caulfield12

QUOTE (Ranger @ Aug 17, 2010 -> 12:55 AM) Eh. Minnesota is good, but I think some people overrate them. Their offense is better than what the Sox have, but their pitching is simply not comparable. It doesn't make sense. It's just hyper-negativity manifesting itself. The idea that another team cannot possibly fail as much as your team can and will. Some of us are forgetting that the Twins weren't very good for a while this season and it's very possible they go through something similar again with 7 weeks to play. If their pitching wasn't comparable, we'd be in first place. You're thinking of the team before the ASB when you're referring to their pitching problems, when Slowey and Blackburn were both on the verge of a demotion to the bullpen and Baker was also struggling...Liriano even went through a rough patch there as well. Pavano and Liriano have been pitching basically the same as Floyd and Danks, Duensing has been much better than Buehrle (6-1 with a 2 ERA), Jackson has been better than Slowey/Baker (although it's hard to beat a no-hitter through 7 innings) but whichever you pick (Slowey/Baker) has been much better than Garcia and likely will be going forward. And you're right, the (relief) pitching isn't comparable. The Twins have a better pen than we do right now, too. Thornton, Santos and Sale look the strongest, but they're not even completely reliable. I don't have the energy to get started on Jenks, Putz and Pena. Sure, the Twins COULD fail. But they've only done it one time head to head against us in a decade, and even that's a bit tainted by the fact that I don't think very many believe we would have gone into Minnesota and actually won a one game playoff. It's easy to say we COULD have now, but I don't think you would be betting your house on that eventuality. So half of our success this decade against Minnesota has been dictated by a coin flip by a little kid that had a 50% chance of going against us. That's not exactly hyper-comforting. Eh. Minnesota is good, but I think some people overrate them. I've heard this every season since 2001. If I had a dolllar for every time someone said Minnesota isn't that good, I'd have more money than the Pohlad family. We obviously underrate/underestimate KC and Cleveland, so what's the answer then? Everyone is afraid of the Twins, from Ozzie/Harrelson to the vendors...I think we should just be blindly overconfident from now on, forget the "healthy respect" which everyone has for their organization and Gardenhire. They suck. They can't win in the playoffs. They're soft. They have no heart now that they're all making mega-millions. Their defense with Cuddyer in the infield and Young/Kubel on the corners is among the worst in the major leagues. That really doesn't make me feel better. The most disheartening thing is that they're without all the players like Hunter and Nathan who used to kick our butts and it's the same old story year after year. It's getting old. Maybe that's why we didn't come close to selling out against the Twins last week.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Aug 16, 2010 -> 04:18 PM) And you can't by being the mythical power that is the Twins either. I could not give 2 s***s how many division titles they have. I will take 2005 and 9 Octobers off 100% of the time over 9 central titles and jack s*** else. Then you believe Kenny Williams is a better GM than Ryan/Smith, yes? And Ditka's a much better football coach than Marv Levy or Marty Schottenheimer..etc.

1. Padres 2. Rangers being technically bankrupt but finally winning the AL West, making huge trades like the one for Cliff Lee and all their July 31st moves, team sold to Nolan Ryan over Cuban 3. Strasburg while he was healthy 4. Cincy Reds 5. Mike Stanton

QUOTE (stretchstretch @ Aug 16, 2010 -> 10:46 PM) too many people are straying from the original question and replying about this year--DH, Thome, Peavy, bullpen, etc. The question is about the Sox tendency to have a weak 2nd half, and the Twins completely predictable 2nd half rise. I would like to hear more from the knowledgeable, fact-holders more about why every late summer in memory feels like a replay of the one before. I think there are two posts in here with data on Sox second halves, not one countering with MN numbers. And no one is asking if the Yankees have MN's number. Does a single person here, in their heart, really feel the Sox are capable to passing and keeping MN down for the remaining stretch? Doesn't almost everyone hear feel like we've been here over and over and over again? When we were 3+ games up, and had numerous opportunities to get it to 6, each miss felt like blowing a 10 ten game lead because I KNEW the twins were going to do the annual mult-game leapfrog in a week's time....and here we are....and I would bet a week's pay we'll finish 8-9 games back, without hesitation Yes, that was pretty much the point of my OP. One theory that certainly makes sense this year is our farm system was too depleted to make major trades for a bat. I get that. But from 2006 and beyond, this has really become an ALARMING trend. With the exception of one miraculous 3 game stretch at the end of 2008, we're talking about total Twins' dominance. Let's clear up a couple of misconceptions: 1) We had a winning record in August in every year from 2000 to 2003. ( Yes, but those years encompass some of the better White Sox teams talent-wise, and the 2003 team was 7 game behind KC at the ASB, so they had to start playing better eventually...and of course they picked late August and September to do a fade-out 2) We had a winning record in September in every year from 2000 to 2005. Choose any statistics with those 2000/2003/2005 teams and they'll look pretty good 3) From 2000 to 2009, we had a winning record in 6 augusts, and a losing record in 4 augusts. We had a winning record in 7 septembers, 1 .500 record, and a losing record in 2 septembers. Playing barely above .500 doesn't get it done, it's the same as our "championships" for having the 3rd/4th/5th best record in baseball since the early 90's behind the Braves/Yankees/Red Sox for most of those random stretches 4) From 2000 to 2009, the White Sox' winning percentage over August and September is .513. The aggregate winning percentage for the club over those ten seasons is .529. see point 3 It's not that we don't play well enough percentage-wise, it's that a certain team beats us almost every year, head-to-head. And therein lies the question, we're 5 games over .500 for the last 10-11 years before the All-Star Break (head-to-head vs. MINN) and 20-something games under .500 after it, including 4-19 the past three years, you can understand a team being 5 games under .500 against the same opponent over that long of a stretch of history, but the White Sox seemingly fall apart against the Twins, they just don't get beat 2/3, it's always sweeps or 3/4 EDIT: I'm including October games in September where applicable.

Another example was having made no improvement over LHP Williams in the offseason. Yes, I know somebody will say "no team has quality depth at every position," but wasn't there a better option out there available? I guess they felt all along that Threets COULD be the guy, but he was dealing with injury and command problems in the first half. Whatever happens, the DH debacle will be the focus of this offseason. Yes, logically you can say that if Quentin/Beckham/Pierre/AJ/Teahen hit would have hit consistently all season, it would have taken some of the spotlight off the DH spot, sure. By the way, what's Vladimir Guerrero's WAR value at the current moment? There's absolutely no way that I'll believe we would be trailing the Twins with him as our everyday DH this season, or Aubrey Huff. (Someone will next say that everyone thought Guerrero, Huff and Thome were cooked, right?)

Don, I think you're going to have to wait another 33 hours before you can destroy your t.v. No game today.

But that bullpen, how do they rank since the ASB? Jenks had the two blown saves right after the break (Minn and Seattle), there was the game we almost lost against DET that we were fortunate to recover, the Sunday Orioles game, now the last two against DET. That's a minimum of six bullpen letdowns in the span of a month. You can definitely make an argument we SHOULD be 18 games over .500, but that's not the way it works, of course.

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 05:32 PM) Liriano did not pitch in the playoffs in 2006. In fact, he pitched a total of 6 innings in August and September. I meant in the sense that they had two of the arguably 3-5 best pitchers in baseball (when healthy) that season. There's they charge back into the race without Liriano's dominant stretch of pitching.

Yay! We have Game 163 and the World Series. Other than that, a record of complete and utter failure against the Twins, lol. Rick Hahn's kid is the reason half of the White Sox fanbase isn't pulling their remaining hairs out, because that coinflip goes the other way...before they changed the rules...and it's even more depressing if the Twins have 7 ALCD titles to our 1 since 2002.

We beat them in 2005. What is it about this organization that we make up excuses before we even play a team? We used to really struggle in Oakland and Seattle, we got over that... OTOH, there are some teams that don't match up well. Seemingly every season, the Yankees COMPLETELY dominate the Twins, setting the tone for the post-season. I wonder if the White Sox don't believe they can beat the Twins, just like the Twins don't believe they can beat the Yankees? It seems silly, but Ozzie plays into it, and seemingly has made it worse over time, instead of better. Harrelson does the same thing, whether it's Brad Radke, Carlos Gomez, Santana, Torii Hunter, Mauer, Morneau, Nathan, etc. You would have thought with Joe Nathan on the shelf this entire season we'd have had some more confidence in being able to beat them late, but it simply hasn't happened. Doesn't matter whether it's Rauch or Capps.

Especially since knowledgeable Twins fans would always respond with, "Jamie Burke, run over and trampled to death." It was bad enough when we were taunting the Orioles' starters and counting automatic victories there. However, I don't think ANYONE is going to be overconfident coming into this one... And the problem is that Liriano ISN'T DEAD. Were he close to dead, like 2007 and 2008 and 2009, he wouldn't have ripped the hearts out of our season by getting out of those bases loaded situations with that nasty slider.

I can't figure this out. I was trying to get to sleep (it's 624 am in Thailand and I'm still aggravated), so I was trying to do something productive, like figure out why we can't play well in the last 6-8 weeks of a season. Is it the Chicago heat/weather? That's always the excuse in Texas/Houston, but can we legitimately use it? In 2000, we played a notch above .500 for most of the last couple of months and our pitchers went down or struggled to be held together with duct tape and baling wire. 2001, we actually played better in the second half, but we were already buried after starting out 14-29 and a number of injuries, particularly Thomas and David Wells. 2002, MEH. 2003, played well after the ASB but then ended up losing five in a row to Minnesota to finish the season. 2004, faded down the stretch. 2005, faded, almost choked the whole thing away and then recovered the final week. 2006, faded, played 8 games under .500 the second half and limped into 3rd place after having the best offense in baseball the first half. 2007, MEH. 2008, seemingly peaked early in the season when Linebrink was pitching well and Quentin/Ramirez were on a tear, then held on for dear life down the stretch with both teams trying to give the division away to each other through the final weeks. 2009, MEH. 2010, seemingly headed in the same direction. What is it with this franchise? How can we be 4-19 against the Twins in the second half of 2008/09/10? How is that even possible? How can the Twins play so well in the second halves of seasons, most notably 2002-2004, 2006, 2009 and 2010. Do we need a team psychologist? Even without the looming spectre of the MetroDoom, we lost three in a row up there, with Jenks blowing what might turn out to be (at least looking back on the entire season) the most crucial game of the season, the finale of the four game series after the ASB. At that point, our lead would have been 3 1/2 games instead of 1 1/2. Since beating the Twins the first game after the ASBreak, we're at .500. The Twins are 15 games over .500 without Morneau. I don't think we can blame it all on the loss of Jake Peavy, either, since the Twins have been without Morneau both in 2009 and 2010. Are we really a team that's mentally weak? Are we choking? Or is Minnesota just head and shoulders above the Sox and we're "returning to norm" after playing over our heads for 2 months? Is there anything that Ozzie and KW could do differently, besides not listening to aging veterans year after year tell the FO that "they have the team to win it, no need to make any additional moves." Is it because we don't have enough leadership or fire in our clubhouse (the theory that losing Everett and Rowand set us back in this area)? Are we too passive? (Winning creates chemistry, it's not the chemistry that creates the winning, right?) Well, I'm not sure about that one either, almost all of the Twins' players have pretty laid back attitudes, too. Mauer and Morneau, in particular, have been under fire for not playing with enough fire or passion. Is it simply that the White Sox don't play well when they're favorites or more talented, that we underachieve and play better when we're the underdogs or counted out by everyone? I still don't get it. I wish that I believed that Ozzie or KW had the answer/s, but I'm not feeling too confident in that regard at this particular moment in time.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 05:09 PM) This Twins team has more power and a true ace this time around in Liriano. Those Twins teams of the past depended on the likes of Nick Punto. Their offense is just a lot deeper. They had two aces in Liriano and Santana in 2006, and it wasn't enough. When Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones and Shannon Stewart are your offensive leaders, you're a bit thin. Now with Mauer, Morneau, Cuddyer, Young, Kubel and Thome, they have six sluggers to match any team, and then Hudson and Span are the table-setters. The 2002-04 and 06 teams didn't have anything resembling that offensive depth. JJ Hardy arguably is their worst offensive player, or Valencia, who has been hitting over .300 for most of the season since his recall.

QUOTE (Jenksy Cat @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 05:44 PM) The worst part for me is watching the Twins get inevitably swept in the first round. They have absolutely no f***ing chance against any playoff team meanwhile if the sox could put their s*** together, our team would be scary in the playoffs. Not necessarily. I do think they need to get Morneau back, but if Liriano, Pavano and Duensing continue to pitch as well as they have since the ASB, there's a 50/50 chance they could knock off one of the AL East teams. Their bullpen has been sturdy, kind of the "bend but don't break" defense.

Do they have a Thursday night game? I was hoping, since they're 4-19 against the Twins in the second half dating back to 2008, that they could just get that Thursday game out of the way quietly, in the middle of a hot and lazy afternoon when nobody would have to watch the dreaded carnage in front of their televisions at home.

That way the last 20-30 minutes seemed kind of anti-climactic. Ozzie, you might want to set aside that idea of writing a book about the 2010 season for the time being, because NOBODY in Chicago will care to read it with things looking as bad as they do now. Goodbye Putz, Jenks and Andruw Jones. It was nice knowing you. Hello, Sale. Hopefully Konerko, if this is the end of his Sox career, can go out on a better note and the White Sox can actually take 2/3 in Minnesota...I wouldn't bet on it happening, but there's always hope.

Signing JJ Putz, lol. What was once the best FA relief pitching sign of the offseason has quickly gone to MEHHHHHH. And goodbye to about $5-7 million. Don't see him getting a two year contract right now. He can be the 7th or 8th inning set-up guy, like a Dotel, but he's no longer a closer, that much is clear.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 15, 2010 -> 03:29 PM) Hawk is out today with an illness in the family. Hopefully back on Tuesday. Hawk would have been out with a coronary if he was there in person to witness this implosion. Seriously, this game would have been a lot for him to deal with...I was ready to believe we could take it to the Twins if we were able to complete the comeback, but now, not so much. The momentum change in this division feels permanent. It could change and swing back to us one more time, but we don't have the type of team or bullpen now to hang with the Twins, Yankees and Red Sox.

Linebrink and Putz both had four wonderful months in 2008 and 2010 and then POOF!!!

The only thing that would be the perfect topper to this game would be Jenks coming in now and getting booed? Hopefully they're not saying goodbye to the 2010 season. Everything was going great until Jenks blew that final game in the first series after the break in Minnesota. That will go down as the key game, the Mariners' loss when Vizquel keyed the comeback, losing 3/4 to the Orioles...not being able to beat the Twins 2/3 at USCF. The supposed strength of the White Sox, relief pitching, has abandoned them at the worst possible time. At least it doesn't feel like 2003 when we had the best team in baseball arguably. We're far from that.

Thanks for destroying any motivation the fans have for coming out the rest of the season. Well, the Yankees and Red Sox fans can at least give us some additional revenue for our payroll, that's about the extent of it.

Well, the Twins were down 4 1/2 games and were staring at THREE more games at USCF and they swept through those... Yet it seems impossible for us to do anything now but POSSIBLY win 1 of 3 games in Minnesota.

Cross Pena off the list for next year too. He's nothing but DJ Carraso with better stuff. Sure, he's had 2-3 nice outings when he went long and saved us, but he hasn't done us any favors recently. I'm actually thinking we would be better off with Brandon Allen fo 2011.

Well, thanks Tigers for proving the point that it would have been unwise to overspend on Putz for 2011. Now the problem is that we have to replace two back-end relievers with who exactly? Scott Linebrink? Pena? Sale makes sense, you can see him getting it done, but are we sure we want to make him the 2nd lefty out of the pen? Maybe.

Now, the better question is can we get a clutch hit in the 8th or 9th inning? Hasn't been our strength the last 10 days.