caulfield12

Vazquez was supposed to pitch on three day's rest against the COMPLETELY beatable Zach Jackson...the game we have to win, along with tomorrow's game with Buehrle. We only have to win game 3, 4 or 6 of the 50/50 games to get this done...if we win those 2. Buehrle, on 3 day's, would go against Cliff Lee Sunday. Anyone for starting Richard or Broadway? You really can't afford to, not against a CLE team playing as well as any team in the AL. The Royals took the first two on the road against DET, I think it's amazing we won 2/3 there. Just because we missed Greinke and Meche, though.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 08:19 PM) Game is far from over. But I ain't surprised a lick by what's taken place so far. Anybody who would rather have Javy over Chris Young, well, here we are. I think if you gave KW $10 million to work with to find another pitcher and Chris Young back, he would take that deal in a second at this moment. Vazquez...no live fastball, slowing down his delivery, the lack of rest will become the excuse I bet. I can't wait for the post-game quotes from Javier...they will make Jon Garland look like Vince Lombardi in comparison. Trade Dye and Konerko, live with Swisher for one more year and move on...I don't care anymore. And I'm not happy I have to watch Thome for another predictable year or two either...

QUOTE (JohnCangelosi @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 08:18 PM) AND THIS SEASON IS OVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA That's just DUMB. Buehrle loses to Blackburn, then I start to get concerned tomorrow night. This season has gone back and forth too much to get excited about one specific game, especially one I expected to lose in exactly this fashion.

Nope...I don't even think Walker would be gone. Maybe! But the Quentin, Crede and Konerko injuries will be used as the excuse...we'll hear how Quentin, Ramirez, Danks and Floyd made such great strides, blah, blah, blah. Shades of Carlos Guillen in Seattle ALDS, 2000.

Like Mackowiak in 2006...it seems every ball was hit somewhere near him to expose his defensive ineptitude. And we're done, lol!!! Twins=fundamentals White Sox=horrible outfield defense, no speed

All that's missing from this game is the patented 2-4 run middle of the game implosion by Vazquez to put the game out of reach and gives us 90 minutes of Hawk praising the Twins ad infinitum.

That's where you place the curveball...low and away. Make them pull it on the ground. Better. Baker at 49 pitches, Vazquez at 47. Pretty even, except for the change over the heart of the plate and Griffey's DP. I STILL hate Vazquez...it's innings like this that will lose 2 more GM's their job on this guy down the line.

QUOTE (Brian @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 07:58 PM) Agreed. I don't remember Ozzie or Cora NEVER stressing fundamentals. No, two years ago...even in the middle of the season, they were running bunting camps on the weekend, in terms of execution. I think it was at Toronto. Specifically, it was for the players like Uribe, Iguchi, Mackowiak, Anderson, etc. Not everyone on the team, although it should have been.

QUOTE (WilliamTell @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 07:58 PM) Second time AJ has gotten out on a ball out of the zone. At least Baker is up to 49 pitches. Almost 30% of the pitches to the Sox tonight have been to AJ.

QUOTE (fathom @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 07:52 PM) Keep trying to homer OC. Watch that POS go hitless this series. There was absolutely nothing he could do with that pitch. He's just not selective enough for a leadoff hitter. Ideally, he is a 8/9 hitter on a really good team, or a 2 hitter.

Lovely, Lance Broadway is warming up. Just what we need.

This is making me miss Garland. At least he manned up in the big games in 2005, more or less. He had one sort of rough start in the WS, but we came back to get the victory. I just hope KW can find some gullible GM in love with Javier's "potential," peripherals and BB/K and IP/H ratio.

Getting killed with change-up. Always! What's new??? Thanks Javy. I just hope nobody bet money on Vazquez winning this game.

4 pitches low and away to Ramirez...he's going to make an adjustment hopefully. Let's hope SOME of our hitters (and BA wouldn't be one of them) can learn to drive that pitch to RCF and be content with singles and keeping the line-up moving up and down.

Baker already has 25 pitches and no outs. At least AJ's at-bat, he fouled off some pitches, and I think Wise at the bottom of the order gives us some balance offensively, with "hot" and cold hitters mixed in together.

QUOTE (southsideirish71 @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 07:21 PM) Mauer invented hitting. f*** you Hawk. Maybe your goofy old ass can join Bert and circle each other. Well, it was since 1946 that a catcher won the batting title. This will be 2 in 3 years for Mauer, and he's great defensively. It's hard not to praise the guy...he always praised I-Rod when he was in his prime, too. There just aren't very many good catchers who can hit and throw exceptionally.

Why are the Mets giving Minaya for four year extension? For his sake, I hope Santana wins tonight. Kind of funny...I guess facing Baker is better than Liriano or Santana in 2006.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 02:37 PM) He has 8 saves that took less than 3 outs to get and 0 multi-inning saves, 6 blown saves, has allowed a good amount of runs and more baserunners than any of the other elite closers this season. He just hasn't been all that dominant, he's just had an incredible amount of save opportunities which has more to do with luck than anything he's done on the mound. When Smoltz saved 55 in '02 he had 8 multi-inning saves and only 1 save that required less than 3 outs to record, he also had over 80 IP that year compared to K-Rod's poultry 67. Same thing with Thigpen the year he broke the record. He was a very good closer, but far from lights-out. The majority of those saves, like Jenks, you were on the edge of your seat and throwing the remote at the t.v. if you forgot to put it down. I also think the years of overuse are catching up with Shields and K-Rod.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 02:33 PM) I'd be willing to blow the whole bullpen to win tonight's game. It's that important. It takes a Twins sweep off the table. Keeps open the possibility of ending the division race in Minnesota. And cuts our magic number to 3 with 6 games to play. Plus, who knows if we'll need a bullpen Wednesday night? We've hit their starter hard. The only problem is that with the pitch-by-pitch stress and playoff-like atmosphere (see 1987/1991), you're right the first game is very important. But that also leads to 100 pitches under duress by Buehrle roughly being the same thing as 115-125 on a cold/crisp September or May start against the Royals outdoors. You just don't count on MB going the distance...with the White Sox road record, and Mark's 5+ ERA on the road, 4-9 record, etc. Of course, he's got the most wins against the Twins of any team in his career, and all the experience in the world in these situations compared to Nick Blackburn. But it just seems like all those things get thrown out the window and it's anybody's game to win or lose at this point, after this wacky, back-and-forth season. White Sox are underdogs in tonight's game for sure. 60% picking Twins, 40% picking Sox. http://scores.wagerline.com/baseball-score...tchups.aspx?t=0 I'm sure tomorrow it will be much closer to 50/50.

Using Thornton and Jenks for multiple innings just doesn't seem like a good idea to me, for some reason. Let's say we did that, we lost the game tonight by one run and then we couldn't use either for Buehrle's start against Blackburn tomorrow night? Then who would we turn to if MB had 100+ pitches going into the 8th inning? Maybe Ozzie would push Mark into the 120-130 range in pitch count, but our pitching (except for Danks) might be so taxed this week that we go down 1-2-3 to either the Red Sox or Rays next week. I know job #1 is the playoffs, but you have to manage on a game-by-game basis, and all signs point to Game 2 being the most critical of this series. You can also imagine the White Sox winning Game 1 and either relaxing and losing the next two (well, we "survived" and won one game!) or really taking it to a deflated Twins' team, like when we knocked out the Indians in 2005. And the Indians having a chance to return the favor 3 years later in our park really scares me from a karma standpoint. Fortunately, both teams have had significant roster turnover, but the memories are still there for Hafter, Martinez, Sizemore, Peralta, I'm sure they have not forgotten.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 02:22 PM) K-Rod is no where near Cliff Lee. Rodriguez is having one of the least impressive record breaking seasons I've ever seen. Yep, quite a few teams have gotten to him this year or pushed him to the brink, unlike, say, 2002-2003. Actually, the White Sox have always fared comparably well against the guy, I think we've forced blown saves 2-3 times in his career, unlike Mo Rivera. I'm just saying, some of the baseball writers that don't stay up late (the Bristol/NY/Boston crowd) haven't really watched the guy very much this year. They just see the Angels' record and the sheer number of saves. Also, please/please/please, Javier Vazquez DO NOT let Justin Morneau beat you or throw a meatball with a 3-1 or 2-0 count. Walk him with the bases loaded, I don't care Ozzie. I would rather that than a grand slam or bases-clearing double into the RCF gap.

QUOTE (VAfan @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 02:10 PM) My addition to this thread is that Ozzie has to do his part too. And that means pulling Javy, as early as the 6th inning, if the game is tight. Two years ago we watched as Javy blew, by my memory, something like 11 leads in the 6th inning. It was unbelievable. The last game he won on the year was against Yankees, I believe. And he only won that game because Ozzie yanked him after 5. So, I only put the first 5 innings on Javy in tonight's game. After that, I consider Ozzie to have been forewarned. (Javy should be better, but it's just wishful thinking trying to make him into something he's not at this point.) Granted, our bullpen would be stretched to cover 4 innings, but it still might give us a better chance. Realistically, who do you want to have cover that many innings, assuming we're tied or down just 1-2 runs and don't end up using Jenks in the 8th or 9th? Do you want to burn through Thornton/Dotel/Linebrink. Can we just stick someone like Clayton Richard out there in relief and bring him into the game in a high-pressure situation (over Ramirez/Logan)? MacDougal? Carrasco, with the way he's pitched recently? I agree with not messing with Logan, Wasserman or Ramirez...and Adam Russell seems to have fallen into a BA/Sean Tracey black hole. Is Russell injured. At one point this season, I thought he had a minimal chance to replace Jenks someday, if we decided to dump salary. Blowing through our best relievers, I guess, is like this whole three day's rest thing. The season is still a marathon, not a sprint. Conceivably, the relievers might need to be available 7 days in a row, worst-case scenario. I keep pointing at tomorrow's game as the real pressure-cooker for Ozzie and the boys...Sox lose those first two games and the monkey is off the Twins' back and the Twins would in all likelihood sweep right through us and into the playoffs.

http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/prob...mp;ymd=20080926 Earlier in the week, Meche was slated to start Sunday with Greinke getting his final start of the season today. Looks like Hillman/Moore are definitely looking at skipping Duckworth's final start so Greinke can get one more in, on what could be the most important day of the season, with Buehrle facing Cy Young winner Cliff Lee (unless K-Rod gets it).

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 01:59 PM) I'm not feeling it either just because. But even though KC is truly horrible, they had won seven in a row before we went there and won 2 of 3. So maybe we're playing better on the road?? maybe. Or maybe we were just fortunate not to have to beat Meche, Greinke and Davies somehow.

QUOTE (joesaiditstrue @ Sep 23, 2008 -> 02:01 AM) aren't we 1-5 there? meaning a 1-2 series, and an 0-3 series 0-3 = swept, hence theyv'e swept a home series vs us this year Nope, that series was a 1-3 loss, but certainly not a sweep. Close. There's a one game difference between the teams this year overall, very even.