1 hour ago, Bill The Boy said:

On the unfortunate inning-ending double play, it looked to me like Sam, being behind the first baseman, had no line of sight to tell whether Mune's low liner was caught on the fly, or on a short hop. I have no clue what his "best move" would have been in that split-second, but under the circumstances I don't think it's fair to classify the actions he took as "being an idiot on the bases."

I thought the exact opposite and told both my son and my Dad, “What a brilliant player, he’s trying to avoid the tag in a split second moment to give the runner enough time to score.”

Go Sox - Go Sam!

Good game in a sense that they came back. Now the next step is execution. Riku's bunt attempt was pathetic. Need to get that down. Will should have challenged. The murakami ball hit the ground. Tyler Davis 0-2 pitch to Lee was horrible

6 hours ago, tray said:

I feel bad about this loss. We had this game in the 10th. Venable should have sent Sam to second and Acuna home. Venable left that game on the table and the Twins took it. I have disliked the Twins for decades. I was all set to grab victory from the hands of defeat.

When is Veneble going to be held accountable for his poor management?

6 minutes ago, The Mighty Mite said:

When is Veneble going to be held accountable for his poor management?

Pope Leo is on that.

1 hour ago, The Mighty Mite said:

When is Veneble going to be held accountable for his poor management?

That phrase can have dire meaning. So trusting Mune to loft a ball is cause for dismissal? We need a bull on that one. Not an NBA bull. A papal bull.

10 minutes ago, Stinky Stanky said:

That phrase can have dire meaning. So trusting Mune to loft a ball is cause for dismissal? We need a bull on that one. Not an NBA bull. A papal bull.

Encyclical

1 hour ago, caulfield12 said:

Encyclical

I was in unfamiliar waters.

3 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said:

When is Veneble going to be held accountable for his poor management?

"Will Venable was dismissed as manager of the Chicago White Sox effective immediately. Despite the team playing wildly beyond expectations and increasing attendance and excitement around the team significantly, he reportedly asked a newly-promoted slap hitter to bunt in a regular season game. It is unclear whether he will face criminal charges, and his family has asked for privacy at this difficult time."

11 hours ago, Jake said:

Throwing the splitter made sense to me you just can't throw it in the strike zone. You're trying to end the at bat with a strikeout and he's fouling off your best strikeout pitch. You see if he'll chase the splitter in the dirt and if he doesn't, you hope you've opened up the high heater for a whiff on the next pitch. He just left it over the plate. I expected him to throw a backfoot slider instead. I just hope he missed it due to honest to goodness bad release rather than not trusting his catcher to block it.

you throw another FB up higher to get him to chase before you go to the splitter

35 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

"Will Venable was dismissed as manager of the Chicago White Sox effective immediately. Despite the team playing wildly beyond expectations and increasing attendance and excitement around the team significantly, he reportedly asked a newly-promoted slap hitter to bunt in a regular season game. It is unclear whether he will face criminal charges, and his family has asked for privacy at this difficult time."

They let him live? Man, back in my day he would have gotten the Ol Yeller treatment.

12 hours ago, ron883 said:

At least we aren't the Cubs. Lost 12-1, LOL

That's 10 in a row now? Ouch. And I think it was the Quero walk-off homer that put 'em on the skids.

12 hours ago, Jake said:

Throwing the splitter made sense to me you just can't throw it in the strike zone. You're trying to end the at bat with a strikeout and he's fouling off your best strikeout pitch. You see if he'll chase the splitter in the dirt and if he doesn't, you hope you've opened up the high heater for a whiff on the next pitch. He just left it over the plate. I expected him to throw a backfoot slider instead. I just hope he missed it due to honest to goodness bad release rather than not trusting his catcher to block it.

Exactly. Pitch selection wasn’t poor but the execution of that pitch was deplorable and warranted the result.

1 hour ago, joejoesox said:

you throw another FB up higher to get him to chase before you go to the splitter

It’s a coin toss between either of those options and both likely get the same result if executed correctly.

9 minutes ago, Bill The Boy said:

That's 10 in a row now? Ouch. And I think it was the Quero walk-off homer that put 'em on the skids.

Winless since PCAAA berated the Sox girl

21 minutes ago, Bill The Boy said:

That's 10 in a row now? Ouch I think it was the Quero walk-off homer that put 'em on the skids.

I am going with the PCA bride. It makes for a better story.

25 minutes ago, Bill The Boy said:

That's 10 in a row now? Ouch. And I think it was the Quero walk-off homer that put 'em on the skids.

Started the game our big 3 hit 4 dongs

god that sucked.

10 hours ago, hi8is said:

1. Welcome to Soxtalk

2. As a life long Sox fan who has seen generations of this team spanning nearly half a century, Sam has been my favorite player so far this season.

So happy he is on our team and I’m hopeful that he will be a Southsider for many years to come.

Congrats to the kid, he deserves it and I’ll be rooting for him along with you for his career.

Thank you, hi8is, that is greatly appreciated. I do realize that I'm going to have a natural tendency to stick up for family, but I also realize that everyone has the right to express themselves freely. Sometimes it's going to be positive, and other times it's going to be more critical, but it all comes from a foundation of caring for all the guys and wanting them to succeed. Sometimes those "jinxed" games just happen, but isn't it great that we've been given a brand new day?!!

6 hours ago, JoshPR said:

Good game in a sense that they came back. Now the next step is execution. Riku's bunt attempt was pathetic. Need to get that down. Will should have challenged. The murakami ball hit the ground. Tyler Davis 0-2 pitch to Lee was horrible

It didn’t matter. He stepped on first and tagged Sam.

Edited Wednesday at 04:18 PM2 days by Bob Sacamano

I'm curious if Nishida bunted on his own with 2 strikes or if that came from the dugout. It seemed fairly clear he had no real shot of getting one down against the lefty.

12 hours ago, Bill The Boy said:

Yes, it's a loss. No one's an idiot. Sometimes things just don't go the way we want them to. And regarding Sam Antonacci, I'll just offer this:

(Full Disclosure: I'm Sam's great-uncle, so it's certainly fair to factor that bias into the following.)

1) Bottom of 1st, Sam leads off with a hit-by-pitch, steals second, and is then completely stranded out there by all three of "the big boys" in the 2, 3 and 4 slots. How nice would it have been to have that run?

2) Bottom of 10th, Sam gets an infield single to move ghost runner Acuna over to third with only one out. We all know what happened after that, unfortunately, but we need to at least give him credit for setting the stage for the possible walk-off win.

3) On the unfortunate inning-ending double play, it looked to me like Sam, being behind the first baseman, had no line of sight to tell whether Mune's low liner was caught on the fly, or on a short hop. I have no clue what his "best move" would have been in that split-second, but under the circumstances I don't think it's fair to classify the actions he took as "being an idiot on the bases."

4) Tomorrow's a brand new day, and this will all be a distant memory! Go Sox!

I perceive that game threads become a competition to spew the most extreme invective the quickest. We seem to forget that the best hitters in the game make outs 7 out of 10 times, and the best pitchers still give up more than a baserunner an inning.

50 minutes ago, Bill The Boy said:

Thank you, hi8is, that is greatly appreciated. I do realize that I'm going to have a natural tendency to stick up for family, but I also realize that everyone has the right to express themselves freely. Sometimes it's going to be positive, and other times it's going to be more critical, but it all comes from a foundation of caring for all the guys and wanting them to succeed. Sometimes those "jinxed" games just happen, but isn't it great that we've been given a brand new day?!!

For the record, Soxtalk is a pretty solid spot, but it is a message board, and the absolute lowest common denominator of a sports community is the instant reactions to game situations, which is what happens in any game thread. Game threads are always brutal, it's just a matter of how bad. The discussions that take place outside of the game threads are markedly deeper and more intelligent. I do just want to say, don't internalize some of the crap that gets said in the moment. That said, welcome to the group!

2 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

For the record, Soxtalk is a pretty solid spot, but it is a message board, and the absolute lowest common denominator of a sports community is the instant reactions to game situations, which is what happens in any game thread. Game threads are always brutal, it's just a matter of how bad. The discussions that take place outside of the game threads are markedly deeper and more intelligent. I do just want to say, don't internalize some of the crap that gets said in the moment. That said, welcome to the group!

33 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

I'm curious if Nishida bunted on his own with 2 strikes or if that came from the dugout. It seemed fairly clear he had no real shot of getting one down against the lefty.

From Sox Machine's game recap:

"Kind of a weird play there, where there's a bunch of chaos and the ball didn't bounce our way," Will Venable said of the play that ended the 10th, before affirming he kept the bunt on with Nishida even after two strikes. "Once you get to two strikes against a guy who's really tough against lefties, that at-bat where we're set up to bunt, go ahead and commit through two strikes there. With that being the skill set that [Nishida] does very well, that was the calculus to go ahead and try to get [pinch runner Luisangel Acuña to third], knowing that you've got some guys behind him."

3 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

From Sox Machine's game recap:

"Kind of a weird play there, where there's a bunch of chaos and the ball didn't bounce our way," Will Venable said of the play that ended the 10th, before affirming he kept the bunt on with Nishida even after two strikes. "Once you get to two strikes against a guy who's really tough against lefties, that at-bat where we're set up to bunt, go ahead and commit through two strikes there. With that being the skill set that [Nishida] does very well, that was the calculus to go ahead and try to get [pinch runner Luisangel Acuña to third], knowing that you've got some guys behind him."

I appreciate that Will didn't throw him under the bus. Will's a good man manager, tactics sometimes questionable but that's any manager in hindsight.