I wish I could say "No Haren? No Weaver? No problem!" but with this team I don't think anything's a given at this juncture. I wonder if Tyler Chatwood is going to retain some of that "new pitcher magic" that seems to always kick the White Sox in the nuts time and time again. Last time, Chatwood went 7 innings giving up 1 run, 5 hits, and 2 walks while striking out 3 en route to the victory.

A moderately-scary observation is that the Angels lineup is pretty much firing on all cylinders right now, with the notable exception of the beyond-soriano-expensive Vernon Wells and the not-wells-bad-but-still-too-expensive Torii Hunter. It's one of those grindy Scioscia lineups, where you've got Maicer Izturis hitting .330 in the 3-hole, Erick Aybar hitting ~.400 over the last 2 weeks, and a veritable 2nd leadoff hitter in the lightning-fast Peter Bourjos hitting .290 down in the 9 hole... I'm amazed that he hasn't stolen more bases yet, but when you're turning the lineup over to a guy hitting .356 I guess you don't want to run yourself out of any scoring opportunities.

Lamentably, I don't think that's going to be the case against AJ this week.

This is going to be a pretty good test of the Sox pitching staff to see if they can handle a lineup that seems to keep throwing guys at you who are hitting .280+ without massive power, save the exception of the big lumbering white guy Mark Trumbo, who has done a pretty good job of keeping first base warm while Kendrys Morales slowly comes back from last year's broken ankle... he's had so much free time over the last year that he's discovered he's really named Kendrys Morales and not Kendry Morales. That's dedication, Holmes.

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Oh yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Ervin Santana was en route to having his best start of the season in Boston last week when rain ended a potential bid for a no-hitter after 4IP. At that point he had only walked one and struck out 7.

This does not bode well for this White Sox lineup that is known to primitive cultures as simply "the gambit"

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The good news, if you want to call it that, is that the White Sox will not face either Jered Weaver or Dan Haren in this series at Angel Stadium. They will face 21 year-old Tyler Chatwood in the finale of the 3 in Anaheim. Yes, the same Tyler who the Sox made look like Cy Young in that Saturday afternoon dud that was delayed some 2 hours by rain...

Right now it's a matter of just getting this whole damned offense rolling. During that first week of the season Juan Pierre was hitting .350ish and he stole something like 4 or 5 bases. Then Beckham came up and was hitting .300+, and he ended up with something like 10 runs scored, 2HR and 8RBI in that first week. With those two causing havoc, an appendix-having Adam Dunn would come up to the plate with runners on base, and in the case of Pierre that would distract the pitcher some cuz he was a threat to steal bases (and now he's a threat to get caught stealing, as he has ~8-10 of those on the year I think)... then Dunn would either hit the ball hard or take a walk, bringing up Konerko who started hitting well right out of the gate and hasn't stopped since. Then Quentin was there to clean up the slop and jump out to 10+ quick RBIs, and if you remember those halcyon days of lore, Alexei was raking early in the 7th/8th spot driving in Konerko and/or Quentin... then you'd have Morel come and go before that lineup turned over and you had to go through that gambit again.

But then Juan Pierre and Alexei Ramirez decided to dip from .300+ down to ~.240, although Pierre has gotten it back up to .260 over the last week. I was about to go off on having Juan Pierre and Alexei being your 1-2 hitters, but like, Juan Pierre has enough walks to have a ~.330 OBP while hitting .260, so if he got up to the .280-.300 range you're looking at .350-.370 which isn't that bad, especially if he remembers how to steal bases... and actually, Alexei has a 14/17 BB/K ratio going on, which is good for a .319OBP as he's hitting .244... of note is that last year when Alexei hit .280 for the season, he ended up with the same .319OBP, so Alexei is actually developing as a hitter this year. I guess if these two can get back to their career batting averages (Pierre = .297, Alexei = .280) they're not a bad 1-2 punch at the top of the order.

So yeah, I'm hoping if the proverbial tablesetters can get it going again there will be ducks on the pond for the big guys, and consider me in the Adam Dunn "dude, he's not going to be a bum all season long" camp. If you look up some classic Adam Dunn statistics, you'll see that this guy very well could pull out a .230-.240ish type season on you, and it's shaping up that this year is very well going to be one of those seasons where Dunn does his Ode to Rob Deer (now available on iTunes!)

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What is troubling about Juan Pierre isn't his outfield defense in left field, but the fact he continues to get caught stealing on the bases. Those outs are the ones that have to keep Ozzie up at night.

Not if Ozzie is the dumbfuck giving him the green light it doesn't.

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Exactly. Ozzie don't understand that the problem with all that running is the philosophy. Whether the runner is safe or out is incidental. Ozzie believes running and bunting is "smart baseball" when in fact, it's goddamn dumb. His answer is, "we need to do it better" when the real answer should be, "we need to stop doing it".

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

That is sort of a topic for a different day. Pierre's entire game is get on base, steal a bag or 2, score a run. That's it. He doesn't play well defensively and he has not power but plays a position that typically is a 'power' position. If he is getting thrown out more than once every say 12 steal attempts, he is hurting the team. He needs 90+ runs scored and 50+ SB's to be a productive part of the offense.

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I think if he gets on 35 percent of the time, he's okay. I'd prefer for him to attempt far less steals, but as long as he's successful 75% of the time or more I can live with it. Still, if you give a guy like Quentin the extra 100 or so plate appearances he's get leading off, that's about five more home runs per season for the club. And that's something the Sox can definitely afford to do with the other power guys they have. Let Pierre bat ninth where he's a good hitter rather than first where he's just barely adequate.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Ozzie will just run with Quentin then.


Stealing bases, bunting, all the little things are what wins baseball games according to Ozzie. Those happen to be things he was pretty good at.


He must have thought he was great

And then he hurt his knee and didn't steal anymore hardly at all.

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A day off today would be logical seeing that he is a .100 lifetime hitter against Santana

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

GD, because of the 9:05p start the next three nights in Anaheim, it'll be at least 2 hours or more before Ozzie reveals his lineup for tonight. I wouldn't be shocked to see Adam "The Strikeout Machine" Dunn and/or Mark "He Should be on the Right Side Defensively" Teahen cover the tabs at first base with Paul Konerko limited to DH duties in this series, if his hand is too sore to play the field.

Pierre lf
Ramirez ss
Dunn dh
Konerko 1b
Quentin rf
Pierzynski c
Rios rf
Beckham 2b
Morel 3b

Jackson p

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Saw this stat the other day: The team that hits more home runs wins 75% of the time.

Let em swing the bats Ozzie.

Beckham! He was laying in the weeds for that one and killed it.

Nice start fellas

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In May he's hitting .368/.429/474/.903 not counting his home run tonight.

this morning when i went to take a shit, i thought of the toilet as us cellular field and it made it really easy to go. thanks whitesux

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

If anyone knows about turds, its you ike.

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Damn.

8-0.

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Pierre looked nervous catching that foul ball. Even got his free hand up there to make sure he hauled it in.

It's a winning streak!!!!

Only 8 under .500!!!

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Who'da thunk that elmhurst steve would write jokes for a balck man.

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I think this team is going to really start firing on all cylinders soon. The starting pitching has a chance to be really special this year. Its the best in the division for sure.

I still think these guys win the division this year. Not really worried about Cleveland, they have a very difficult stretch coming up soon, the end of the month is going to be a real test for them. I think the Twins are just not very good this year. It will most likely be the Tigers and White Sox at the end of the year.

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" THis poster said it's 90% that Bernstein goes national. He put a percentage on it. " - Beardown

This is what the Sox have to do: get to .500 by Memorial Day, get within 3-4 games of the division by the AS break.

They do that, they are in good shape. Lots of home games in June, that is the time to may hay. September is ALL division games except for the last 3 games of the year @home against Toronto.

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Good lord Johnny Danks is getting his ears pinned back and the Angels are running them out of the building. That 3 game winning streak sure was nice.

What the hell Danks?

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" THis poster said it's 90% that Bernstein goes national. He put a percentage on it. " - Beardown

He's been a tough luck loser this year so far.

Maybe tonight he'll be a good luck winner.

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