Danks Picks Up Mariners Right Where He Left 'Em

good game.. go sox!

WCIU pulling a Milton and cutting to commercial with two outs, Q inexplicably half-attempting to steal second, the manly ballgirl twins letting that triple go to die, ichiro robbing kotsay, and of course the savaging of king felix

hopefully the reply button works~!

BTW, HSA, WTF is the wanting to take beer money and turn it into tea? Very un-HSA-like.

• Chatting over the phone on Monday evening, White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper praised Mark Buehrle for the work he did in the offseason to improve his conditioning and to strengthen his shoulder. Buehrle threw a bullpen session on Monday, the kind of work he has not been able to do in the second half in recent seasons because he’s had to save bullets. But now the left-hander is in a better place physically to handle the work load, and as they wrapped up the bullpen session, Cooper turned to Buehrle and said, “You’re taking me back three to five years, in what you’re doing.”



Buehrle has been throwing well, and so too has John Danks, who has been refining his fastball command, Cooper believes — and it showed on Monday. Danks won for the fourth straight start.



How he won, from Mr. Kerns:



He went after ‘em: 80 of 95 pitches were fastballs (84.2 percent), his highest rate since the final start of 2008. The Mariners went 0-for-5 against off-speed stuff. He worked it inside: 49 pitches (51.6 percent) were on the inner third or too far in, the most this season. That jammed hitters into a lot of fly balls; Danks’ ground-ball percentage on inside pitches was his lowest in 12 starts. Seattle chased 58.3 percent of pitches out of the strike zone with two strikes. However, Danks recorded only two strikeouts; 10 of those balls were put in play. Obviously that led to bad contact, with only one hit (a Rob Johnson single) coming on a two-strike pitch out of the zone.

“White Sox: Kelly Johnson

The White Sox seem to be focused on a basher, but it’s not really what they need. They need a table-setter. Chicago hits plenty of home runs. The problem is outs; White Sox hitters just don’t get on base nearly enough, so they end up hitting solo homer after solo homer.

Thus, Johnson fits the Sox in just about every way. For most of his career — not just in this, a career season he’s having for the D-backs — he’s gotten on base at a good clip — save for his disastrous ‘09 season that ended his tenure in Atlanta. His left-handed bat would provide much-needed balance in a heavily right-handed Chicago lineup. The Sox’s current second baseman, Gordon Beckham, just isn’t getting the job done offensively. And it’s hard to imagine the Snakes, who traded Haren on Sunday, won’t continue to be sellers over the next few days.

If in fact the Diamondbacks are going to be sellers between now and Saturday, they have a number of intriguing players to offer. Shortstop Stephen Drew could be a great fit in St. Louis, catcher Miguel Montero has drawn a great deal of interest in the past, and there’s reportedly even some interest in reliever Chad Qualls. But Johnson looks like the best fit for the White Sox — even if it means buying high on a player enjoying a career year. He’d be a significant upgrade at a position of weakness, while also addressing Chicago’s largest club-wide offensive issue.

In fairness, a player such as Prince Fielder or Adam Dunn would also address the OBP issue for the Sox while simultaneously providing even more power. But Johnson might come cheaper than those players, and his defensive versatility would be a plus as well. Still, it seems the Sox aren’t looking at table-setters, but instead at thumpers.

“Same list. Same targets,” general manager Ken Williams told reporters recently. "

I’ll bet a shiny new penny he sits tonight.

here

Is anyone with AT&T getting messages well after they’re sent from your contacts often? The last day or so there have been multiple times where I’ve sent a message, get a response, send another message, and then awhile later a message pops up from like 20-25 minutes ago.

Is anyone else having this problem?

and sox machine is much better at interviewing than i am

ozzieguillen: if chicago stayed like this this hot i would live here all year…. but it get very very cold

But the most recent Day to Day update I got from an ESPN injury report said Ozzie was going to play Quenitn at DH over the weekend which posed a problem for his owners as his offensive stats suffer when he’s not playing the field. Since I’m relegated to blackberry, can anybody here corroborate that bit of information? Does Q have a significant dropoff at the plate when playing DH as opposed to OF?

any idea what it would cost to get LaRoche?

What do you think our odds on winning the WS would be?

Big Hurt’s number retired

Teams that have spoken to the Nationals about Adam Dunn believe there’s a good chance Dunn will be traded by the end of the week.

They also think that the price Nats GM Mike Rizzo is asking for Dunn right now is ridiculously high. Rizzo has been telling teams that to trade Dunn, he would need to get a young starting pitcher who is either major-league ready or close to it.

How ready? Well, according to a source familiar with the talks, last week the Nationals asked the Rays for Matt Garza.

http://danny-knobler.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/8590096/23460366

Is anyone else a bit worried about Freddy taking so many starts? Or even Buehrls?

No idea what to expect as far as the starting pitcher.

His UZR is 10.0, next highest is Cliff Pennington at 4.9.

He has rejoined the White Sox as an ambassador

they just showed Buehrle and some guys burning Kotsay’s bats to get rid of his “slump”. Can’t burn away suckitude unless you through Kotsay in the fire. Of course they had an Ozzie soundbite where he states he practices voodoo in Venezuela

this has been a full day