that pierzynski walkoff is such a fond memory for me. i can still picture myself talking to friends on the phone after the game as i watched wgn halfway across the country. there was an undefinable, yet palpable feeling that the 2005 white sox were not a normal team. that game is always the first one i think about when i try to put a date to that feeling. i could reminisce about that team all day.
fortunately, we got good stuff going on right now! i can’t say that this feels like a team of destiny yet, but i can say that this team has proven itself legit. what they are doing isn’t inexplicable. furthermore, it seems like they are starting to fire on all cylinders. how much fun is it to expect to win and then watch the sox do it?

and I said so at the time here. Even sweeter was the ex-Cub factor of it: Choi kind of half-assed it to the stands on a foul ball the previous pitch to AJ. Looked like he had a play if he’d hustled, and the game would have been over.

I cautioned “perspective” after the Rays series, I’ll do it again here. Yes, it appears the stars are alligning, but it was KC and Minnie.

Thoroughly enjoyable!

From my Fantasy Camp guys, in an e-mail inviting us to a reunion 7/20/08 at The Cell:

Harold Baines sculpture unveiled
A life-sized sculpture of franchise legend and longtime fan favorite Harold Baines will be unveiled by the Chicago White Sox prior to the game. Baines becomes the seventh White Sox great immortalized in bronze at the ballpark. Baines and his family will participate in the unveiling of his sculpture before throwing out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the game.

Now I see where Harold was last week – he was posing for his sculpture.

Yankees released infielder Morgan Ensberg.
Ensberg was designated for assignment last week and the Yankees are eating his $1.75 million salary. Once among the most underrated players in baseball, Ensberg turns 33 years old in August and has hit just .225/.308/.371 in 143 games dating back to last season.

I say Fields.

yesterday when I was being challenged for saying that the 2008 Sox would be competitive. They’re pretty competitive so far. Having said that, it’s a long, long, long season.

by the 2005 team, but those 8 game runs just felt like magic. Right now I’m looking for something with the same feel. We might put our division out of reach, but I want another chance against the Rays and I want to see how we stack up against the Red Sox and Yankees. There aren’t that many good teams in the AL this year and there really aren’t any complete teams in the NL. I want to make the leap from skeptical to convinced and I need to catch more games.

cubs win in six. cubbie pogrom to ensue.

http://baseballplayoffsnow.blogspot.com/2008/06/all-chicago-world-series-taken-to-6.html

Matchup: White Sox (37-26) at Tigers (26-37), 7:05 p.m. ET
Probable Starters: Jose Contreras (81 2/3 IP, 2.87 RA, 1.04 WHIP, 50 K) vs. Nate Robertson (71 2/3, 6.03, 1.54, 49)
Pythagorean Record: Chicago, 39-24 (305 RS, 235 RA); Detroit, 29-34 (293 RS, 320 RA)
Hit List Rankings: Chicago, #7; Detroit, #24
Prospectus: After losing the final three matches of a four-game series in Tampa Bay (inspiring another Ozzie meltdown), Chicago has returned home to win seven in a row, sweeping the Royals and the Twins to extend its lead in the AL Central to 6.5 games. The White Sox averaged 8.7 runs scored per game during the streak. Perhaps the best news is that Nick Swisher put together several huge games in a row for the first time this season, with a two-homer performance yesterday and seven hits in his last 10 at-bats. Swisher is finally beginning to show the power that made him a sleeper candidate for a 40-homer campaign before the start of the season. Second baseman Alexei Ramirez has also continued to rake since replacing Juan Uribe at the keystone. From the point that he entered the starting lineup on May 16, Ramirez has hit .365/.396/.565, and the White Sox have scored 5.2 runs/game with an 825 OPS, as opposed to 3.7 with a 695 in the 21 previous games. The Sox have become a legitimate contender for the division title, and now have the best shot of any team in baseball at making the playoffs, 89 percent.

A huge part of Chicago’s success this season has been the pitching of Contreras, who entered last night’s game ranked second in the AL in SNLVAR following a stretch of six straight quality starts. Contreras has been nearly three times as valuable this year in 12 starts than he was last year in 30, per SNLVAR. Contreras is succeeding by generating far more groundballs than he ever has before-his ground-ball/fly-ball ratio is a robust 2.44, which is just about double his career average entering 2008 of 1.23. Contreras’s newfound ground-ball acumen is reflected in his homer rate: he has given up 0.3 HR/9 compared to his career average of 1.1 entering 2008. A glance at the pitch data offers an explanation for the Cuban’s renaissance-he is throwing far fewer fastballs, bringing the heat about 50 percent of the time compared with 56 percent last year and 62 the year before, and is substituting in more sliders, a pitch that he is throwing nearly twice as often this year than in 2006. Contreras has also bumped up his use of the splitter. It appears that increased reliance on breaking stuff has contributed to more ground-balls and a career year.

look at the schedule for this month. we have 26 games left and all but 6 of them (against the cubs) are with teams below 500.

So that’s 20 games…

20 games…

we could very well be walking into july with 50 – 60 wins in our pocket.

ok so maybe it was spilling into july a little bit.

... still

I remember reading it while waiting for the blue line that morning. The Sox had the best record in the league but they were lamenting how poor the fan turnout was. What a great foreshawdowing of what was to come.

“Even if we win the World Series this year, Wrigley will still sell out next year,” Sox first baseman Paul Konerko says. “But I can’t guarantee we’d be sold out here.”

on SSS today, am I wrong to say that I look forward to cries of panic and the outrage when the Sox lose a couple games in a row in the near future?

you guys keeping an eye on it? Damn does Spain look tough… can any other team in the tourney match their talent?

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/athletics-get-best-of-swisher-deal/#comments