Welcome to the bigs, Kid

by The Cheat on Apr 5, 2006 5:46 PM CDT in White Sox News

Jose Contreras pitched a nice game after a tough first inning. He looked alright through the first three batters of the game, even though he had given up two hits. But with runners on first and second and Travis Hafner at the plate, he reverted to pre-All-Star break Count for the remainder of the inning. From there until he was lifted after 6 innings pitched, however, he looked great.
Paul Konerko looks like absolute garbage right now (.210 OPS). He's had plenty of opportunities to drive in runs, but he's pulling everything. And with Jim Thome on base as much as he is, that's a recipe for disaster. Until he starts trying to go to right field, he's going to continue on a record breaking GIDP pace.
Brandon McCarthy came in from the pen again today, and looked great. His curveball was filthy, which made up for a changeup that seemed to be floating up there today. He looked so good, that I just assumed that Ozzie would run him back out there for the 8th inning. Sort of like how Mike Scioscia uses Scot Shields.
Wrong. Ozzie's going to have a lot to answer for today in his post-game press conference.
- Why is Boone Logan pitching to Hafner in the 8th inning of a 1-run game?
- If you needed a lefty, why not Cotts? It's the 8th inning after all.
- Why bat Cintron for Ozuna in the 8th? Cintron is a .265/.305/.396 hitter from the left side. I'm not a big fan of Pablo Ozuna as it is, and he was just .248/.288/.305 against righties last year, but he's got better bat control and the go-ahead run was just 90 feet from home.
- Where was the squeeze play? You preach about playing the game the right way. Why, when your only options are two guys who can hardly get on base, do you allow one of them to swing away?
- Why not bring in Gload? What does he have to do to get off the bench? Do we only care if Mackowiak, Ozuna, and Cintron sit too much?
Bobby Jenks did not inspire much confidence in me when he relieved Neal Cotts in the 11th. WGN didn't have a gun on him, but he didn't look like he was popping the mitt hard at all. Maybe more importantly, his control sucked.

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I'm waiting patiently

for Hawk to update his blog and tell us all about the 60-60-42 rule.

The first game was one of the 60 "you're gonna win"
The second game was one of the 60 "you're gonna lose"
Today's game was one of those "other 42" that mean so much.

;)

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Apr 5, 2006 7:18 PM CDT reply actions

1 win, 2 losses, and 3 different lineups--not exactly an ideal start. Ozzie seems to have transfered his man-crush from Timo to Cintron and Mackowiak. I agree Cheat: why wasn't Gload used (perhaps in RF after Dye was injured) at all? Why wasn't Cotts used before Logan? why was BMAC even pulled?

Someone needs to remind Guillen that spring training doens't mean squat, and no matter how well Logan looked in Arizona, he isn't the sort of guy to trot out in a high leverage situation BEFORE Neal Cotts.

by madvillian on Apr 5, 2006 7:20 PM CDT reply actions

gut

how can you argue with ozzie's prodigious gut?

when timo was in town yesterday, gload should have asked timo for copies of whatever incriminating pictures of ozzie he had that kept him on the roster for so long. apparently, however, cintron, mackowiak, and logan got to timo first.

by larry on Apr 5, 2006 8:19 PM CDT up reply actions

Let the record show that, at least for myself

and the guys around me, it was first guessing with Boone Logan. As soon as we saw him warming up in the eighth we all thought, what the hell is he doing out there? McCarthy ended the 7th looking phenomenal. I would have preferred he took the game into the ninth, but even if Ozzie pulls him, Logan should be at the bottom of the list to pitch in that situation. Eighth inning, up by a run, facing the heart of the order of our biggest rival -- you need to put your players in situations allowing them to succeed, and throwing a guy with hardly any A ball experience, let alone major league time, into this was dooming him to failure.

If we're going to keep him on the major league roster, he needs to be eased into games where he has some margin for error - until he proves that he belongs in the bigs.

by chrome on Apr 6, 2006 10:45 AM CDT up reply actions

n00b Logan

It was a lot of fun seeing how long Logan could go this Spring without giving up an earned run, it really was, but it's time to snap back to reality. Remember, Arizona is a place where Pablo Ozuna will out-OPS the entire team.

Logan won't and shouldn't be used on this team as a LOOGY. So why use him as a innings-eater/middle reliever? We have a few arms way past the development stage who could fill that roll. Logan belongs in Birmingham, working in situations like he entered today against the best that AA has to offer. He will be more valuable to us in the future this way.

Logan will probably remain servicable until a scouting report comes out on him. Then I'd expect him to struggle.

AIM: i2ockbotm

by 3E8 on Apr 5, 2006 8:22 PM CDT reply actions

we scored 10 runs with our normal line-up

So maybe an idea would be USE THE NORMAL LINE-UP! Today was an exception because Crede was ill, and Dye was injured. But the 2nd game we could have used our normal lineup and might have won.

AIM: JoeCoolMan24 www.2ksports.com/forums Thats where i spend most of my day

by JoeCoolMan24 on Apr 5, 2006 9:03 PM CDT reply actions

Paulie

Paulie's in one of those "pull" modes, and he isn't even seeing the ball well, taking too many first pitch slobberknockers. (Of course Paulie isn't much of a first ball swinger anyways, but when the circumstance calls for it, i.e. Cliff Lee was living off first pitch strike today, you gotta do it.)

Tadahito was great today setting the table for him (and Thome too, since they pitched around him all day), but Paulie looked lost.

Hope Paulie doesn't have one of those every-other-year syndromes going on.

by james@lifeinthecell on Apr 5, 2006 9:10 PM CDT reply actions

Yep

You know PK is going bad when they intentionally walk Thome to put the winning run on second to get to him.

by the wolf on Apr 6, 2006 8:40 AM CDT up reply actions

that was just baseball...

They were pitching to Thome, until a wild pitch advanced the runner to second. Then they walked Thome to set up the double play with a GIDP candidate coming up next. Makes sense.

by brianekst on Apr 6, 2006 1:01 PM CDT up reply actions

Yep

I forgot about the wild pitch.

by the wolf on Apr 6, 2006 1:52 PM CDT up reply actions

Jenks

He was hitting 95 on the Cell gun, might have got 96 on one. His curve looked OK, coming in at 86 or so. And yeah, I was screaming for Cotts. And then I called the Hafner HR. And then I cursed Ozzie all game.

sue me, i like joe crede
Like pizza? Me too.

by FAQ on Apr 5, 2006 10:21 PM CDT reply actions

Payroll

White Sox Payroll: $102,875,667

I thought it was around 90-95.

AIM: shaftr01

XBL: TheMattressMan

by shaftr on Apr 5, 2006 11:43 PM CDT reply actions

It is...

Subtract the cash we get. MLB counts how much we're paying out. We really only care about how much the Sox have to pay.

White Sox Payroll Info

AIM: SouthSideCheat

by The Cheat on Apr 5, 2006 11:56 PM CDT up reply actions

Thought that number seemed off

Any idea where an adjusted list is for the rest of the league?

-Peder

by Peder on Apr 6, 2006 8:10 AM CDT up reply actions

What about Pods

After looking at the box score and seeing that Paulie got his first hit today, I noticed that Podsednik has 0 hits so far this season. In fact, he has 0 walks. His BA .000, OBP .000; I know it's early in the season, but this is pretty alarming coming from the lead-off hitter of a supposed "small ball" team.
I don't completely buy the small ball stuff, but we're much better when he's getting on base.

Jeeves
www.chisoxblog.blogspot.com

-Jeeves www.chisoxblog.blogspot.com

by jeeves on Apr 6, 2006 12:51 AM CDT reply actions