13 minutes ago, Bonemer, I Hardly Know Her said:

Was supposed to leave Florida on Saturday but the hurricane is complicating things. Looks like I might be hitting the road later today and listening to Len and DJ.

Tell the wife to sit back, relax, and strap it down! There will be white Sox baseball on the radio!

15 hours ago, fathom said:

Also, I can’t say this enough, but this season completely rejuvenated the fan base out by me in the Naperville region. Kids are having Sox viewing parties and the stores are packed with Sox merchandise.

This area is definitely majority Cubs fan, but it's NOT Cubs Territory like Schaumburg or Arlington Heights as it's geographically neutral between north and south side. Nonetheless, plenty of Sox fans out here, but obviously the last 15 years or so has decimated people's interest in this team.

People might not realize how many people live out here. 150k in Naperville and 200k in Aurora alone. Rejuvenating interesting in the Sox in the Naperville region is a good thing for this team.

14 hours ago, MexSoxFan#1 said:

I know this isn't the correct thread, but I don't see any thread about the other current playoffs games so...I have a ton of family in LA unsurprisingly, all Dodgers fans, I used to be happy for them for their recent success after their long drought (for that franchise at least), now I'm starting to get annoyed 😠

Starting? 😉

13 hours ago, Tony said:

Had this conversation with buddy in the 9th inning today.

Expectations change quickly. It’s already amazing what they’ve done and where they’ve gotten, but after going up 2-0 against Cleveland, I’ll be incredibly pissed if they lose this series. If we get absolutely throttled by the Rays in the ALCS…fine, we made the fucking ALCS after enduring the last three years.

That’s all to say…just fucking win tomorrow.

that's how i feel about it. When they made the ALDS, i felt that anything they do from here on out is just icing on the cake. 102 losses to a playoff series win is quite an accomplishment.

But after they took a 2-0 lead on the road, I'll be pissed if they blew this series by losing 2 at home and then a 3rd in a row at Cleveland....and at this point I can't say I'm confident that the Sox will win tonight or (if necessary) Saturday.

33 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I was at the game yesterday and it was a tough one. Started off great and the crowd was amped up, but Cleveland stole a lot of the energy by the end. While there were some truly atrocious at-bats amongst the 19 K’s, it’s clear the guys were also trying to do too much. I think the lineup might have been a little too amped for their first home game. I think playing down and some bad batted ball luck didn’t help matters either. I believe we see a better performance from the hitters tonight. They are a resilient group who has rose to the challenge over & over again throughout both the regular and post season.

Pitching remains the wild card. Yesterday was brutal in many aspects and a sign of the challenges we face moving forward. Can’t just rely on your best arms all the time or they will tire out and the ones not used will be rusty. It’s a predicament not easily solved. What I do know is this. You got to find a way to win this game tonight without using Burke. While the odds of us beating the Rays are low, they are much better if we can throw Burke game #1 and make sure we get two starts out of him next series. Lose tonight and he becomes a critical piece of a do or die game #5 in Cleveland. Let’s avoid that all costs.

I was there too and agree that the hyped up atmosphere was both awesome and probably contributed to some of the high fastball chasing we saw.

One thing that I don't think people are acknowledging enough is that our offense did put pressure on them - we had TWO hard hit, surely high xBA, balls with two runners in scoring position: one by Teel and one by Vargas. Both robbed by stellar defensive plays. That's baseball, but it makes me feel a lot better than if they had just gotten shut down (like we did to CLE in the first two games, frankly). If these guys calm down a bit this offense is gonna score some runs. Just need to hope the pitching magic of game 1 returns.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by 35thstreetswarm

19 minutes ago, ron883 said:

Tell the wife to sit back, relax, and strap it down! There will be white Sox baseball on the radio!

I'll tell her to strap it on if we win tonight!

Do we know the plan for pitching tonight? Is KAY starting?

13 hours ago, ron883 said:

What Ron tells himself in the mirror every morning

9 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

I was there too and agree that the hyped up atmosphere was both awesome and probably contributed to some of the high fastball chasing we saw.

One thing that I don't think people are acknowledging enough is that our offense did put pressure on them - we had TWO hard hit, surely high xBA, balls with two runners in scoring position: one by Teel and one by Vargas. Both robbed by stellar defensive plays. That's baseball, but it makes me feel a lot better than if they had just gotten shut down (like we did to CLE in the first two games, frankly). If these guys calm down a bit this offense is gonna score some runs. Just need to hope the pitching magic of game 1 returns.

Just read that Will is going with Hagen Smith as the opener. Not sure I'm crazy about that choice. He has been back to his lack of control lately. Why not just start Fedde. These openers/bullpen games are catching up with Venable. I would do Fedde-Hicks-Taylor.

1 hour ago, JTB said:

Completely agree. 7-1 Sox!

No we're gonna get blwon out

Hopefully the smoke and mirrors pitching set up we have works again tonight.

It's just so difficult for us to win night in and night out.

2 minutes ago, Green Line said:

No we're gonna get blwon out

You shut your whore mouth

So has the doom and gloom set in yet? Some think those 2 games won by the Sox were AI. They never give the Colson blamathon a rest. Maybe they could tutn him into the young Babe Ruth by also striking out hitters

I think tonight gets wild.

9-7 Sox

5 minutes ago, 2Deep said:

Do we know the plan for pitching tonight? Is KAY starting?

Hagen is opening. Fedde, Hicks, & Taylor seem likely to pitch two or more each. Guessing that one of Kay or Newcomb fills in somewhere between to break up the righties. My guess is they go with Kay for an inning or two and save Sean for a potential game #5 to open for Burke.

10 minutes ago, Bonemer, I Hardly Know Her said:

What Ron tells himself in the mirror every morning

And then strikes out each AB.

Theyre going to have to hit better tonight as opposed to Game 1 when all they really managed was that bomb by Mune. They better have a lead late because once Cade comes in it's over. Some of our speed guys need to use the bunt to get on.

10 minutes ago, tomtom823 said:

Just read that Will is going with Hagen Smith as the opener. Not sure I'm crazy about that choice. He has been back to his lack of control lately. Why not just start Fedde. These openers/bullpen games are catching up with Venable. I would do Fedde-Hicks-Taylor.

He was sort of rushed into that situation last night without a full warmup. I think you ride or die with him for one tonight. There aren’t exactly a ton of other options at the moment.

3 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

He was sort of rushed into that situation last night without a full warmup. I think you ride or die with him for one tonight. There aren’t exactly a ton of other options at the moment.

There is an option - use a conventional starter, i.e. Fedde. If you can get 5 innings out of Fedde, then Hicks for a couple, then Smith/Taylor to cover the last two...or just reverse Smith/Hicks.

18 minutes ago, tomtom823 said:

Just read that Will is going with Hagen Smith as the opener. Not sure I'm crazy about that choice. He has been back to his lack of control lately. Why not just start Fedde. These openers/bullpen games are catching up with Venable. I would do Fedde-Hicks-Taylor.

By these openers/bullpen games are catching up to Venable, are you referring to the manager of a team 4-1 in the AL playoffs?

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

By these openers/bullpen games are catching up to Venable, are you referring to the manager of a team 4-1 in the AL playoffs?

Yes I am. His strategy is not sustainable. The arms in the bullpen will be dragging, and one thing that Ron Darling pointed out that I agree with - If you use a lot of pitchers, there is a good chance that one of them will be off.

22 minutes ago, Bonemer, I Hardly Know Her said:

You shut your whore mouth

Rude

https://www.mlb.com/news/2026-alds-game-4-storylines

13 minutes ago, tomtom823 said:

There is an option - use a conventional starter, i.e. Fedde. If you can get 5 innings out of Fedde, then Hicks for a couple, then Smith/Taylor to cover the last two...or just reverse Smith/Hicks.

I would not pitch Fedde multiple times through the lineup in a playoff game. I think he’s a guy you cap at 2 or 3 innings depending on matchups. Stuff looked much better last time out in that short stint. I try to keep that version of him.