caulfield12

Anyone willing to state with 100% confidence the White Sox will go on to win this game after what's already transpired against Oakland this year?

C'mon Beckham, WE HAVE TO GET A HIT HERE. Okay, the White Sox are officially cursed. There's no other explanation.

Castro won't hit into a DP, Castro won't hit into a DP, Castro won't hit into a DP!!!

DET and Scherzer beating up Michael Pineda, 5-1. DET is now sharing first and officially the team we're chasing, as many expected.

QUOTE (Heads22 @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 06:43 PM) This inning, I would like to learn more about what it would take to own a house, roughly 16,000 square foot, in the Scottsdale area. Dave Wilder still has some of his properties on the market, fwiw. Apparently, Rios has BOTH his left shoulder more turned in AND his hands higher. Those have been the two adjustments Walker is touting to everyone.

So who's our designated closer by committee tonight? Crain, Thornton or Sale? You'd have to go with Matty, but Jesus, if Cliff Pennington comes up again with the winning or tying runner on base, I hope he gets him out or he will be having Aarsdsma-esque nightmares for the rest of the season.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 06:35 PM) How could Lexi not hit a fly ball there? Geezus. Stupid baseball. made to order DP. Fail by a good hitter. Fail. Greg, Lillibridge does his job and reads the same ball that get the lead runner over to 3rd, he's standing on 2nd and you're cheering Alexei for doing his job by not striking out or popping up. Then it's 3-1 with another runner on 3rd with two outs. Totally different situation. I don't blame Alexei. That's arguably two runs (one offensively, one defensively) that he's cost us tonight. The chickens are starting to come home to roost with Lillibridge getting extended play over a long period of time. There was no way he wasn't going to cool down offensively.

C'mon Lillibridge, WAKE UP! Bring back Pierre, haha. Well, I won't go that far. But there's no way it should just be a 2-1 lead...which, of course, will have later consequences against the A's in 2011.

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The other source of frustration is leading the majors in incurring losses when we've blown numerous games after leading at some point in the 7th/8th/9th innings. If we just had "average" bullpen conversion results this year, we'd be in first place despite Dunn/Rios/Peavy.

At least Ozzie has been smart enough to try Lillibridge over Pierre against a lefty. Unfortunately, it's not very easy to keep shifting him all over the OF and expecting the same stellar defensive play. We probably gave them a run right there they didn't 100% deserve. Although you can't say "Pierre would have had it" this year, that's for sure.

Hopefully the give that error to Castro. No way Lillibridge deserves it for the runner getting to 2nd. But he misplayed it....perhaps he lost it in the lights since he's not used to playing LF very much this season. Definitely had a play on that with the right read off the bat.

Matsui not winning any admiration from Bob Melvin there not getting the runner over to 3rd...considering one of the changes was the vow to play Hideki every game not instead of platooning him.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 05:36 PM) Except for the great years, you're completely right, never good enough to become great except for the great years. So we can count stretches of 1977, 1983, 1990, 93/94, 2000 and 2005. Or do you think the 2003, 2006, 2008 and 2010 teams would also fall into that "great" category? The basic premise of that comment is we've never had enough Top 5-10 picks in the first round of the draft to really find any superstar players since the Ventura/Thomas/McDowell/Alex Fernandez selections over 2 decades ago.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jun 10, 2011 -> 08:01 PM) Thor as well and Bridesmaids is getting good reviews everywhere I look. This summer has already been better than the past two summers. Thor has done fairly well, but it hasn't been a HUGE box office success. X-Men might be a very good movie, but the fans simply haven't supported it. Fast Five and Pirates' worldwide grosses (domestic has been disappointing) make the summer better, but Kung Fu Panda's a big miss as well. Bridesmaids is one of the few breakout movies that hasn't lost 50-60% of its audience every weekend after the front-loaded openings.

What is our batting average this year with the bases loaded? It SEEMS like it must be something like .180 or so.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 04:58 PM) It's frustration that happens with every single loss. Gain a sense of f***ing perspective. Here we go again. I've listened or watched pretty much every White Sox game since the mid 1980's. The problem is that I have TOO MUCH PAST White Sox perspective that it colors my perception today. I'll just have to learn to be content with 77-85 win teams for the next decade and 2nd/3rd place usually, I suppose. That's far better than the Sox averaged in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. YAY! GO SOX! We're neither very good nor bad enough to ever become great, either.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 02:08 PM) Normally, those insurance policies only come into effect when they player doesn't play at all. Sometimes the player has to never play again. Nobody KNOWS for sure, unless they work for the White Sox. Maybe somebody should call into Ranger's post-game show sometime and ask him directly and see if he'll give any type of answer or just avoid it. The only thing I do remember precisely is that David Wells in 2001, when he missed over half the season that year....we received between $4-4.5 in compensation from that specific insurance package, I think it was Lloyd's of London which had issued the policy. For example, Albert Belle's contract. I would be curious what happened with that in terms of any insurance.

QUOTE (Cerbaho-WG @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 02:03 PM) It took five pages or so but someone finally says it. Thank you. It's just frustration. Nobody can understand with a six deep starting rotation, $128 million dollar roster, Dunn's addition, Crain....why we're not at least over .500 or running away with the division. We can't blame the Twins this time. All of our damage, seemingly, has been of the, as Hawk likes to say, "self-inflicted" variety. It's baffling to tons of scouts and baseball insiders. They still can't fully comprehend what has happened with Rios, Dunn, Peavy and Beckham, either.

QUOTE (BigEdWalsh @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 01:48 PM) Several of you are saying what if Ozzie goes to Harrell or Ohman and they blow it, then we'd be crucifying Ozzie. Not so sure. Personally, I'd still be more upset that Santos faced 5 or 6 guys and couldn't get one out than to be mad about ANYONE who came in faced one batter and didn't get him out. And, why not a single word about what if Harrell or Ohman came in and got the job done. Then what? Oh, that Ozzie....he's a genius. Can anyone here think of an example in recent years when a manager has removed his closer in a tie game or actually STILL leading for one of the LAST two guys in his bullpen? Maybe it has happened in the NL a time or two...but in the AL? Ohman had just come in the other day to give up yet another run in the 9th in a mop-up role. Harrell? Just can't see any manager whose closer had an 11/12 save conversion ratio doing that. Even Mariano Rivera is "only" 16/19.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 02:17 PM) Take away the game where we blew Soria apart, for example. We had a big comeback win against Brandon League, too. Although I guess you don't feel like going 5-2 against Seattle is a stretch...still, we faced Felix Hernandez in 2 of those games. Right now, if we had just played decently against DET head-to-head and blown only one game against OAK instead of 3 blown saves against the same team in 2+ months, we'd be okay. We still MIGHT be "okay," just depends on how we respond during interleague. Losing those Saturday (especially) and Sunday games from last weekend (at home) feels about as bad as last night's disaster.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 02:19 PM) There's no good reason to trade Jake Peavy for salary reasons if...as we've heard repeatedly, there is an insurance policy on Peavy's contract that has already met its deductible. It's possible that the team has paid Peavy only a tiny, tiny fraction of his contract for the last full year, and it's also possible that we're not paying him right now. Humber, Santos taking the closer's role and the argued Peavy insurance deal are probably the 3 single biggest reasons we haven't heard a peep out of JR about cutting salary/payroll despite the tepid attendance numbers.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 12:33 PM) So who gets traded at 1b? Kila or Butler? Kila has very little value. They'll probably try to hold onto Butler as their DH. Not sure how much Wilson Betemit will fetch in trade, not much is the guess. Indians look like they will be on a 4-13/1-8 stretch if they lose again today to the Yankees. Only have to lose five more in a row to equal our 4-18 stretch...with the only (and key) difference being they'd still be 1 game over .500 as opposed to 11 games under. 5 shutouts suffered during that stretch. Of course, facing Boston, Texas, TB and the Yankees doesn't help the cause. We've already survived that same march, fortunately.

Which leaves the only other option Jake Peavy pitching like CY YOUNG for 4-5 weeks before the trade deadline... In this case, does anyone believe KW would actually trade him after how much they've had to defend that move for almost 3 seasons now? And probably if he was pitching that well, we'd be so close to DET and/or CLE he'd never be traded anyway.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jun 11, 2011 -> 01:54 PM) The A's had lost 10 in a row. He needed one out. My god. The A's "feeding on the blood in the water?" The A's, who are on the road losers of 10 in a row? Sergio f***ed up. It happens. But like somebody said. If the sox brought in one of those other rag arms and the inevitable fail happened, you would crucify Ozzie the same. Second guessing leaving in a closer IMO is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Truthfully I can't believe some A's player didn't hit a bullet at third or line smash right at an outfielder and we get lucky and still win the game. It really is difficult to blow a game like that. The odds are astronomical you blow a 2 run lead with 2 out and nobody on. But look at the Rays breaking through when they were 0-6 and beating us for the first time this season. We've managed to bring the A's back to life twice this season already, singlehandedly. Keep in mind, they have a new manager. Remember how many times it has been debated whether that will make ANY difference....and yet many would acknowledge that a majority of teams have at least a momentary "blip" upwards when they change leadership as the entire team looks forward to re-starting at 0-0 and making a "new" impression. At this point in the season, we've blown three games already in absolutely horrific fashion against Oakland. Turn that 4-4 to 7-1 and we're only 2 games back. Of course, you can say anything hypothetically...like...if we didn't sign Phil Humber, we'd be 8-10 games under .500, etc.