caulfield12

Greg, sometimes I don't understand why you think it's your role to defend Ozzie or Bobby Jenks or Juan Pierre. Is everyone disappointed in Beckham and Rios and Dunn and Peavy? Of course, but realistically, we know we're pretty much stuck with all of those guys for the duration of their contracts. As someone else mentioned, players like Rios with all the talent in the world but none of the courage/fearlessness/drive/heart drive me nuts. If you put Juan Pierre's "head" in Rios, you'd have a superstar. Unfortunately, we're stuck with Juan's drive in a body that's been beaten up and abused for too many seasons....you could probably say the same thing about AJ. Maybe we'll see glimpses of the former player, but not on an extended basis. So because of his caught stealings, lack of arm, atrocious defense THIS year, lack of walks, lack of power, lack of ability to sacrifice bunt....what tool of the five does he still possess? Unless he's hitting at .300 or above, he's not bringing anything to the table. In his best incarnation at this point of his career, he's still in the bottom quartile of AL LFer's in terms of production. And then there are those frustrated he's getting so many AB's, that Ozzie keeps defending him (he's THE reason, basically, that Viciedo isn't up), that Lillibridge hasn't been given more opportunities when he's clearly outplaying Juan at 1/50th the salary. Add all these things up....Juan Pierre will be okay as a man, as a person, no matter how this year turns out. He's one of the good guys in baseball, hardest workers....it's almost because he represents everything that is good, that's standing in the way of his being benched or waived. If he was pouting like Swisher or isolating himself from the media and teammates like O-Cabrera, this wouldn't be so painful for everyone watching the soap opera from a distance.

Green Lantern, not as good as Thor, but the complete disaster that critics are falling all over themselves to describe. Still, odds are at least 50/50 that the suggest sequel at the end of the movie never gets made....not with that $300 million plus budget. My first thoughts when the movie started 1) aren't there just one too many superhero movies in the marketplace this year? and 2) I can't believe audiences are putting up with the 3-D upcharges without significant viewing experiencement enhancement. Overall, I thought Reynolds was pretty close to the perfect actor to cast in that role. Blake Lively, I found myself wishing she went back to blonde hair...I guess fighter pilots/corporate executives with blond hair can't be taken seriously unless they're Pepper Potts. It kind of felt like a cross between Thor, the Star Wars movies (the Jedi training sequences) and Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystall Skull. I also couldn't believe that the same director responsible for CASINO ROYALE put this movie out there, with an immense budget. The four screenwriters working together (one of them originally was going to direct) kind of turn this whole thing into a hodge-podge, but it was still "watchable." I wasn't thinking it was Speed Racer or something that was just immensely, egregiously bad. Overall, the international box office and opening weekend might save the franchise, but don't count on it. With all that said, I think Reynolds (like Hemsworth as Thor) did as good a job as possible with the material in front of him. He has qualities that an actor like Chris Evans doesn't possess on screen, although perhaps Captain America will change my mind. At least in Fantastic 4, he really irritated me. Reynolds, like George Clooney, has that way of being smug and overconfident...but still being likeable at the same time.

Off to see if the GREEN LANTERN equals the White Sox in overall suckiness against MINN. Supposedly, it does.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 08:21 PM) My gosh, the Santos loss to the A's might be the most shocking loss I can remember. The Dodgers one sucked too....because that was his first run given up, I think, all season long. And it was a solo line drive screamer right down the LF line, didn't even give you a chance to get stressed with walks, hit batters, wild pitches, dinks/dunks. The A's losses sucked (although they always seem to have our number)....definitely the Tampa Bay blown game when they were 0 for the season.

What else is new? What I don't understand is why Floyd was still in the game at that point with our bullpen so well-rested? Makes absolutely zero sense. It's almost like the Twins WANTED to tease us into getting our hopes up....only to shut the door. You just know that we'd have blown the save or we'd have left the tying/winning runs at 2nd and 3rd and Minny would have gone on to smoke us in the following game, had Santos been out there with a 4-1 lead. Baseball is always a game of momemtum....coupled with our miseries against Minnesota, you have to feel Daniel Hudson will no hit us now to add insult to injury.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 08:09 PM) The twins from the time they draft a person have a common language, and common development plan across their entire organization. They teach kids how to play the game right. Run hard, make contact, and play good defense. They might not be the best talented organization in the majors, but they get the most out of what they have. We perform no valuable instruction anywhere in our minor leagues outside of pitchers. You can strike out at a 35% clip and play little to not defense and get promoted. Huge holes in your swing and no defense, dont worry the next level will help you out. Then they get to the majors and we watch them with terrible mechanics and an inability to play sound fundamental baseball. That in a nutshell is the difference in the two teams. All in Kenny is going to get anxious soon and pull the trigger on a deal if this gets goofy. He cant piss the season away for prospects. He has to go all in. So I would say that there is a better chance that Viciedo gets spun for a reliever of some sort than Pierre gets released and Viciedo is in LF. The irony is the one impact bat the White Sox have developed in half a decade and we won't even play him. But we spent plenty of time with Borchard, Fields, Anderson, Getz, Andy Gonzalez, Owens, etc., getting more at-bats when Dayan actually showed the ability to hit from the moment he was recalled.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 08:10 PM) Tigers, no doubt about it Unless Mauer or Morneau are ever close to 100% this season....but the Tigers have so many more holes (when you get past the top of their rotation) compared to some of their better teams of the past decade.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 08:09 PM) More specifically the pitchers didn't want to have him behind the plate. So basically Olivo was like Javy Lopez, except with a gun for an arm.

Well, if the Indians hold on to beat DET, we're still only 4 1/2 games back. Great play by Beckham, there. I'm not sure which team is more dangerous though....Minnesota or the Tigers?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 08:01 PM) I'll never understand why we didn't try to upgrade our catching position by going after Olivo. There had to be some "internal" issues between the front office, Ozzie and Olivo....supposedly, there were some things going on there behind the scenes that we never heard about. My perception was that they were very unhappy with his gamecalling and just didn't trust him to work by himself "out on an island" with the pitching staff. It would have made sense. But I have a feeling either KW or Ozzie (probably) or both were against bringing him back.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 08:00 PM) Sox after game"Well Pavano threw the daylights out of the ball. He was hitting his spots and keeping us off balance. You just have to tip your cap to him." Corpseball translation " Well he refused to throw fastballs down the cock after pitch one. For some reason he threw pitches that were slower or moved. These were especially tricky. The straight pitch that is slow was very hard to lay off. The one that moves away and down. Wow. never seen that one before. Our scouting reports said that Pavano would pump in fastballs after fastballs trying to hit the center middle in. He went away from his plan and threw the balls into the dirt. Now also the scouting report was a bit light on their defense. Because it said if you just pull everything to the left side of the diamond. They would get tired and would let them go by. This was not the case. Hey did someone see who is setting up the card game tonight. " I really love the fact that they're stepping all over our pitchers and AJ's neck and exposing one of the most glaring and obvious weaknesses in all of MLB.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:53 PM) Such a lifeless performance But what reason do we have as fans to expect anything different? Because it's almost like you are rolling heads 22 times in a row and it SEEMS like the luck has to change at some point? If the White Sox haven't addressed the "Twins Issue" internally, as an organization, they deserve to lose if they're still pounding that square peg into a round hole. Something tells me KW is just that arrogant and pig-headed to think his vision will win out over an actual strategy/execution/fundamentals/scouting.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:53 PM) Is this a 3-game sweep or just two game series? 2 games, thankfully

Mauer will likely be activated for Friday's game....so we just miss him. He would have been good for 3 hits against us tmrw. Nishioka will likely be starting at SS with Casilla sliding over to 2nd. Kubel, Glen Perkins, Thome and Denard Span aren't far away. Nathan, too. I'm really thinking if the White Sox can't beat the Twins it would be an amazing story to come back and win the division....as long as it's not the Tigers. The weird thing is that their chemistry might be lost if they change 25% of their roster and the AA/AAA players who've led them the last two weeks all go back down.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:39 PM) Joe Mays and the Twins years ago figured out the formula years ago. Nick Blackburn will have a stellar game as he features his slider away tomorrow. Don't forget one of Hawk's greatest crushes of all-time, Brad Radke.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:35 PM) Defeated before we even take the field What I simply don't get is that they were destroying us in late 2008 and almost knocked us out....especially after the infamous Carlos Gomez/Jenks blown save game. And then we won Game 163, you'd have thought that turned things around. I guess the Thome game-winner against Thornton and the Jenks blown save against them are just imbedded in their minds. Do you have any confidence that Santos could go out there and hold a lead against them?

Has a team ever come back from 20 games under .500 to win a division in baseball history?

QUOTE (The Ginger Kid @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:29 PM) the new sox killer: Dinkleman! Wasn't he one of the first hosts of American Idol?

QUOTE (fathom @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:26 PM) At least we're benching Lillibridge for him. Who needs better offense, better defense, better base running. Even the Twins' announcers know that Lillibridge is the better defender than Pierre.

Isn't Pierre leading the AL or entire majors in plate appearances so far? Between Kotsay last year and Juan Pierre this year....it's almost like the Twilight Zone how KW and JR can watch this and actually side with "Ozzie's gut" over winning pennants?

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:18 PM) the advance scouting for the White Sox has sucked for years See Gellinger, Mike. Maybe it would be better if Juan Pierre bunts into outs so his eroding speed isn't showcased with multiple embarassing double play grounders?

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:19 PM) Teams that are constructed around Thome, Kubel, Morneau, and Mauer are not singles hitting teams. They are a line drive hitting team that is constructed around a left handed attack. And Delmon Young was really their best hitter, on a consistent basis, last year. Why couldn't we jump out and get the early lead, Morel? Well, at least we're sort of trying to fight back into this game.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Jun 15, 2011 -> 07:16 PM) We seem to have a disconnect here on how our scouting versus execution works. The twins are a fastball hitting team. They make lots of contact and hit line drives. So for some reason we like to throw lots of fastballs to them. Which in turn they hit line drives and run around the bases. We are a fastball hitting team. However we have no plate discipline. So the first pitch we put into play trying to drive it to mars. So their fastball hitting team gets lots of fastballs, our fastball hitting team gets a ton of breaking pitches. Year after year we see the same thing, and year after year we see no adjustment besides which member of the sox breaks their back bending over to salute and praise their team. Its f***ing sickening. I hate the twins more than any other team in baseball. The Yankees have figured out how to beat the Twins. Its called crushing fastballs, and throwing them lots of breaking pitches. Eventually we will figure this out. The Yankees also have All-Stars at 6-7 positions offensively. We have Alexei Ramirez, Quentin, Konerko and half a Lorna Dunn cookie.

7 out of 33 stretch (dating back to mid-2009) would equal a 34-128 record if we played the Twins as our only opponent. Yes, that's a 7-26 or 6-25 streak of being destroyed, demoralized and discombobulated. How is it even possible?

At least it's not Romero, Rincon, Hawkins, Guardado and Nathan at the back end of the bullpen. We still have a shot because the Twins' pen absolutely sucks...but how many comeback wins have we pulled off against the Twins the last decade, especially on the road?