Tag Archives: break my heart

May 25, 2011 · 11:51 pm

A new barometer for wackyness. Or: I think we were all delerious by the end of last night’s game.

I blame the White Sox for the fact I was a zombie all day today. If I hadn’t checked twitter before going to bed,I wouldn’t have been up half of the night (with a few other crazy diehards on twitter) watching the Sox beat the Rangers.

In the end, though, I’m glad I stayed up for it. Not only was it a win (and, turned out to be our only win this series), but I think everyone lost their minds a little during the weather delay and came back not quite at full capacity afterwards.

  • Josh Hamilton sliding (head first) in to first. And, second. And, third. IN A ROW.
  • Brent Morel swinging and missing when trying to tag Josh Hamilton out at third – after advancing on a wild pitch – or, a terrible call by the umps, one or the other (depends ify you’re drinking the ChiSox or the Rangers’ kool-aid).
  • Santos tagging David Murphy on the way to first for the second-to-last out of the game and a little drama about the call.
  • Adam Dunn improbably hitting a home run.
  • Juan Pierre manages to steal 2nd base AND successfully bunting.
  • The final out of the game also coming on a controversial score, so AJ tagging the batter with his glove while he trotted out from behind home plate – continuing his mission of making friends wherever he goes.
  • The see-saw score (White Sox – Rangers):
    Top 5th: 4-2
    Bottom 5th: 4-4
    Top 6th: 6-4
    Bottom 6th: 6-5
    Top 7th:7-5
    Bottom 8th:7-6
    Top 9th:8-6
  • Somehow, even after letting in two runs and giving up our 4-2 lead for a 4-4 tie, Tony Pena manages to collect the win, giving Jake Peavy a no-decision. As we already knew, the win/loss/hold/save designations could use a little re-vamping.
  • Lets not forget the runway show that was the path between the ChiSox bullpen and the pitcher’s mound. A different reliever started every inning for the ChiSox. When Santos had to bail out Thonton at the bottom of the 8th, we had used our entire bullpen. It was like the auditon for who is getting the boot out of the bullpen (or, at least down the pecking order) when they go back to a 5-man rotation. Holds for Sale, Crain and Thornton and a save for Santos. I wonder if Willl Ohman feels left out.
  • And, finally, being up with about 18 other diehards on twitter, watching all of these shenanigans unfold, right before our (very delerious) eyes.

Kudos to the very small number of fans who stuck it out at the game last night. Sorry it didn’t go your way (well, not really!), but your enthusiasm kept the momentum swinging, early into the morning. There are probably more than a few kids who didn’t have to go to school today in Arlington.

And, beacuse that recap is approximately the size of a small novel, and posting about Gavin Floyd collecting a loss (especially after a good outing), and also posting about a game that I could not watch, I am going to limit my commentary on today’s game to:

The three hits that Gavin gave up are apparently the smallest number ever given up that resulted in a win at the Rangers ballpark. And, the White Sox continuing to be their own undoing, failing on the run support and grounding into double plays like it is going out of style.

And, finally:

These boys need to get their act together. For my brother’s birthday, I am packing up and taking it on the road and we are catching the two weekend games of this weekend’s series in Toronto! I’m going to be one of the lone fans in black and white this weekend, so I’m going need a little back-up from the field.

Go Sox!

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May 23, 2011 · 10:05 pm

I am overwhelmed with deja-vu. Or: Why do I usually have time to blog on days that frustrate me?

So, watching the White Sox starter hang out on the mound for 8 innings, and throw more-or-less decent pitches while our bats go to sleep and we get shut out by the Rangers?

I think we’ve done this before.

*sigh*

I know that these Rangers are not quite the Rangers we played a week ago (just in case Hamilton and Cruz thought we had forgotten about them), but there was something about this game that was just pretty painful. It was kind of like we just never were in it at all. The loss against the Dodger’s last week wasn’t nearly as painful, since there was some good baseball in there.

It felt a lot like April up in here tonight.

So, in the spirit of April, I’m going also going to try to hold onto my optimism. Because, I don’t have too much with a positive spin about tonight. But, that being said, if the Rangers weren’t the same team we played the last time, the White Sox weren’t the same team tonight that we’ve been lately.

Alexei Ramirez was named AL player of the week this week. His bat was heating up at the same time as his defense, and it really was a good week for him. And, it also marks the first time since early April (another time where we were regularly winning) when both Carlos Quentin and Paul Konerko made the list.

I’m hopeful that this is a sign of further good things to come.

Congrats, Alexei.

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May 21, 2011 · 3:28 am

A tough loss to the Dodgers. Or: Blogging after a loss brings out my whiny side.

If, time and again, I can forgive Gavin Floyd for being, well, Gavin Floyd and occasionally forgetting how to pitch, I can forgive Sergio Santos for tonight’s outing (and probably a few more besides) – as painful as it was. It happens to everyone, eventually. It’s going to take more than that for me to start worrying when I see him warming up in the ‘pen. Sometimes, it is just not your day.

Which, yes, tonight’s loss was kind of all-around painful (I guess I have gotten more used to winning lately than I realized. Winning is fun! Can you blame me?), but it also highlighted a few of the things that have been bothering me this season.

Most notably, I am now going to take the opportunity to whine about the thing that is currently bothering me the most. So much so that I don’t even have to think twice about trying to come up with the thing that is currently bothering me the most. :p (The remainder of this post is brought to you by the fact that a friend of mine texted me to inform me that tonight’s game was the free mlb.tv game of the day and I caught the middle 75% of the game at work. Free mlb! A mixed blessing tonight, I think. :) )

Warning: You are about to enter a free-for-all whining zone. Proceed at your own risk.

The pitch counter. Everyone needs to stop looking at the pitch counter. Particularly with the starters. We have a 6-man rotation. We’re not following the rules, SO WHY IS EVERYONE WHO CALLS THE SHOTS MARRIED TO THE PITCH COUNTER? I don’t understand.

Does it matter so much if someone throws 120 pitches when he gets 5 days of rest instead of 4? Pitching is so much a mental game that I just don’t understand when someone is in a groove, throwing well (like tonight, with Humber and then with Crain), that we automatically can’t send them out in the 8th inning? The whole ‘We have a set-up man. We must use him’ mentality. What would happen if the pitcher feels good and wants to go out and finish (more of, if not the whole, job) and the coaches just let him? Now, when everyone in the starting rotation gets an extra day off, is the time to try.

Or, conversely, when (like tonight, with Santos, or Gavin’s start against Oakland last week) nothing is going right and the pitcher’s rhythm is off and things are just basically falling apart, we have to watch the started struggle through 2 or 3 or more rough innings, just because they’re the starter and the should be pitching 6 or so innings or around 100 pitches? What would be so wrong with pulling out one of your long relievers (or, in a real bind, one of your well-rested starters)?

I know that I am probably blowing a lot of hot air, and I know that I know way less about strategy and timing and the ins-and-outs of managing a baseball team than everyone who is involved in the White Sox organization (probably even less than the dude who gets coffee and makes the photocopies, really), but I guess, as an outsider, I don’t understand how we can break convention and have a 6-man starting rotation, but can’t seem to ever think outside of the box when it comes to anything else with the pitching staff.

No comprendo, señores. No comprendo.

And, now I’m done with the whining. My frustrations have been aired and I am ready to move on to bigger and better things tomorrow. My optimism is (mostly) alive and well in the month of May and I still love this team.

Here’s hoping for a fog-free day at The Cell tomorrow.

Go, Sox!

Peace out, y’all.

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May 10, 2011 · 11:55 pm

I wish I had blogged yesterday. Or: Looks like the Angels are back in town tonight.

So, I missed the first 8 innings of last night’s game after falling into a sleep so deep that it was practically a coma. So, naturally, I missed all of the fun and excitement. Which is too bad, since there is not a lot of excitement, and also not terrible amounts of fun to be had while being a White Sox fan watching tonight’s game.

(Edited after the game to say: Okay, I changed my mind. As long as he’s not hurt, AJ Pierzynski’s never-ending endless foul balls off of himself and the home plate umpire was kind of entertaining. The crowd reaction and the look that AJ shot into the camera the second time he whacked himself in the foot was actually rather amusing. Although, the camera then followed him into the dugout after he struck out and there was not a lot of fun going on in there. I hope that is not a sign of things to come.)

1. The AT&T Multiview makes me nauseous.
2. I seem to have an even lower tolerance for the announcing than I usually do.
3. The bats are cooling off a little – which, okay, fine… that’s not so bad in and of itself, but when the pitching’s cooling off at the same time, it hurts more when we go down swinging. Literally. Swinging into SOs, DPs, and fly-outs. So, ugh.
4. Not particular to this game, but watching everyone and their mother successfully steal pretty much every base they attempt is getting a bit old. I can’t remember any time that we caught someone stealing, though rumor has it that it has happened once or twice.
5. I think I just watched Brent Morel totally miss a catch. Like, completely. It was kind of amazing, actually.

The Angels aren’t really giving us any wiggle room tonight, and they seem to be consistently finding every gap in the field (of which it seems like there’s about 5 or 6 more than there usually is). They’re too tough of a ballclub for us to cool off against and they’re taking advantage of it – not that they’d have to try terribly hard tonight.

So, today’s positive thing. Because even though I seem to be in a cranky mood today, and some of our pitching might have left something to be desired, I still have things I like about these boys.

Firstly, I think Jeff Gray is trying to get some more points on [Anders’ Bullpen Leaderboard].

And, secondly, this:
startingrotation.png

That’s pretty groovy and, really, nothing to complain about at all.

Tomorrow is a new day. And, a pretty exciting one at that.

(And, sure, if I’m still hoping for a miracle tonight, I bet I’m not the only one. :) )

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May 7, 2011 · 3:54 pm

And May keeps going on. Or: Winning would be nice, even just for a change of pace.

I missed a couple of days of due to the pesky intervention of the real world and have been out of the blogosphere loop and have had to settle for my daily baseball intake being limited to the radio on my drive to-and-from work, and the boxscores on GameDay.

More of the same, less of the different. If I didn’t know that every single person in a ChiSox uniform is feeling even more depressed than I am about the general state of the ballclub, I would think they were actively trying to push me off the bandwagon.

But, they’re stuck with me, so here I am. Now that I am no longer up to my eyeballs in real-world junk, I am here to talk about today’s thing that is awesome about the White Sox.

Carlos Quentin. Call him in a pinch and he’ll come through. Firstly, he’s leading the team in crossing the plate – however he gets there – and is second in hits, home runs, total bases, slugging and OBP. And, not to mention, he has twice as many doubles as the next guy on this team. There are a whole list of reasons he was the first AL player of the week this season. And, after hearing about last night’s solo bomb, I’m happy that there’s still lots of good stuff in there.

cqhr.jpg

Come on, boys, let’s turn this thing around. We’re from the wrong coast for divine help in the outfield, and we’re the wrong Chicago team to suddenly hire a 12 year old star pitcher, so you’re on your own (like my subtle baseball movie references?), but I know there are lots of us that are hanging out on the bandwagon, just waiting for the fun to begin.

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May 4, 2011 · 3:11 pm

There is still good stuff about Chicago, Day 4. Or: May might be a very long month.

So, yes. We lost a no-hitter last night.

We lost an ugly no-hitter, even.

But, since I am determined to stay positive, there were good things about last night.

It might be a little bit sad that we lost such an ugly no-hitter, and it might be almost unbelievable that we lost a no hitter with better pitching than our opponent. But, we did.

Which is a good thing. Really. Hear me out.

So, the starting rotation is slumping (more or less). The bullpen is slumping (more or less). And, the offense and defense and the bats are slumping. But, for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t the pitching that was the problem.

It’s discouraging that you can pitch a better game and still lose a no-hitter, but it’s nice to see that our hurlers can still throw a pretty good ballgame. At least, to me, that’s still a positive. One less thing to try to fix.

I found a nice little wrap-up that sums things up nicely:

Batters faced: Minn = 30, ChiSox = 32
K-BB Ratio: Minn = 2-6. ChiSox = 4-1
Strike pct: Minn = 53.7, ChiSox = 66.1
1st-pitch strike pct: Minn =36.7, ChiSox = 59.4

So, instead of focusing on the ugly things about this game that allowed us to lose a no-hitter when our pitchers actually did get the job done, I’m going to focus on the fact that Jackson and Thornton (thank goodness, it was nice to see) did a pretty bang-up job. Unfortunately, they just got a little banged up, too.

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May 4, 2011 · 12:29 am

The positivity will have to come later. Or: WTF – the sequel.

I will be back with something positive to say later, because I can’t really totally react to the result of tonight’s ChiSox game yet because I didn’t actually see it for myself. And, I really am determined to be positive.

But, seriously? A freaking no-hitter? I don’t even know that there are words for the entire absurdity of this White Sox season. A pitcher with a losing record and an ERA over 9???

Honestly and for serious? Okay, so I might not have predicted a win, but I sure didn’t see this one coming.

I think all that I have to say can be summed up with: WTF?!

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April 27, 2011 · 10:48 pm

Winning streak ends at two. Or: The good and the bad, but nothing really ugly.

1. I still haven’t gotten over the events of yesterday. So, I am going to link to a video that contains both of the much hyped-about catches.
http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=14199891

His expressions (he knew exactly how perfectly-timed those plays were) and his excited fist-pump the second that he made the second catch were pretty awesome to watch. Way to make the most of your time in the game.

And, I am also going to link to a rather amusing article about someone hacking Lillibridge’s wikipedia page – which is how you know that you’ve “made it”. [click here]

Seriously, we have had so much late-inning drama in all of the games where we’ve actually been in contention to win, it was nice for the drama to go our way and not have to endure – at worst – a disappointing loss and – at best – another inning or more of drama.

And, also, give me a game that ends on a spectacular piece of defense over a walk-off homer any day of the week.

2. In regards to today’s game, I missed the first inning and a half and, as such, missed pretty much everything that happened in the game. I missed Ozzie getting tossed, I missed Buehrle’s early struggles that led to the 3-run homer and I came back just in time to watch 5 innings that were, essentially, a pitcher’s duel. (And, due to a ridiculous lack of sleep lately, I may or may not have fallen asleep about 2 batters before Jesse Crain came in. Sad for me, since I have really enjoyed watching him pitch lately and would have liked to see it.) And, sadly, there was nothing more to be done and, aside from a single RBI courtesy of Adam Dunn, there really wasn’t any more action. From either side.

There were a few times where we left runners in scoring position (the time with the bases loaded was particularly painful), and yeah, the offense could be better those times. But, there was something remarkable about tonight’s loss. We didn’t win, which is disappointing, but we didn’t really have an active role in giving the game away. To me, anyway, it just felt like a normal, run-of-the-mill, every day loss and not like another team crushed us and then wiped the floor with us afterwards.

And, honestly? Today’s type of losses aren’t nearly as painful to me. It happens sometimes. You win some, you lose some. And, hopefuly we’ll do better tomorrow.

3. It’s snowing in Minnesota and they’re postponed in Chicago? And, I thought the recent weather in Chicago was going to be the last time I saw the players bundled up on the field. That’s nuts.

I think *everyone* is going to be happy when April is over.

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April 24, 2011 · 11:20 pm

New town… Will anything change? Or: And, the road trip continues.

So, one of the blessings of having easter dinner with a house full of people that are Blue Jays, Red Sox, and Pirates fans, is that – since I lost the fight for the remote – I didn’t have to watch the sweep that took place in Detroit today. I read a little bit about it online (as much as I could stand to) and, ugh.

The downside was all of the teasing that I had to endure about the White Sox and their rather abysmal season.

Well, you win some, you lose some.

So, the road trip continues tomorrow and, I really hope that things get better.

However, I’m worried that we’re going to end up seeing more of the same.

devil hates us.JPG

[image links to the original location at http://macleodcartoons.blogspot.com%5D

This was originally posted by a Red Sox fan after a loss to the Yankees, but I think the sentiment applies and I really hope that it is not prophetic.

Happy Easter, y’all.

I hope things look brighter for the Sox tomorrow. It is still April and – even though it takes more and more effort every day – I can still be glass half full for at least a few more days.

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April 24, 2011 · 12:45 am

Second verse, same as the first. Or: Ignorance is bliss.

So, I was out of town today and – from the inning-by-inning text updates that were making their way to my cell phone throughout the afternoon – it seemed like a good day NOT to be watching the White Sox play. The score seemed so scary that I’m afraid to even read the recaps today, now that I’m home.

Now, in the spirt of not dwelling on the fact that the White Sox got their butts totally whipped today in Detroit, I will spend exactly one sentence reiterating that I still think the starting line-up and batting order could benefit from an extreme makeover (even if only temporarily) and then I will move along, because – sadly – no one from the White Sox organization has asked my opinion on the starting line-up.

Let’s move along to happier things, shall we?

serenity-now.jpg

Like oceans. And mountains. And sunshine.

And, instead of ranting and raving and generally waving my hands around dramatically about the current sad state of affairs that is the Chicago White Sox, I am going to remain calm and hope that tomorrow brings something better. I’d say it couldn’t get worse, but at the moment, I’m not going to tempt fate.

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