joejoesox

this trade doesn't happen because Konerko does not get benched for the majority of the games remaining, regardless of how he plays, Ozzie will keep running him out there once he's back from his "Time Off"

QUOTE (scenario @ Jul 30, 2008 -> 11:19 AM) Nobody commenting on the fact that Konerko hit the ball pretty hard last night in a couple of at-bats, eh? or the fact that swisher went yard off the best closer in baseball (yes, I think Nathan is more talented than K-Fraud, by a mile)

ETA until ESPN MLB homepage puts up "Who wins the AL Central" Poll? lol

QUOTE (LVSoxFan @ Jul 30, 2008 -> 10:53 AM) Sorry but I'm surprised we made it this far. Yeah, Detroit started awful but it's not how you start... All it takes is Detroit to go on a tear in August and Minnesota to keep chewing away and we'll be in the rearview mirror soon enough. When two highly-paid sluggers (Konerko and Swisher) are hitting around the Mendoza line this late in the season, you're in trouble. just curious, are the red sox a pretender? they've now lost first place back to the Rays i think you and I both know the Red Sox are better than the Rays are, and will ultimately win that division, but right now the Red Sox are in second place, BY TWO GAMES I'm not freaking out with 2 months left to play, i'm sorry. teams have their ups and downs. it happens to every team in baseball, in fact the only team this year that I haven't really seen have any ups/downs are the angels and we're 3-4 against them this year people need to stop freaking out, and look at all of the other teams in baseball and take a subjective glance at the divisional races.

QUOTE (kwolf68 @ Jul 30, 2008 -> 10:52 AM) If we let Livan Hernandez take first place from us, then what kind of hope is there, really? That guy is a stiff. I'm so glad they haven't replaced him with Liriano or we may be 4 or 5 out. simply put, if our hitters have an intelligent hitting approach to Livan tonight, we'll clobber him. we've shown that we can time his slow pitches and score a lot of runs on him. there's no reason why these guys don't come into tonights game with the mindset that they can hit him around you'll know from the 4th inning or so how this game is going to be IMO

Twins could be in first place after this series, and I still think we have a better chance than they do of winning the division, albeit slightly I just think that team is way better at home than they are on the road, and they are beatable at home as long as your team plays fundamental baseball, something we haven't done very well since the all-star break

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"