox much more aggressive on the basepaths and taking the game to the opponent...forcing them to make mistakes and exerting pressure on the opposing pitcher. Quentin breaks his homerless streak dating back to the first week of May. Nice to see him hitting singles and doubles. Beckham has really turned it on. Instead of down, back and around...he took the Valverde pitch directly in natural swing path to 2B/RF. Nice to see that he made the adjustment. Now you start worrying that the bullpen hasn't been getting ENOUGH work coming out of the Break. But a great problem to have. We're going to need them coming down the stretch. As someone mentioned, we saw this with the Red Sox and Yankees series, where they played well but didn't sustain it. Personally, I wasn't sure if they could recover from that 2-5 run at home against the Royals and Twins but they've surprised me.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 16, 2011 -> 05:57 PM) That's two wins! Hell of a game for Edwin and Juan And Beckham, too. Nice to see Quentin coming out of his 3-4 week slump, too. That 9th inning rally against Valverde really gives us all the momentum in this series. Let's hope Humber can put that last start against the Twins behind him and pitch like he did the entire first half. Rios and Dunn, what can you say? There's nothing left. Just win despite them, I guess.

Great outing by Edwin Jackson!!! In the worst case scenario, it's presenting KW more and more options at the trading table. I'm sure Guillen wants to get Sergio back out there again after the long break, but hopefully that will come tmrw.

Sale warming up for Dirks and Boesch.

ERA now down to 3.99 for Edwin. Jackson still at 97 and 98 MPH. Has thrown a lot of first pitch strikes today, that's been the key. Pretty simple, really.

Pierre up to 656 OPS Rios 557 Almost 100 ahead now. Dunn at 590. Jackson going for his fourth career CG. One was the no-hitter, obviously.

Are we the KC Royals now? Guillen has definitely been more aggressive to start out the second half. Where was this throughout the year? I guess they just think they can turn it on and off. So much for the lack of hitting with RISP. Great to see Edwin and the hitters fight through those two baserunning mistakes and no surrender the lead back. That was our modus operandi for most of the first half. This is as good as the Sox have looked for a long time. OBVIOUSLY, we've got to take it to the Royals in KC, no letting up.

One of the quickest swings by Beckham in months. None of the down, back and around hitch we're used to on fastballs.

C'mon Gordon, bases clearing double into the RCF gap.