caulfield12

Well, this has to be the low point of the season. I know we were 11 games under .500 earlier, but this game was ours for the taking and the pitchers completely wet the bed.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 8, 2011 -> 07:40 PM) Ohmsn brought in to face a righty?? Is Ozzie trying to get fired? Who can you go to there with Santiago out of action?

QUOTE (Wanne @ Jul 8, 2011 -> 07:39 PM) Yeah...but they turn that on 98% of the rest of the leagues players. That dude is lightening fast. Did seem like Gordo got it caught in his glove a bit though...but they turned it pretty quick. Still gotta make the pitches tho.. Farmer and DJ were both blaming that one on Ramirez for letting the baserunner get too far in on him on the takeout slide and not forcing him to hit the deck.

Well, there's just no excuse for a guy hitting .164 to beat you. I can't imagine what will happen when we have to face "real" Twins hitters again like Kubel, Span, Delmon Young and a possibly healthy Morneau.

Goodbye, Gavin. You're not too far from Javy Vazquez territory now.

Have to get Tosoni here. Luke Hughes is a pretty decent hitter.

Can we please have all facets of our team work together once this season? I guess it happened Opening Day. That's about it.

Same number of hits in one inning there as we had all yesterday against the Twins.

Who are these guys? Fathom's 25+ game streak of not scoring more than 3 runs against a starter is now officially broken.

Quentin and Alexei absolutely own Blackburn. He's a high fastball pitcher...without the dominating velocity to pitch up there. You need to lay off those pitches and force him to come into the strike zone. Nice to see Alexei back in the 2 hole again (finally). Rios' whole left side is flying open and he's flinching on most pitches. UGH!

Atta boy, Adam. Fought off some tough pitches...Blackburn and all MLB pitchers are trying to bust him inside and then get him to fish outside the zone.

Konerko with the nice gesture of buying a catered dessert tray for all the administrative/PR/sales staff to share in gratitude for the PaulStar campaign. We're not going to take it, no we ain't gonna take it, we're not going to take it ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dee Snider, Twisted Sister.

If you decide to pitch to Cuddyer, you simply don't come right at him with a first-pitch fastball right over the heart of the plate. He actually didn't take a great pass at it, but still wonder what AJ and Gavin were thinking there.

Why was Ramirez assuming that was a HR? He didn't even bother to cover 2B. Sheez. You've got to be kidding, Gavin. Fastball right down the middle with no movement to Cuddyer. You have to be more careful, he has been their best hitter the last month.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Jul 8, 2011 -> 07:03 PM) Well thats why this thread is "what trades you would make" which obviously most of the moves won't happen (hell I agreed with nite about a firesale, and that is NOT my M.O.) And Christian just doesn't have a spot to play yet (which couldn't be said with Cook when there was like 3 spots open with players not hitting) Like i said though, I view Danks very, very highly. Thought he was a stud prospect back in the DVD days in Texas. Unless he wants 80+ million, you move him, but if he makes Buehrle money, I'd keep him. And s***, totally forgot about Sale. Yea.. you keep him too. So you would give Danks $75-80 million and 5 years without blinking? That's just a notch above Mark's current salary.

No short-season games???? SLACKER!!! Viciedo 1 for 2 so far. Keenyn Walker's debut...either tonight or probably tomorrow's game. He was supposed to fly from Salt Lake City to Big Sky Country Friday morning.

ARLINGTON - Josh Hamilton could hear six-year-old Cooper Stone screaming for his dad after the man tumbled over an outfield railing and fell 20 feet onto the concrete below. Firefighter Shannon Stone had called out to Hamilton for a foul ball in the second inning of Thursday night's game. Hamilton tossed it to him, but Stone fell as he reached for it and died an hour later of blunt force trauma. Hamilton says he remembers the man's fall "like it happened in slow motion." He also remembers the screams of the little boy who came to the game with his dad in hopes of catching a ball. Hamilton says he can't stop praying enough for Stone's family. The reining AL MVP is playing in Texas' game against Oakland tonight.

SoxAce, you can't keep Danks around and pay him superstar money....not with Dunn, Peavy and Rios still on the payroll. This is going to have to be a return to the pre-2005 thinking again. How can they split/allocate resources so you can get 4-8 players to contribute for the same amount of money you'd pay Buehrle and/or Danks. You've also got to make a decision about trading Carlos Quentin to free up more salary room, because he's one of the most tradeable assets in the current market for power hitters. Reed better have some totally nasty, dominating stuff that you would project him over Santos at this point. 17/20 save conversion rate is about as good as Bobby Jenks ever put up for us. But yeah, if you build around the core of Konerko, Beckham, Ramirez and Viciedo, that's a pretty good start. And we've got some new pitching assets in Humber and possibly even Hector Santiago, along with Sale. Christian Marrero seems doomed to the same fate as David Cook and Maurice Gartrell with our organization.

QUOTE (Wanne @ Jul 8, 2011 -> 05:33 PM) Personally I'd love to see him catch fire 10 days or so before the trading deadline...I mean go on an absolute tear!!! Even if he hit 8 homers in 10 games, nobody in MLB would be willing to take his contract until/unless he proves he's fully back over at least a 2 month timespan. And we'd still have to find another LH power hitter. Not like they grow on trees.

F--- Derek Jeter and A-Rod for skipping the All-Star game. This is the one big chance for MLB to really capitalize on the national spotlight and his chase for 3,000 hits and he'd rather "rest" with Minka Kelly. If he's healthy enough to play all the games this weekend (tonight's already a rainout), what's the excuse? What's the point of even having the fans vote if the players don't show up if they don't feel like it? C'mon boys! Reverse the curse, TRY to do SOMETHING differently, at least.

And the fans are supposed to buy into the fact that removing Cora will make any difference? I can't think of one "Fire Cora" thread or "Fire Baines" thread in the history of SoxTalk. If they do replace Joey Cora, it better be someone like Robin Ventura...although I doubt he's ready for a full-time role. Probably Buddy Bell, yikes! McEwing?

According to Phil Rogers, we could have gotten Granderson for Jordan Danks.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/texas-ran...ers-tragedy.ece Jeff Passan already has a good feature article up at yahoo sports as well.

AJ should really be hitting higher in the line-up than Rios. Don't get that. What have we seen from him in the last 5-7 games that makes Ozzie think he's going to drive in a run. He's got like 20 RBI's so far on the season, making Alexei look like Hank Greenberg.

QUOTE (Thad Bosley @ Jul 8, 2011 -> 01:05 PM) An interesting story about hitting coaches to sort of compare and contrast to the situation with the White Sox involves none other than my namesake here, (former Sox outfielder) Thad Bosley. Bosley was named hitting coach of the Texas Rangers over the winter, but on June 8th, after only two months on the job, he was fired from his position. Fired, despite the fact that the Rangers were the 3rd most productive team, offensively, in the league. So from a distance, the firing seemed somewhat odd not only because it only happend two months into the job, but because it appeared that Bosley had the results to back up the work he was doing. However, upon reading several players' accounts on their experience with Bosley from spring training through those first two months, it appears the Rangers attained those impressive offensive results in spite of Bosley's presence. In other words, the players were apparently not buying into Bosley's philosophy on hitting and thus pretty much just rejected and ignored him and did their own thing. Rangers management quickly detected the disconnect between the coach and the players and their collective rejection of his philosophy, and quickly moved to remove Bosley from his post. I bring this story up as it sort of seems to be the flip of what might be going on with the Sox. You really never hear publicly (or at least I cannot recall such a case) where any of the Sox players have stated having an issue with Walker. In fact, if anything, you've heard the direct opposite, as for example, I've seen Konerko go on record a few times saying very complimentary things about Walker's approach and philosophy. So is it possible then, if not probable, that the flaw in the Sox' overall offensive process isn't their hitting coach's philosophy about hitting, or the drills and exercises he has the players run through in batting practice, or his review and analysis of video with the players, etc., but simply this particular set of players ability (or inability) to execute? It certainly could be both, but I think by now, and especially with the way the offense has struggled, that there would have been some sort of player revolt against Walker. Heck, it only took the Rangers two months to run Bosley out of town down there in Texas. But the lack of such a revolt by the Sox players leads me to believe our problem is more about the pupils rather than the teacher. I'll attribute it to the close-knit, insular nature of the way our organization operates and way Ozzie surrounds himself with "Sox insiders." Very few players have ever turned against them and survived. Look what happened to Javy, Swisher and Cabrera for their independence. Even Jon Garland, to an extent. I remember when KW would meet with the players (Konerko/Thome/Dye) at mid-season and they'd tell him "they're fine as is...they don't need to add another piece." Maybe trying to be independent is what got the likes of Brian Anderson, Fields and Getz in trouble with the organization. Who knows? Ozzie's never appeared to be a huge Beckham fan, and you wonder where that came from...or what Beckham did to give off the wrong impression back in 2009. You'd hear things like BA likes to party too much, likes the ladies, yada yada and you wonder if that was a legit beef the organization had or just Ozzie/Oney trying to set them up to make them look bad, as plenty of players in the past managed to live an Epicurean lifestyle away from the park while still being successful between the foul lines. With veteran teams comprised of very few single players and more of a "family atmosphere," it seems like a very hard clubhouse to break into. All speculation, obviously.