OldSmoky2

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 17, 2012 -> 11:08 AM) How do you insult Kansas City? There is nothing there to insult. To quote a great Danny Schmidt song, "It's nice enough to visit, or it's nice enough to get back in your car." He was singing about San Antonio, but it works for KC, too.

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Aug 16, 2012 -> 10:23 PM) The man who collapsed at the game tonight was announced dead at the hospital. Sad and unfortunate. Prayers go out to his family. That's too bad and I also feel for his family and friends. I was watching tonight and wondering about it as well because of my own experience with that. In 2005 I was fortunate to get a ticket to the first playoff game against the Red Sox. It was great, of course - I was in the corner down by the right field pole and we won bigtime, 13 or 14 runs I think. But the two or three times I went upstairs for food, etc., my left shoulder just felt strange - tired is the best word I can think of to describe it. The next night at home I started feeling that again and, after a while, realized I probably should get to a hospital. I went to Illinois Masonic and less than five minutes after I got there went into full cardiac arrest. The great people there brought me back, got me in surgery and found two blocked arteries. I was lucky, and I was watching tonight and hoping that guy would have the same luck. That's just too bad he didn't make it.

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Aug 15, 2012 -> 04:31 PM) Who cares who he said it to. The NYT isn't a small paper. You can't tell me the Chicago media didn't know he said. They just ignored it. They should have covered it at some point, probably after a bit of a wait to avoid looking like they were just scrambling to keep up with an out-of-town paper, but then the truth is the Trib and Sun-Times just don't have the sports columnists they used to. Cowley's been a bad replacement for what the ST used to have; he's always been a lazy writer and he's just not that good. Telander's the best writer at the ST but he's very much part-time at this point in his career there. At the Trib Rogers isn't writing at the level he used to be at, and Haugh doesn't write much about baseball for whatever reason. In Rogers' case, it may be because the bean-counters at the Trib have him filing little newsbits everyday instead of letting him just focus on a few good columns a week, like he used to do. Who else is there to go in-depth at the papers? They're just shadows of what they once were. That said, I'd be surprised if none of the radio shows talked about the Reinsdorf quote, but then I don't listen to them so I don't know. As for the quoted comment, "Ventura’s team is winning, Guillen’s team is losing…. which makes comparisons conveniently easy." Uh, yeah... Duh.

Nice win... Now get them tomorrow, Gavin.

YES!

QUOTE (fathom @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 08:32 PM) Do you think that having to basically have two loogys on the team at the same time in Veal/Septimo is a bad idea, which in turns cause lack of depth of righty relievers as well as on our bench? At the time they made the move the other day, I thought the bullpen was a little worn out, so a qualified yes. But I'd sure love to have some of Jackson's or Johnson's offense with Paulie out now.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 08:28 PM) Crain can't pitch every day. 3 innings a week tops if you want him to last he rest of the year.. Agreed... And with Reed going more than an inning tonight, Crain may well be closing tomorrow afternnon if it (hopefully) gets to that point.

It is not worse than when Ozzie was here. Thornton gets paid well to pitch the 8th, mostly. On the other hand, I don't deny getting really jittery when Thornton comes in this year. Robin's probably thinking he'll need Myers tomorrow with Gavin pitching.

QUOTE (Caesar @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 08:02 PM) Ventura is a complete moron when it comes to the bullpen. Whew.... But Wimpy said Robin left Q in because Toronto would have pinch hit for McCoy against Myers.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Aug 14, 2012 -> 07:46 PM) I heard this Undecided fellow pitching Saturday has some nasty stuff Well, hopefully Detroit has as much trouble against Undecided as the Sox usually have.

Wow... This would be a good night for for Quintana to buy a stack of lottery tickets.

Just checked and Weather Channel radar forecast has rain ending around the Cell about 7:30.

Crain is back for today's game... http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseb...0,1356315.story

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Crain comes back OK. And if John Danks gets healthy, Humber becomes a pretty good RH arm in the pen, given that there's no way Quintana's not staying in the rotation. I'm guessing as long as things go OK with the kids we've got, KW will stand pat for now rather than give up good prospects for middle relief.

Worth noting that the Sox have given up 14 unearned runs while the Tigers have given up 41. And that doesn't account for the balls that get through Detroit's infield and lead to earned runs, balls that Beckham, Ramirez and now Youkilis get to and turn into outs. Add to that the speed in the Sox outfield and you can see one big reason the Sox have a better record than Detroit. The runs you prevent are just as important as the runs you score. And Detroit isn't going to replace any of those infielders, except possibly at second base, with mid-season acquisitions. I'm not saying it's going to be easy and, yes, the Sox pitching needs to hold up, but there is good reason there to believe that the Sox will continue to win more games than Detroit. As for the schedule, the Sox have 15 games left with KC and 12 with Minnesota - winning most of those series is big. There are 9 left with Detroit and 6 with Cleveland, by the way.

The cartoon is a great find. Looking at center field reminded me how much I wish they had found a way to orient the Cell in the other direction, with a glimpse of downtown beyond the outfield walls. On the other hand, Frank Thomas would have probably hit a lot fewer home runs if the Cell faced north and didn't have those outfield upper decks Comiskey had. I too think an upper deck in right field at the Cell would be sweet.

Lol... just got the MLB.TV offer: "Watch over 150 spring training games LIVE." But when you check out their schedule, there are 22 Angels games, 20 Phillies games, 20 Yankees games, 17 Dodgers games, 16 Red Sox games and just 9 White Sox games. Poor Twins fans (no, I don't say that often) get only 5 games. It turns out it's not just a spring training offer - there wouldn't be much reason for someone who doesn't live on the coasts to buy it at all if that were the case. Rather it's a pitch to get people to buy the MLB.TV regular season packages, which of course doesn't include White Sox games if you live in Chicago. Nah, think I'll pass.

Of the seven AL teams ahead of us in those projections yesterday, five lost. Doesn't mean it's not a useful stat, but just pointing that out.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jan 30, 2010 -> 12:15 AM) I enjoyed your post, Smokey, but don't know if I agree with this statement. You think our infield defense is acceptable? I think it'll be OK. Beckham should be pretty good at second and Teahen should be competent at third, though not great. I think Beckham will be in a more natural position at second than at third. Granted, we'll see how he adjusts to making the turn on DPs. And I'm hoping Alexei matures a bit and benefits from Vizquel being there to mentor him. Ozzie's right, I think; Alexei can be a very good shortstop if he just cuts down on the inexplicable bad throws. But I guess I base saying that our defense will be better more on the outfield. CQ/Pods in left, Pods/Wise in center and JD in right was just not very good. Pierre has no arm, but then Pods didn't either; at least Pierre gets to the balls he ought to catch and doesn't look like a deer in the headlights out there sometimes. CQ says right is his natural position and seems to be excited to be out there. And Rios is a bonafide MLB centerfielder, a vast improvement over what we've had the last few years. Plus when Ozzie wants to play with the line-up, Jones and Vizquel are very solid defensive players. Overall, it may not be all Gold Glove, but I really think it'll be a good bit better than last year.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Jan 29, 2010 -> 03:55 PM) My dream scenario is still a Sox-Cubs World Series, ending in Game 7 at USCF with a Paulie walkoff grand slam after being down by 3. It would destroy Cubdom. Not sure my heart would hold up in that scenario, but I'd sure take it. On the other hand, sweeping them in four and removing all doubt would be just fine.

I don't see how the pitching won't be better this year. Floyd and Danks are coming into what should be their prime, Mark will be Mark and Peavy, in my mind, is the first true ace we've had since McDowell. Who knows what we'll get from Freddy, but he should be OK as a number 5 and there's a good chance he'll be better than average in that role. Bullpen projections are a roll of the dice, but this pen should be more consistent than what we've had the past few years. Having more good starts means Carrasco won't be missed as much, though I'd still rather have him than not, and there is proven experience out there in the guys we have. Putz staying healthy is important, and I assume they've checked him out enough to think he will. Pena and Williams will probably be what they were last year, which isn't always lights out but also isn't bad if you have three guys out there behind them (Putz, Thornton and Jenks) who are good. And I'm not counting on much from Linebrink, but there is at least some past performance there to suggest that he might be better than last year. Either way, he's not the key to our pen. And the defense is so much better. I wish Rios had hit better late last year, and I think he'll get back to his career numbers this year. It's not like he only had one good year before last September. But it was really refreshing to see guys hit fly balls deep to center late last year, then look out there and see a centerfielder in a Sox uniform casually waiting for it near the wall. I'd come to believe that only happened when we hit them to Torii Hunter. Pierre will catch balls Pods missed and CQ will be better in right than JD was by last year. Like most fans, I'd rather have a Morneau or Fielder at DH, but I don't think it's written in stone that Kotsay/Jones/Vizquel is our DH for the whole season. KW's recent comments suggest that he's not completely convinced that Ozzie is right about that situation, just that he's happy enough with the rest of the team to let Oz try it his way. If, and as soon as, it becomes obvious that the lineup needs a big bopper, I think KW will pull the trigger pretty quickly, and in this market there should be some good options available that will be well within the Sox's budget and ability to acquire.

QUOTE (soxrock0109 @ Aug 18, 2009 -> 06:33 PM) We need to win tonight because i'm not sure if we will be able to win with Jose pitching tomarrow... Tonight ABC7 weather predicted rain and thunderstorms tomorrow night beginning around 7, for what it's worth. Maybe someone upstairs doesn't want to see another Jose start any more than the rest of us.

QUOTE (chiguy79 @ Aug 16, 2009 -> 05:22 PM) I don't have any explanations for the nationals as I don't think they have many fans at all, maybe people figure their team will win that game or promotions are scheduled when they are in town (like the sox do with KC). I'd guess the Nationals benefit from playing a good number of away games against the Mets, Phillies and Braves, all of which draw well at home, no matter who they're playing.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Aug 15, 2009 -> 12:24 PM) Fox has all the rights to games between 3 CT to 6 CT. They decided not to broadcast this game. Is this game going to be on MLB.tv? And the A's could have changed the time to get it out of Fox's time slot, as teams normally do. But they didn't, which I guess means they don't have enough of a TV contract or good-enough TV ratings at home to make it worthwhile. I'm sure that makes visiting teams which do have decent home-market TV ratings and contracts really happy.

Thank goodness! And a nice job by the bullpen tonight.