Tag Archives: Twins

BOOM! Thanks Tigers!

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So I shut the Tigers/Twins game off when the Twins stretched their lead to 6-3 last night. I went to bed thinking the Sox would be 4-1/2 games back going into the Red Sox series beginning this evening at Fenway Park. Instead the Tigers represented the grit and toughness of their manager, Jim Leyland, and won 10-9 in extra innings.

What’s even better the Twins were forced to use their starter for tonight’s game against the Texas Rangers, Nick Blackburn, so the Twins have no scheduled starter for this evening.

Thanks Tigers for helping out the Sox last night, now White Sox… carpe diem!

That sick feeling is back

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What you talkin' about Orlando?

The only good news for how I feel about the Sox right now is it’s exactly how I felt on June 6, after they lost another series to the Cleveland Indians and were 9-1/2 games back. However, I will now add some facts that will not make myself or you feel better if you’re a White Sox fan, but smile if you’re a Twins or Cubs fan.

The Sox are not about to play NL Central bottom feeders as they did back in June, which helped jump-start them on a historic run. Instead they are about to play an AL East bottom feeder, the Orioles, followed by the AL East leading, New York Yankees, not as easy. You would think the Sox would feast on the Orioles, but if their play against them a week-and-a-half ago is indicative of their performance this week they will not fair well.

The bullpen has been terrible giving up late inning leads in about every game this past week. To make matters even worse Matt Thornton may be heading to the DL with a sore forearm. The Sox also have seven games left with the Boston Red Sox, which could be trouble, also.

The Twins have extended their lead to five games after the Sox lost again to the AL Central bottom feeders, KC Royals, for the second time in three games that were played in a less than 24-hour period. Can the White Sox rebound from this? I really don’t know at this point, time’s a wasting and if the starting pitchers do not start going nine innings we might not have a chance. Another sad Monday in Chicago baseball.

The Peavy Effect

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It took until now but the White Sox are finally feeling the effects on losing Jake Peavy for the year as I’m officially saying that starter, Freddy Garcia, is out of gas. A lot of people probably are thinking that the Sox would not have gotten Edwin Jackson if Peavy was still in the rotation, but don’t be so sure about that. The idea at the trading deadline is to make your team better, and if Peavy did not go down to injury and the Sox had the opportunity to add Jackson to one of the best pitching staffs in baseball then they would have.

Garcia has not pitched that well since Jackson has shown-up, and has even commented that he’s the odd man out going into next season. That’s obvious since Jackson is as good of a pitcher as Garcia was in his prime, if not better. Jackson continues his domination of offenses since coming to the White Sox with 11 strike outs against the Tigers on Saturday. Since arriving Jackson has compiled some pretty impressive stats over a three-game span; 24 strikeouts, three earned runs, only four walks, and a 1.35 ERA over 20-innings pitched. His one blemish would be he has let up 20 hits, but he’s certainly gotten out of whatever jams he’s gotten into.

As Sox fans you can only imagine the rotation in 2010 with Peavy pitching down the stretch, but we’ll have to wait until 2011 to see that rotation. Instead, the Sox now sit three games back of the Twins since J.J. Putz has had one really bad pitch in each of his last two appearances that helped the Tigers win. You can blame Putz, but the lack of offense on Saturday that had many opportunities again, and another poor outing by Garcia put the Sox in a bad position. They did battle back and took a lead, but a poor bullpen outing and bad fielding lead to their demise on Sunday.

Hopefully the White Sox will show-up with clear heads to Target Field on Tuesday evening as they send their top three pitchers against the Twins, and let’s hope the Sox hitters don’t let the Twins’ pitchers off the hook like they did on their last home stand.

Frustration, Inc.

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The only damage done on Thursday was the psyche of the White Sox offense as they stranded the bases loaded three times. This was the most frustrating game that I’ve viewed all year and I can’t even imagine what was going through the heads of the White Sox hitters as they left nine runners on base from those three innings while stranding a total of 12 runners.

Francisco Lariano pitched his way out of jams over and over again and was definitely the beneficiary of impatient hitting by the White Sox, as well as some generous calls. Bottom line is the Sox offense did not get it done when they had ability to definitely put more than six runs on the board.

Gavin Floyd pitched his worst outing since May allowing six earned runs on ten hits, but kept the game at 3-1 until Jason Kubel hit an 0-2 pitch over the left field wall with two on and two out. It came on Floyd’s 125th pitch of the game and it was a tough outcome for Floyd who deserved better as he should have been pitching with a cushion.

So the Sox fell one game out of first on a night where they had every opportunity to win the game in easy fashion. The good news is the Tigers are coming to town.

3-for-5 not good enough

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Go Sox!

Things did not go to well for the Sox last night from a starting pitching standpoint, but as I predicted yesterday the bats came to life at home. I jokingly wrote about Sox fans pushing the panic button yesterday and I’m still writing this article with a smile of confidence on my face. Our best, worst pitcher went last night, the guy who should not have been going for his eleventh win at this point in the season, Freddy Garcia. Garcia is an experiment that has worked better than the Sox could have ever imagined, but the problem with Freddy is when he’s bad, he’s really bad. Last night Freddy only lasted 2-1/3 innings for the second time in three outings, which could be a sign that he is tiring as the year winds down. Chances are you won’t see Garcia in the Yankees series.

Garcia’s next scheduled starts are against the Tigers this Sunday, which seems a no-brainer since he owns them and the Tigers are in dire straits, with another start coming in Kansas City on Saturday, August 21. With a day off on Monday, August 23, the Sox can afford to skip Garcia in the Yankees series.

It’s unfortunate that the most important part of my prediction yesterday went wrong, Garcia pitching well, on the other hand I did call three of the five things I talked about correct which is reason enough for Sox fans not to worry. In case you didn’t read yesterday’s post here’s the exert where I made my predictions:

I’ve got a crazy idea the Sox will putting at least six runs on the board tonight against the Twins. I think Carlos Quentin will hit a home run tonight, Mark Kotsay will drive in a run tonight, and Alex Rios will be Alex Rios tonight. There really isn’t  a much tougher team at home right now. I know the Twins have the same home and road record as the Sox, but as of late the Sox have been hard to beat at US Cellular Field.

Sox fans, sit back, relax, and watch the White Sox take a one game lead over the Twins tonight as Freddy Garcia gets the eleventh win he was robbed of last week after another quality start for Freddy. Humidity is high in Chicago today, I expect a lot of sweat and a lot of Sox runs.

The Sox did score six, Rios went 2-4 with a run and caught stealing, and CQ hit a three-run bomb and drove in four. My next prediction, two straight wins with a one-game lead on Thursday.

Two thrashings and a no-no

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The AL Central elite were all in action on Monday night, but while the Twins and White Sox both had double-digit hits and easy wins the Tigers had no hits in a 5 – 0 loss to the Rays. That’s right, the big news of the night is not another dominate performance by John Danks going eight strong innings with one run or Joe Mauer going 5-for-5 with a home run, a double, seven RBI’s and three runs, no it’s Matt Garza becoming the first pitcher to throw a no-hitter in Tampa Bay Rays history and it will be in the books against the Tigers!

Not only did Garza throw a no-hitter but he faced the minimum after the Tigers grounded into a double play after a walk. It was the fifth no-hitter of the season and it helped the White Sox take a three game lead over the Tigers in the AL Central. The Sox will only hold on to a one game lead over the Twins as the Twins are currently beating the Royals 19-0 in the bottom of the eight inning.

Danks and the White Sox bested King Felix and the Mariners 6 -1 at US Cellular Field this evening with timely hitting and great pitching. Felix Hernandez did not have his best stuff this evening and the Sox were able to take advantage by scoring four runs including Paul Konerko’s 22nd home run of the season. The score would have been even worse if Ichiro Suzuki had not jumped over the wall to rob Mark Kotsay of his seventh home run of the season. It didn’t matter and the Sox were able to gain some ground on at least one of their main adversaries this evening.

What’s hiding in that ‘stache?

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Nice mustache!

It seemed Carl Pavano’s ball was making some funny movement against the White Sox on Saturday night to the point that maybe there was something a little extra on the ball? The radio crew of Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson certainly thought so, in fact Farmer, ex-Sox pitcher seemed pretty positive.

“Darrin with the way Pavano’s ball is moving it looks like he’s throwing spit balls out there,” exclaimed Farmer, adding.” if I were Ozzie [Gullien] I would ask the ump to check him.”

Farmer continued to these accusations for the next few innings to the point that I was convinced that Pavano was definitely up to something. It kind of reminder me of the movie Major League, maybe Pavano was putting “snot on the ball.” It’s hard to trust a guy with an 80′s Tom Selleck mustache, but if he is cheating shame on Ozzie for not having him checked.

Which leads me to the next possibility and back to Pavano’s ’stache. What if he had something in the ‘stache, how would the umpire been able to check something like that? How bizarre and uncomfortable would it have been if the umpire was out on the mound asking Pavano to touch his ‘stache? Probably a little too much David Lynch for baseball.

I saw some video replay this morning of Pavano’s pitches and while he did have some unique movement on his ball I’m pretty sure, just like Mike Mussina did a few years ago with the Yankees, he’s figured out how to pitch again with the addition of a knuckle-type change.

The best news is that somehow the White Sox have lost two in a row and have increased their lead over the second place Tigers by one, 1/2 game to 1-1/2 games going into Sundays game. As I’ve been typing this story Jhonny Peralta just hit an inside the park home run for the Indians to take a three nothing lead over the Tigers.

Nine in a row, a battle

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Thunder!

It’s never easy when the White Sox go to Minnesota and not much has changed with the new ballpark. The Sox jumped out to an early four run lead by the top of the second inning before giving back six runs to the Twins in the bottom half of the inning. The Twins were the lucky recipients of four outs on a fly ball that Alex Rios should have caught, but somehow was not given an error.

The Sox prevailed though as they scored one in the fourth and three in the fifth to take an 8-6 lead and held on to win 8-7 with a four out 1-1/3 inning save from Bobby Jenks.

The Sox continued to go about their business and found a way to win. It’s gotten to the point where I just expect the Sox to win no matter what the score. If they were down eleven nothing in the ninth, right now it seems like they would find a way to win. So the amazing run continues as the Sox follow their 11-game win streak with their current nine-game win streak going for 10 tomorrow. The Sox have a one game lead over the Tigers and now lead the Twins by 4-1/2 games. All I can say is this has been really fun!