joejoesox

off-topic slightly (i do this a lot, sorry) anyone notice how hard mauer hits the ball? watching that guy hit, his swing generates a lot of power, on linedrives, grounders, pretty much everything he hits, it looks very hard to field his balls in play beyond popouts pretty much all of their hitters take hard swings on pitches in the zone, except they keep the ball on a line rather than uppercutting it for a homerun, this allows balls to reach the gaps before OF's can get to the ball. perhaps that's a small part of playing in the dome where there's no wind helping/hurting the speed of the ball off your bat, as well as the fact that the ground is pretty much flat allowing the ball to roll a lot more quickly than if it were on grass just an observation i've noticed watching the twins this year, they seem to swing their bats in a certain way. i heard Bill Melton mention that they purposely cut down when they hit balls low in the zone to keep it on the ground, using the fields speed to their advantage

QUOTE (kyyle23 @ Jul 30, 2008 -> 10:04 AM) This is what Jerry Manuel had to do to him too. Its a shame, but he just isnt "right" mentally right now i find it funny that everyone believes "The Sox need Konerko healthy and performing to be competitive this year" we've done fine for 2/3 of the season without him, I don't see anything changing putting Swish at 1st and BA in CF, this helps our defense out tremendously and limits the odds of us beating ourselves also, off-topic, Ozzie needs to be more proactive with this pitching staff, if you see the sox with a commanding lead like yesterday and all of the sudden the wheels start coming off , pull him out and let the guys in the pen handle the rest of the game edit: listening to the score, these guys are so unbelievably pro-Cubbies anti-Sox (Especially Bernstein and Holmes, to the point of being hilarious), it's hard to listen. The twins are flawed in as many areas as the Sox are, they're very similar to the Texas Rangers on the road, something about the Metrodome changes the complexion of that team, just as it changes the Sox complexion when they play at home. the Score guys give up so easily when the Sox start playing poorly, it's laughable. the way they approach the subject, is as if the Sox are 8 games out and it's unrealistic to expect the Sox to compete for the Division or WC i seriously cannot take 90% of that station seriously anymore. were they this bad in 2005 when the Sox were losing their lead in the second half? i didn't start listening to the score until 2007

this matchup FAVORS a sox win, but who the hell knows how it'll turn out over/under for errors, i'll say is 1 i'll take over if they can play tight defense, and gavin can locate at least 3 of his 4 pitches, we should have a good game i think, livan just isn't very good

it's hard to say, for sure. on one hand, i could see the twins squeaking out with the division by only a couple games, but I could also see the twins coming back down to earth one thing i can't stop thinking about is what would this team be like with a healthy, productive Konerko in the lineup I guess right now I'll say I'm in

Floyd vs. Hernandez, come on Gavin.... step up and be the stopper.

if we could walk out of the dome up 2.5, that would be monumentally huge IMO, as the twins have a long roadtrip coming up unfortunately, this team just plays terrible baseball right now with all the errors and unclutch hitting, and our pitching is sh** right now, especially when there's 2 outs these guys need to man up and remember that the point of playing the game is to win it all, not collect your f***ing paycheck that 3-2 pitch to mauer from thornton made me wanna puke, seriously

well at least we know what Clayton Richard is, a semi-decent pitcher, nothing fantastic, twins see him a few times through the order and make him look similar to how they made Danks look last year

not gonna be in 1st after this series, as i think the twins have the momentum to sweep us rather easily, not taking into account how poorly this team plays on turf bad bad loss, maybe gavin can no-hit the twins into the late innings again

The 2008 Baseball season just got SIGNIFICANTLY LESS interesting to me.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jul 29, 2008 -> 04:54 PM) We shoulda offered Swish plus more. needs to be greeeeeeeeeen lol

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jul 29, 2008 -> 04:52 PM) Snap. Did they trade Kotch? commercial break right now, more details gonna be released soon i think. this sucks, that team is just sickeningly good now IMO

Bernstein just said that Mark Texiera has been traded to the Angels Best team just got ridiculously better. unreal.

man what the hell is wrong with the hitters on this team not named Pierzynski, Ramirez, Quentin, and Dye. unreal...

QUOTE (CaliSoxFanViaSWside @ Jul 29, 2008 -> 09:21 AM) It's also time to move Alexei up in the lineup. Just because he has speed is no reason to keep him batting last. I think it's time to bat him 6th and move Swish to last . Anderson/Wise platoon 7th, Fields 8th. i actually don't mind alexei batting 9th, because he does get on base regularly, it puts OC into a sort of "Poor man's" 2-hole, not to mention Alexei does drive in runs when the slugs at 6-7-8 get on base alexei is doing fine batting 9th IMO

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Jul 29, 2008 -> 12:02 PM) Swisher has easily been the biggest disappointment on this team in my mind. He's been garbage for 3/4 of the year and when he has hit well it's really only been at home. He needs to get his f***ing ass out of his head because his crazy, loose, zany clubhouse guy routine is just annoying when he's not producing. i'm not sure how it's possible to say Swisher has been a bigger disappointment than a guy he's currently outperforming (albeit, not all that much, but the numbers are there), that makes about 6 times as much money per year something doesn't add up here.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 29, 2008 -> 11:51 AM) Not really. Its some walks. Swisher has 6 career steals and bats 7th. Walks with your 8th and 9th batters coming up aren't as valuable as walks with the best hitters coming up, plus he plays an offensive position. His slugging pct. is virtually identical to Uribe's last year. His average is about the same. He strikes out even more. The board wanted Uribe released. The board obviously loves walks and wants Swisher to play 1B. he's drawn walks regardless of his spot in the order this year

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Jul 29, 2008 -> 08:40 AM) But the Sox shouldn't have been shutout. JD hit a ball 5 feet foul and it was called a homerun. The umpires, at least according to Hawk, have no reason to overturn the call, except of course if it was hit by someone on the opposition. I love Hawk, but his umpire criticism hit a new low last night with that one. The one thing I don't understand about the umpires getting together though is if the home plate umpire clearly saw the ball was foul, if they are so concerned with getting it right, why doesn't he say something before he is asked? Its like he knows it was fould but will keep quiet unless the other manager comes out and has a stroke and they call a meeting. Doesn't sound like the umpires just want to get the call right to me. that's how it always is. remember the alexei phantom tag at homeplate a while back? the umpire didn't say anything until the other team tagged the plate. now you'll probably say it's not the same thing, as one is a judgement call and the other is up to the team to tag the plate for the force out, but the umpire did NOT come out and SAY "He did not touch the plate", that's the point i'm making if they just want to get the call right, he would come out and say "You didnt tag the plate"

such a flawed team, where's the consistency that teams like the angels have?

Ehren is "effectively wild"

ehren needs to move closer to 1B or something, his pitches are all way off the 3B side of the plate

Game's not over guys, only a fool would say Game Over when there's clearly 2 innings left!!

Our hitters swing at 0-2 pitches too much, anyone else notice this? Intelligent hitters know 9 times out of 10, an 0-2 pitch is a throw away pitch, but we go up there hacking

QUOTE (earthshiner @ Jul 28, 2008 -> 08:50 PM) so what do you think Paulie does? pop up? K looking, followed by a stern walk to the dugout for his daily discussion with the Gatorade cooler?

QUOTE (FranktheTank35 @ Jul 28, 2008 -> 08:46 PM) Wasserman in to put the game out of reach... but seriously, I hope he does well. This is the perfect situation for him to gain some confidence. No pressure, just pitch. 1-2-3 for ehren, though he was having obvious command problems.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 28, 2008 -> 08:46 PM) Probably tonight. If you'd have posted that in several other games of late, you'd have looked like a fool. there's a reason why some of us don't post "Game over" when we're facing teams like the tigers or rangers, teams that have basically no pitching whatsoever. and the tigers don't have a dominating homefield advantage like the twins do what a pointless post you made.