Our Better Is Better Than The Tiger Bullpen

Good start to the season, at least from a fan's excitment level. This team might not compete for a playoff spot eventually, but at least they might provide some entertainment along the way.

Quentin is doing everything we all want: taking Owens' spot away and doing it in such a way that it helps the team win ballgames.now and in the future. The back of the rotation put together back to back solid outings and Dye seems to be turning back the clock.

Health is solid (christ, knock on wood) and Ozzie is actually fielding some decent lineups. The decision to hit Swisher leadoff is pleasantly surprising.

It's a bit disconcerting that it took an injury to Owens to make it happen, but at least it happened.

I really wish this team had some real backups though. Hall and Ozuna shouldn't be anywhere near a MLB diamond.

And how can I not mention the bullpen. In an extremely (and probalby misleading) sample size these guys have come in and nailed some close games down. Linebrink is looking like 4 million well spent, Boone Logan doesn't look like a gas can sitting next to Richard Pryor.

I really just wish Dye could move to LF and switch with Quentin. Quentin's arm and range are much better than Dye's at this point. It might save the Sox a few runs of the course of the season.

I think I will get a kick out of this season reading all the folks who "knew" what was going to happen rationalize why it didnt.

The start is encouraging. The walking is very encouraging.

Floyd was unspectacular, but good enough to get the job done. He had only one poor sequence all game; the 4 straight balls to Jones after getting up on him 0-2. He just has to accept that he's gonna get hit a little bit, and some of those hits will leave the yard. As long as there aren't extra baserunners in the form of walks on the bases, he should keep the Sox in most games.

Swisher has been an absolute joy to watch. After his second at-bat, he had seen 1/3 of the pitches that Willis had throw, after his second he had seen about 1/4. On a day when Willis was terrible, many of the Sox hitters were willing to bail him out. Swisher's 3 walks were the Sox offense prior to Thome's double.

Cabrera is fine. He had a ball eat him up on opening day, and a ball take a weird hop on him (running between his legs) the other day. I haven't seen anything that would make me move him from the SS position. The relay today was one that needed all parts to be executed to absolute perfection to get Jones at home. Swisher made a good catch, a quick turn and throw, but Cabrera didn't have the ball on line. No big deal. Nobody's perfect.

Even when he's making outs, multiple outs, Quentin looks like he belongs. He has a plan at the plate. After getting ahead 2-0, Q took a HR cut fouling a ball straight back. Two pitches later, ahead 3-1, he crushed a low fastball that hooked just foul into the LF seats. On 3-2 he got a slider in exactly the same spot and GIDP'd. It was a poor result, but it was an at-bat that showed a major league approach at the plate.

Quentin's play, along with Owens' return being delayed "until at least next weekend", is quite possibly the best news we could have gotten this spring. It was a little over a month ago that I thought Owens had been handed the starting CF position without an open competition with Quentin, and that might have ended up being the case had Owens not strained his groin.

If the White Sox are going to be the championship team that the White Sox brain trust thinks they can be, one of the main reasons will be that Carlos Quentin and Josh Fields successfully made the leap to become very good offensive players. Jerry Owens at his very best might be an average center fielder, and as such, his presence as de facto leadoff hitter would seem to limit the teams playoff hopes versus a team with a fully-realized Carlos Quentin in the lineup.

Half of that statement has the opportunity to come together, which is better than we could have said a couple weeks ago, when both Fields and Quentin appeared to be buried.

A guy can't go out for a few beers, pizza, and some basketball without being declared "nowhere to be found" ... tough crowd.

So you have to use Silverlight it looks like (since I couldn't get the old one to load using OS X 10.5 and Firefox) and they took away the feature where you could just click half innings to watch those specific halves. Now you have to use the poorly implemented/designed (one of the two) Silverlight plugin that doesn't even have a fast foward/rewind feature. So you have to hope to click properly and is going to make any systematic re-watching of particular pitches damn near impossible for my setup.

So there goes that particular post idea. I emailed THT's John Walsh to see if how to get my own self into the pitch f/x data. Josh Kalk's player cards haven't been updated yet.

Last winning streak of this magnitude was at the very end of last season when they strung together 4 wins vs. KC (2) and...drum roll...Detroit (2).

Before that, nothing more than 2 in a row, unless you go back to August 2-5 when they again had strung together 4 wins in a row vs. the Yanks (1) and...drum roll...Detroit (3).

How about a nice sweep tomorrow to really get the Home Opener rockin' - CUE THUNDERSTRUCK!

Was a really nice piece of hitting. He kept his hands very tight to his body and jacked a high fastball tailing in and obviously kept it fair. Not many right-handed hitters could do the same. Farmer had led me to believe Floyd grooved a get-me-over right down the middle before I saw the replay.

I think that should be the focus in the next two weeks. The first move will, quite obviously, be the Owens for Anderson swap. Logic would seem to indicate that Quentin would continue as an everyday player so long as he's producing, keeping JO in a (somewhat) acceptable fourth outfielder role.

...which leads me to A-Ram. He becomes the third CFer once Owens gets back. It appears that he's also third on the second-base depth chart, and does it really matters who backs up The OC? Taking all of that into consideration, it's probably better for him and for the Sox that he makes his way to Charlotte in the coming weeks.

But who to bring up to replace him? I'd imagine the two candidates would be Bourg and -- if he's healthy -- Richar. And, keeping with the theme of trying to optimize the Sox lineup, I'd say our best bet at second would be some type of quasi platoon with Richar, Uribe and Ozuna (he's in there because I know Ozzie loves him some Pablo), keeping in mind two main 'principles' -- first, (a healthy) Richar is probably our best bet at 2nd against right-handed pitchers, and second, Uribe is far-and-away the best defender we can field at second and, as such, should be substituted in anytime the Sox carry a lead into the 8th.

I hope I'm not making a knee-jerk statement here -- and who knows, perhaps I am -- but I think Kenny put together a better 2008 roster than we gave him credit for. Obviously a lot of that is contingent upon guys who we (I?) expected declines from -- AJ, Thome, Dye and Konerko, namely -- and right now, all four are smacking the ball around quite a bit.

Quentin's throw was my favorite spontaneous White Sox moment since Buehrle's final out on the no-no. I called my brother immediately after the throw to which he responded: "Podsednik couldn't've made that throw to second on the fly, much less to first." I was also trying to think of the last time the Sox had a legit arm in LF (full-time player -- Mackowiak doesn't count).

I'm trying to find a clip of Quentin's throw again and have had no luck on ESPN or Whitesox.com. Can anyone help me out and give me a link or post a gif of the play

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7319

Toby Hall’s throwing has deteriorated so much that scouts says the White Sox backup is the easiest catcher in the league to run on.

And for the opener, look for low 50s, wind from the west at about 10mph. No rain!

[JPM]:

Gary Sheffield has returned to the Tigers’ lineup, and Miguel Cabrera is back at third base.

The medical news was less encouraging on second baseman Placido Polanco, who was not expected to start tonight’s game against the White Sox because of stiffness in his lower back.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland said Polanco could still be available as a pinch hitter, so the injury doesn’t appear to be very serious.

Sheffield has not played since Thursday because of a torn tendon in his left ring finger. Cabrera (sore quadriceps muscle) had filled in for Sheffield as the designated hitter.

there was a clip of Cox "teaching" some of the guys baserunning on CSN a few minutes ago. Hilarious.

Swisher had the best yougottbekiddinme body language goin on. Then he talked to the camera and essentially called Cox nuts.