caulfield12

Dunn showed up and would have had his 2nd homer if not for the wind in RF. We would have taken a .233 average if most Sox fans were asked a prediction for Dunn after one week of play. Viciedo with another liner that got out quickly...so low the wind couldn't knock it down. But, as the AB against Valverde demonstrated, he's still a split second behind on fastballs, guessing too much when the opposing pitcher can throw in the mid 90's to try to get a head start. Beckham didn't do anything bad, because he wasn't playing. Reed looked vulnerable for the first time, but Nathan Jones put himself into a horrible situation and pitched out of it. Sale struggled all game with his control and a questionable strike zone after the easy first inning. Questionable decisions by Ventura to let Sale go out again for the 6th and to take out Stewart after a 1-2-3 7th, as well as leaving in Ohman to face right-handed batters. Still, this just felt like one of those 54 games you lose every year. Beckham and Morel have no business challenging Adam Dunn for the team K lead. And questions will abound about Morel, who has accumulated 11 K's in 26 ab's in the 2 spot.

QUOTE (sunofgold @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 04:05 PM) Not sure why Ventura doesn't trust Stewart. He could have even brought Stewart in the sixth to start the inning. He is the long reliever and that seemed like a spot for the long reliever since our Sale threw so many pitches and could only go five. Didn't like Sale starting the sixth. He already threw 100 pitches. Tiggs were having good ABs against him. Sale must have been tiring. Because he got absolutely destroyed every time out at the end of ST and that's still in Robin's mind, probably. That and he had an ERA of near 7 against every team in the majors not named the Twins' AAA/AA line-up. 13 runs for CLE now today against KC. They definitely woke up their bats. Dunn now 7/30, .233. The R/L splits are crazy again, though. AJ with another early season RBI, 8. Doesn't feel like he's started out with 10 RBI's in April for a LONG, LONG time.

We better put away the Orioles, because Verlander is going to face a demoralized Royals team. 8, 11 and 12 runs scored by the Indians against KC this weekend.

You can't throw pitch after pitch after pitch in the same location...eventually Fielder will dial it in, even though that pitch was a bit off the plate.

QUOTE (kapzk @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 03:54 PM) Leaving in Ohman assures that he gave up on the game Well, clearly Ventura trusts the veteran Ohman over what he saw out of Stewart this spring. It will take some time for Zach to re-earn Robin's confidence. It's one thing to face the bottom of the order, it's quite another to go through the heart of the line-up unscathed.

Reached back for a little something extra there, 95 and on the black. Impossible pitch to hit, we've really controlled Cabrera this series.

QUOTE (fathom @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 03:51 PM) So I thought Reed threw harder than he's shown this year. Anyone know his average fastball velocity? 92-93-94 His bread and butter pitch has always been the slider.

Well, that's what happens when you get behind in the count 0-2. Credit to Ventura for not giving up this game and trying to use Ohman and Reed instead of leaving Stewart in there.

Morel battled there, but you simply can't have 11 k's in 26 ab's out of your 2 hole hitter, especially when he's not hitting for power. To put it in perspective, he's on about the same pace as Cespedes and Dunn, who are both 13/29 in their K/AB rate.

Only the 2nd walk for DeAza on the young season so far. C'mon Morel, we need you.

Chance for Alejandro to pop one out to tie it up. Finally, 3 good swings in one inning off Porcello, finally ran out of gas. At the very least, we're fighting back and putting an ounce of doubt in the Tiggers.

Atta boy, Dayan. Big swing, big pop. Swing hard in case you hit it. Too bad Cabrera made that play or suddenly it would be a very close game, 3-2.

Don't think we'll see Papa Grande Valverde in this game. Not with Porcello retiring 10 in a row and pitch count in the 80's still. Cabrera with a great defensive play at 3rd. Fukudome loses a double there, tough luck. Except for trying to make a bare-handed play on a ball he could have gloved and thrown, Cabrera has played very very well at third, much more comfortable and far better than expected. Valverde's warming, so we at least have a final chance against a new pitcher.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 02:19 PM) Looks like the velo is down a bit for Stewart. Nice play AJ It is a bit strange. Considering his history as a reliever, you'd expect he would throw 92-94 MPH out of the bullpen. Instead, he's at 90-91. Unless he's one of those guys whose fastballs flatten out and have less movement at higher velocities, whereas the sinking fastball is more effective in the low 90's, like what we usually saw out of Jon Garland. At least it was 3 up, 3 down. Bullpen continues to impress, 3 IP and no runs surrendered. Especially considering it's the last two members of our pen against one of the two best offenses in the game.

QUOTE (Jake @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 02:13 PM) WGN graphic says AJ is batting .273 and has .261 OBP does not compute But an 859 OPS, we'll take that. Surely it will fall into the mid to low 700's eventually. Morel sporting a .359 OPS, that's not so easy to do. Well, it's only 24 AB's, I guess.

Yeah, Dunn's been working the counts a lot more this year, seeing a ton of pitches. Last year, you felt like he was behind in the count 0-2 or 1-2 about 80% of the time and had no chance. What's the odds the Tigers score against Stewart? Well, he had to pitch at some point.

Viciedo's played at least like an average defensive LFer to start this season, and his arm almost allowed him to throw out Jackson at 2B the other day when he was stretching it for a double. He won't get 20 PO's like Alex Gordon did, but I wouldn't be surprised to see 8-10 over the course of the year. 13 k's in 29 ab's for Adam. By the way, when he got doubled off 2nd, was it just bad luck or was it bad baserunning? Fluke? Indians are just killing the Royals this series. Three in a row in KC, all of them slaughters. They even managed to knock out Hochevar, a bit of surprise considering how flat CLE looked against us at home.

Back to the same problem from 2009-2011. We're putting so much pressure on the pitchers with our lack of offense, eventually it's going to start wearing on the pitching staff. They can't throw a shutout or 1 hitter every time out. Of course, this Tigers' line-up is hard to keep down for 3 consecutive games, even by the 2005 White Sox staff.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 09:43 AM) Some of these are maybe arguable, but of people who never played in the majors before reaching the Sox: Alexei Ramirez Dayan Viciedo Addison Reed John Danks Nate Jones Eduardo Escobar Brent Lillibridge (maybe he got a September callup) Tyler Flowers and that list doesn't have the people precluded by the question. It also doesn't include talent traded to other teams but developed in the Sox system. On another note, I am somewhat disappointed that KW hasn't been fighting those rankings with some marketing, not because the rankings are legitimate, but because they may affect the trade value of our players. Sure, we don't have the bullets to trade for an impact starter now, but if some hype were generated around the likes of Mitchell or Thompson, maybe we'd be in a different position. GM's may or may not put any stock in these rankings, but it could still influence their behavior because fans DO care about them. These rankings could determine fan reaction to a trade, which is probably fairly important given that fans are the ultimate source of revenue. KW should have been hyping our prospects the whole time regardless of the relative impotence of BP's projections. Except Danks didn't spend any time with us in the minors, Lillibridge was largely developed by the Braves, it's at least 50/50 with Flowers being groomed into a top prospect with the Braves (along with PED use, we should take credit for much of his defensive development), then Ramirez/Viciedo were internationally experienced Free Agents and again Ramirez was already a finished product. Same with DeAza. Even Sale was more "talent selection" rather than development. You could really say the same about Beckham. The only players we've nurtured from start to finish have been Morel, Addison Reed, Nathan Jones, Escobar and 50-75% Viciedo.

QUOTE (Chicago White Sox @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 08:43 AM) Yeah, I have no idea where he's going with the title. You can make an argument that minor league rankings don't matter that much or they aren't very accurate, which seems to kind of be KW's point in the article. However, this "stay out of our business" title is clearly part of Marty's anti-KW agenda. He's basically announced recently that he's going back to twitter again (now that Ozzie and Oney are gone and things have cooled a bit with past controversies over the drafting of whose children was prioritized) and making it MORE of his job to get out to the minor league affiliates and interacting with the media. This kind of runs counter to the whole idea of anyone staying out of White Sox minor league business. Or, if our spin is really that we have 9 home-grown players and that we've produced a treasure trove of short relievers in Santiago, Jones, Sale, etc., then say that. But you can never assess a system based on developing relievers when the system has been so bereft of impact bats for the last decade. Because of that, we've been forced to part with the likes of Hudson and Gio to get more veteran experience (Jackson/Swisher) that could help to "win now" instead of some point in the indefinite future. But if Beckham and Morel can't stick as starters in 2013/2014, what have we actually produced of value, other than Sale and hopefully Santiago?

Nationals should have traded for Edwin Jackson earlier. 9 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K's They've pushed to do the same thing with Roberto Clemente, to have a day where all Latin players wear #21, but that's been a lot more controversial....because Clemente wasn't the first Latin ballplayer, but he was clearly one of the most outspoken, perhaps the most revered because of his humanitarian work and the manner in which he died tragically...and also the fact that it's hard to pick someone who is Puerto Rican while not offending Dominican, Mexican, Venezuelan, Panamanian, etc., players.

QUOTE (ScottyDo @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 08:32 AM) Man, these game threads get crazy in a hurry! please! FIRESAAAALE!!!!!!!!!! Let's hope we don't have a real FIRESALE and have to trade Chris at any point in the next 4-5 years.

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Apr 15, 2012 -> 09:15 AM) I cancelled a date with a hot Ukrainian stripper to watch this game so we better get a W today! Now why on earth would you ever do that? Let's see, it's 525 pm in KIEV now, you could always go out for dinner with her and get back by 9 p.m. Or meet her afterhours at a club. Those girls usually don't like to go out until 11-12 at night and come back home at 3-4-5 a.m. depending on how much ecstasy they're using, lol.

So what is it that you want KW to do? Include himself in the second Hunger Games movie? Be a part of Battle Royale III in Japan and maybe unearth another Takatsu/Fukudome/Iguchi simultaneously?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/15/2748...n-of-miami.html My parents watched Guillen get turned into a piñata last week, an uneducated man groveling after wading into political waters over his head, and it brought back bad memories of punishment for speech, so they didn’t want him fired, either, even as it got them called communists by loud and angry neighbors. I can’t help but wonder, strong as my conviction can be sometimes, if my opinion might be different, or dissolved completely into intolerance, if I had come to find my mother in tears over what Guillen had said. But context matters here. It always should, no matter how high the flames have climbed. Guillen didn’t take sides with Castro’s policies or tyranny. He marveled at Castro’s ability to stay alive while surrounded by people who wanted him dead. He did this in his second language and even changed “I love Castro” to “I respect Castro,” a rare self-filtering for him, though that seemed to get lost in the subsequent hysteria. The Marlins, very white at the top, can’t dare explain the nuance of this because everything around them is so volatile and, besides, what’s the point? But marveling at the old dictator still being alive isn’t nearly the same as being pro-Castro. This was a bombastic, flippant man who has always been rewarded for being bombastic and flippant saying something bombastic and flippant. And he’s allowed to marvel at Castro’s longevity, as many people do, in every city but the one that built his team a stadium because, well, the logical truth in what he’s saying gets engulfed by this emotional one: It is so very crushing for his customers to remind them that Castro has outlived the parents and grandparents who fled him. Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/15/2748...l#storylink=cpy