Baseball

Series Recap: White Sox Lose 2 of 3 To Angels – Living On The Bright Side

By Andy Jonathan 1283 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Angels 5 – Sox 4

Game 2: Angels 8 – Sox 7

Game 3: Angels 1 – Sox 5

 

 

This is just how it’s going to be for the rest of the month: ignoring a good bunch of the shit that isn’t part of the future, and analyzing the parts that will be and pulling the good from that. If this series is viewed through that lens, then it can be considered successful. The players that are going to be here next year and beyond are performing (and sometimes exceeding) to expectations, and the ones that aren’t…who gives a shit? I’m past the point of getting pissed off at Ricky Renteria and Hahn for running Dylan Covey out there to get shelled. Or getting upset when Alex Colome gives up the game in a non-save situation.

What’s important is another excellent start by Lucas Giolito, or the continued offensive successes shown by Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada. The fact that Old Man Abreu is back to his Old Self again, and looking worthy of an extension for the first time since May. These are the things that need paying attention to, because getting pissed off at Dylan Covey? Down that path lies madness.

So my plan for the rest of the month is to keep it positive and look at the things that are going right for the Sox and their future. I may be forced to mention some stuff that is leaning on the negative side, but it won’t be the focus. This will also be campaign headquarters and ground zero for me trumpeting Tim Anderson’s candidacy for AL Batting Champ. Let the good times roll, baby!

Bullets? Not anymore. Now we have…

DANCE PARTY

 

https://media.giphy.com/media/1rRU6renDM2w8zTdWO/giphy.gif

SHAKE IT OUT

 

–Tim Anderson continues to drive the ball at a hellacious pace. Renteria gave him the day off Sunday, but he’s still sitting on an 8-game hitting streak with 7 of those games multi-hit affairs. Since the calendar flipped to August he’s slashing a gaudy .379/.395/.582 with a .977 OBPS. Granted his walk rate is 2.5% in that time, but who cares? Moncada walked a shitload more last season but I doubt you’d find anyone sane out there who liked the last season version better. Tim is slightly ahead of DJ LeMahieu right now for the AL batting lead, and it’s shaping up like must-see TV for the rest of the ride. Best of all is the fact that he’s clearly having fun while doing it. Future clubhouse leader, folks.

-Speaking of Yoan Moncada, he continues to rake at the dish as well going 6-13 in the series. I’m not a huge fan of him hitting in the 2 spot as it’s gonna limit his RBI opportunities, but Jose Abreu certainly enjoyed him being there. Moncada is batting .280/.349/.460 since coming back from the DL halfway through August. He’s also playing excellent D at the hot corner, as his UZR this season is 5.0, versus a nasty -4.9 last year when playing at 2B. Good things, people. Good things.

–Lucas Giolito had himself another ho-hum quality start again, going 7 and giving up 2 runs while merely striking out 6 Angels. He left in line for the win, but Aaron Bummer hit a bump in the road and coughed up 2 to allow the Angels to tie the game. In the 11 starts Gio has had since the All Star game he’s struck out 96 guys while only walking 18. If you’d have told me this time last year that Giolito was going to be one of the top 5 starters in the AL this season I’d have told you your brain had clearly failed but here we are. GOOD THINGS!

–Danny Mendick fired a laser beam into the Sox bullpen off of Jamie Barria in the bottom of the 5th today for his first ever home run. I don’t think it ever got more than 12 feet off the ground, and it left in a HURRY, with an exit velocity of 106 MPH. That was only to be outdone by Jose Abreu, who absolutely murdered a ball in the bottom of the 3rd inning that was estimated at 462 feet. That was Abreu’s 600th RBI and his 30th dinger of the season. GOOD ASS THINGS!

-Next up is a three game series against the Royals starting Tuesday, with even more opportunities for GOOD THINGS! White Sox Baseball: It’s Such Good Shit!

 

 

Baseball

Series Preview – White Sox at Indians: That’s All We Got? One God Damn Hit?

By Andy Jonathan 1398 0

VS

 

RECORDS: White Sox 60-76 / Indians 79-58

START TIMES: Monday-Wednesday 6:10, Thursday 12:10

TV: Mon/Wed/Thurs NBCSN, Tuesday WGN

Too High? What Do You Mean Too High?:   Let’s Go Tribe

 

 

So this is kind of a big series for the Tribe. If they have any deigns on the postseason, they’re going to have to start now. Cleveland (much like in real life) is currently hanging onto the final wild card spot by the last millimeters of their fingernails, only .5 games ahead of Oakland. Unless something wacky happens in Boston, it’s a 3 horse race for the 2 wild card spots, and Cleveland has not fared well against the other two remaining teams. Last Friday they had a decent lead heading into their series against Tampa Bay, but that floated away on the wind after the Rays took 3 straight.  The Tribe muddled their way through August, going one game over .500 in the month (which is not what you’d want out of a team with playoff aspirations).

For a bit there, things were looking up for them as it seemed Cory Kluber was ready to come back and Jose Ramirez had finally broken out of his year long slump. Then Klubot strained his oblique during a rehab start and hasn’t pitched since, and Ramirez broke his hand while swinging a bat a week ago. Whoops. One cool thing, however, is the return yesterday of Carlos Carrasco who pitched in relief for the first time since being diagnosed a few months ago with leukemia. It’s an awesome story, and I’m glad he’s doing well.

With Kluber going down and Carrasco having to take time off, the starting rotation has had some big holes to fill. Luckily for the Tribe some rookies have stepped up to fill in the gap. Monday’s starter Zach Plesac (nephew of journeyman and most famous person to escape Gary, IN Dan Plesac) has acquitted himself nicely in the number 4 starter slot. He’s gone 7-5 since being called up with a 3.61 ERA, and 1.21 WHIP. He’s primarily a fastball/changeup kinda guy, with a decent slider and a solid curveball rounding out his arsenal. Plesac has had quite a bit of batted ball luck so far this season, with a .244 BABIP and an over 80% strand rate, so at some point the regression monster is going to come for the guy. It hasn’t yet, and the Sox are going to have to contend with his luck tonight. Shane Bieber continues his ascent towards the top of the Tribe’s rotation with another excellent year so far, posting a 3.27 ERA and a crazily low 1.01 WHIP thus far. His 30% K rate against his 5% walk rate is something to behold, and with a .285 BABIP there’s not much room for regression. Between those two and adding in Mike Clevinger and Carlos Carrasco the Tribe’s rotation is gonna be set for a long while.

Offensively this team still has it’s table set by superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor. He’s having another atypical season for himself, slashing .296/.347/.878 with 26 HR. The more impressive thing about that is he missed almost the entire month of April after messing up his ankle preparing for spring training. Carlos Santana has been able to dial back the clock to his early days in Cleveland by hitting a very solid .290/.411/.954 so far, well on his way to a 40 HR, 100 RBI campaign. He’s a switch hitter that absolutely murders right handed pitching, so the Sox rotation is going to need to tread lightly around him (and maybe Moncada can take some notes). Yasiel Puig is also here, the main piece of the deal that sent starting pitcher and Professional Twitter Edgelord Trevor Bauer to Cincinnati. The Tribe filled their need of OF help by dealing from a position of strength as they also got HR machine Franmil Reyes from the Padres as part of the deal.

For our White Sox, the story remains the same. The starters need to go 5-6 innings a piece to give a badly taxed bullpen some relief. The return of Carson Fulmer and Manny Banuelos should help, but it would be nice to see the rotation carry it’s weight after getting scorched by the Braves this past weekend. Eloy Jimenez seems to be getting the timing of his swing back after his 23rd stint on the IL this season, but needs to hit for power as it’s been 11 games now since he’s had an extra base hit. Whatever other September call ups are not here yet, as Charlotte is trying to get into the postseason down in AAA, so it’ll be a bit before Zack Collins heads North. With Jon Jay fucking back off to the IL with hip surgery you can plan on seeing more of Adam Engel and Ryan Cordell wandering around the outfield grass and flailing around the batters box like a used car inflatable air dancer.

It would be nice for the Sox to play spoiler this series and help Cleveland screw themselves out of a postseason appearance, since they can’t do the same to the Twins. That way the depression in Cleveland can roll right into the NFL season when the Browns inevitably crush everyone’s hopes when Baker Mayfield turns back into a pumpkin.

Lets Go Sox

 

Baseball

Series Recap: Sox Swept By Braves – GTS

By Andy Jonathan 1494 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Sox 7 – Braves 10

Game 2: Sox 5 – Braves 11

Game 3: Sox 3 – Braves 5

 

 

The pitching woes continue for the Sox, who faced their 3rd legitimate offensive juggernaut in a row this weekend, with predictable results. Giolito fared the best, though he was completely done in by 2 home runs, both coming from Young Christian Slater lookalike Freddie Freeman. Nova couldn’t go more than 4 innings, and Lopez backslid by not making it out of the 3rd. In a microcosm, none of this means anything really. Nova isn’t gonna be here next year, Lopez had one bad start after a string of solid ones and Lucas Giolito still went 6 while striking out 7. The offense wasn’t as putrid this series so that’s an improvement I guess. None of that makes it any easier to watch, however.

This last month of the season is going to be some 6 pack viewing for Sox fans, as in it’s gonna take a 6 pack of at least Bass Ale to get you through some of these games. Expect to see a lot more Carson Fulmer and Manny Banuelos, both of whom made their triumphant returns today. Jon Jay has gone back on the MIA list with season ending surgery on his hip, likely ending his tenure with the White Sox and ensuring his lasting contribution to the team being convincing Manny Machado that, yes, San Diego is nicer in the winter than Chicago. With Rick Hahn‘s steadfast refusal to call up Luis Robert from AAA, other than watching Moncada, Anderson and Giolito string out the remainder of their time there isn’t much here to lure people out to The Down Arrow in September. I’m sure Zack Collins will be here, but Renteria wouldn’t give him playing time over AJ Fucking Reed back in July so forgive me if my excitement is somewhat tempered. There’s a lot to be excited about this team, but right now it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

Bullets, please.

 

BURN IT DOWN

–Lucas Giolito looked pretty good except for the 2 shitty changeups he threw to Freddie Freeman. He even made up for the first ones by knocking in his first career RBIs by smoking a single in the gap off Julio Teheran in the 2nd inning. Probably would’ve been a double for pretty much anyone else on the team but Lucas was blessed with the same type of speed that I was, namely “none.” Which is completely fine, because if you’re expecting your AL-based starting pitcher to challenge the arm of Future Legend Ronald Acuna Jr then you were fucked before word go. Giolito pitched 173 innings last year, and after today he will be sitting on 162. Should be no reason he couldn’t hit 200 this year, leaving him completely stretched out for next season’s hopeful contention.

-Eloy had some hits this weekend, which is a good sign for his timing (which has been shit since his last IL stint). What isn’t the best sign is that they were all singles. Eloy has now gone 10 games without an extra base hit, which is definitely cause for a second look. James Fegan had an excellent article the other day questioning whether or not he might need to adjust his batting stance in the off-season, basically implying that his crouched stance might be affecting his ability to catch up to fastballs up in the zone. Hitting coach Todd Steverson has had luck with Moncada and Anderson in the past few springs and I feel there’s no reason Eloy can’t have the same success. He just has to stay healthy, so as to not have to start from scratch every few weeks.

-The Sox bullpen wasn’t any better than the starters this weekend, with Aaron Bummer and Big Boss Ross being particularly putrid. Bummer has already thrown 20 more innings than ever before in his career and that might be getting to him as more and more walks have started to creep into his stat line. Fortunately Manny Banuelos and Carson Fulmer are here to lighten the load. I haven’t totally given up on Fulmer, and think that he could still be a valuable piece going forward. If that’s the case, now would be the optimal time to show it.

-I’m not a huge fan of Renteria’s management style to begin with, and watching him do it in a National League park is even worse. When I run for president next year on a “Designated Hitters For All” platform next year, don’t be surprised if I win in a landslide.

-Next up is the Indians, who desperately need to take this series from the Sox. I’m sincerely hoping they can play spoiler and ruin September for Cleveland before the Browns take over in October. “Keep Cleveland Depressed” is also one of my many main campaign platforms.

-In other news, AEW’s All Out PPV was Saturday night. I was there at the Sears Center and had a blast, even with Dad Bod Chris Jericho winning the title. Should give AEW some nice momentum heading into their television debut in a few weeks, unless one of the Young Bucks died last night, which is highly possible.

Baseball

Series Recap: Sox Swept By Twins – Life Is Pain

By Andy Jonathan 1235 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Sox 1 – Twins 3

Game 2: Sox 2 – Twins 8

Game 3: Sox 5 – Twins 10

 

You can’t win if you don’t hit, and you can’t win if you don’t pitch. Sometimes one can make up for the other, and sometimes none of it works and the Twins kick your dick right into the dirt. It’s baseball, and it’s stupid, but what can you do? Watch the Cubs? I mean, this season is frustrating (and it’s gonna get even more frustrating when September 1 hits and Zack Collins is the only one to wander up from Charlotte) but I don’t know that it’s more frustrating than what Cubs fans are dealing with right now. I actually like the group Theo has put together, and seeing your team underachieve sucks. The Sox are statistically right where they should be with the talent that is here and available to them, not that it makes shit like this more fun to watch.  This time next year? Hopefully that’s a different story. Anyways, lets sum up this trash fire as quickly as we can…to the bullets.

 

 

THE BITTER END

 

 

-Have I mentioned how much I hate the goddam Twins? With this sweep, Minnesota ensures a season series victory against the Sox. Sincerely hope this is the last one for a very, very long time.

-I talked in the preview about what the Sox pitchers needed to do to keep the team in the games and the series. Only Lucas Giolito listened, and he deserved a way better fate than what he got. He made 2 mistakes the entire night, but they both ended up in the Goose Island of Sadness and that was all the Twins needed. Michael Pineda blew down the Sox hitters like they were made of paper mache, but he only went 5 innings. The offense could only muster up 1 run against a bullpen that had been having serious difficulties of late. Good for what ails ya, eh?

-The Sox hitters treated runners in scoring position like an optional term paper your freshman year of college. Today alone they left TWENTY EIGHT runners on base. 28!!! McCann and Leury Garcia both had rough series, going 2 for 23 combined between the two of them. Garcia alone stranded 13 runners all by himself. I’m wondering if the workload is starting to get to him, as the most games he’s ever played in a season before this year was 87. He’s currently at 120, and that’s with missing some time due to injury. Bring someone up from Charlotte to spell the guy next month, eh? Maybe someone who’s hitting, oh I don’t know, .301 with 15 home runs in 41 games down there and can play center field and make life fun again?

-Boss Ross turned back into a pumpkin just in time for his spiced lattes to show back up at Starbucks.

-On a happier note, Jose Abreu continues to rake just in time for his off season contract extension. Just pay the man and end the suspense.

-Dylan Cease looked good for 0% of his innings pitched, as he gave up 8 ER in 2 innings. Everything he threw had a giant neon “HIT THE FUCK OUTTA ME” sign on it, as all his off speed stuff just sat right in the middle of the zone and his fastball was straighter than a beam of light. The learning curve turned into a 90″ angle today. Take from it what you can and move on, kid.

-That’s really all I wanna say about this shitshow, next up the Sox head down to Hotlanta to face the Braves and an equally stern test. Couldn’t get much worse than this, right? RIGHT?!?

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Twins At White Sox: Groundhog Day

By Andy Jonathan 1289 0

Twins VS

Records: Twins 79-51   White Sox 60-70

Gametimes: Tuesday/Wednesday 7:10, Thursday 1:10

TV: Tuesday/Thursday: NBCSN, Wednesday WGN

Circle This, Bert: Puckett’s Pond

 

Seriously, just GO AWAY.

Not much has changed in the 5 goddamn days since Lucas Giolito punched the Twins in the chest and ripped out their heart like Kano in Mortal Kombat. The Twins had an off day then took 2 of 3 from the Tigers, then had ANOTHER off day and jumped on I-94 and headed down here. They gave up 18 runs to the Tigers (which is like giving up 6 goals to the Wild in NHL 19 on rookie level), but managed to score 21. So it seems their starting rotation still has the yips but their league leading slugging percentage is still at or above .500 which is bonkers.

Miguel Sano has managed to drag his batting average up to .244, which is pretty amazing considering he was below the Mendoza line in June. He’s now slashing .244/.337/.579 and is averaging a home run every 2.45 games. Human Death Star Nelson Cruz is still obliterating anything left in the zone, and some shit outside of it. Over his last 15 games he’s hitting .370/.414./.870 with 7 dingers and 21 RBIs. Maybe pitch a little carefully around him. Max Kepler and Marwin Gonzalez have both slowed down a bit, but Jorge Polanco keeps plugging along.

On the other side of the ball the Twins pitching is still giving up hits at an alarming rate, as only Michael Pineda has been able to keep the ball in the yard consistently. Jose Berrios, once untouchable, is now very touchable (wait, what?) having given up 45 hits and 14 walks in his last 41 innings. The other starter for the series is Jake Odorizzi, and he’s been barely acceptable in his last 7 starts, only going a total of 35 innings and giving up 20 ER in that span.

For the Sox, the story remains the same. The starters have to keep the ball in the yard, and try to go at least 6 innings to keep guys like Bummer, Marshall and Fry fresh as they may be needed during Boss Ross Detwiler‘s start. Lucas Giolito is rapidly filling the void left by Chris Sale, as his starts have become Must See TV. Dylan Cease gets another chance to show his stuff against a legit murderer’s row of hitters. If he can replicate what he did in innings 2-6 of his last start, things are looking up.

Yoan Moncada is really the only difference on offense for the Sox, albeit a huge one. His two dingers in the series against the Rangers showed how his leg is feeling, and he should get a chance to do more damage against a reeling Twins staff. Jose Abreu and James McCann look to continue their resurgence, and Tim Anderson just keeps doing Tim Anderson stuff. Now would be a nice time for Eloy to get his OBPS back in the .800 area, as the Twins are vulnerable to the long ball.

Another series win against these assholes would be glorious, lets make it happen. Don’t stop now boys.

Let’s Go Sox

Baseball

Twins Spotlight: Farming For WAR

By Andy Jonathan 1275 0

I sincerely hate the Minnesota Twins, but I have to give them credit where it’s due. In an age where the way you build an MLB team has changed completely from buying through free agency to building through youth and farm systems they’ve managed to land at the forefront of that particular revolution. It’s hard to say if they read the tea leaves correctly 5 years ago and just kept doing what they were doing, or if they just lucked into this by being cheap everywhere but their scouting, but either way it’s working out at an annoyingly high level.

Just looking at their current roster (which as of today still leads the league in team slugging percentage) it’s chock full of home-grown talent that includes the following on offense: Miguel Sano, Max Kepler, Eddie Rosario, Jorge Polanco, Byron Buxton, Mitch Garver and Jake Cave. The total WAR of that science lab creation of slugging so far this season is 17.1.  In comparison to the WAR generated by the homegrown talent of the White Sox offense (which is 27th of 30 in the league for slugging) is merely 9.3 (Eloy, Abreu, Moncada, Anderson, Yolmer and Engel). That’s not a very sightly set of stats for the Sox offense, and it paints the Twins in a pretty impressive light. HOWEVER! If you go back to the same group of players for the Twins last season, you get….9.7 WAR from those guys combined. Take those numbers and add in the fact that the Twins were 78-84 last season makes the differences between the Sox and the Twins a little easier to swallow, and maybe even adds a slight feeling of hope in there.

So you have the 2019 White Sox, who are pretty close to what the 2018 Twins were: Some high level prospects with a ton of talent and not a lot of major league experience combined with an untested pitching staff and shitty hydra for a 5th starter. Does that mean the Sox will lead the league in slugging next year? Probably not, but it provides a little insight into just how much time in the oven baking a professional team takes. It’s been forever since the Sox had to create a contender this way, so fans can be forgiven if they’ve forgotten how this type of rebuild goes. You’d have to go back to the early 2000s to find a team that was as built from the bottom up as this one is now.  Just look at this chart that shows top 10 Sox minor league prospects from the past decade (as decided by MLB.com). Be warned, it’s not a pretty sight.

Hahahaha Trayce Thompson and Courtney Hawkins…good times, good times. That chart before the 2017 time frame is like looking directly into the Ark of the Covenant, except when you look into the Ark your head explodes so you don’t have to see a list with Jared Mitchell in the top 5 prospects anymore. Things after 2017 start to look much, much better (unless your name is Carson Fulmer), and resembles an actual major league farm system.

Now look at the same chart, but for the Twins:

God dammit I fucking hate them.

If there were a blueprint for how to build an MLB team through quality scouting and franchise-wide patience, it would look exactly like that. Even the guys who aren’t with the Twins anymore are pretty quality. Aaron Hicks, Oswaldo Arcia and Ben Revere were/are all serviceable MLB players (In the case of Hicks, a little more than “serviceable”). In addition to that, they still have 2 top 20 ranked prospects in Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff sitting in AAA waiting for their chance. The Twins think so highly of both these players that they passed at legit chances to upgrade their struggling starting rotation a few weeks ago because teams were sniffing around those two.

The Twins have always done it this way, ever since Terry Ryan took over as GM for them back in 1995. He engineered many of the Twins teams that I absolutely despised in the early 2000s by using the “New England Patriots” method of shipping off players just before they were due to get paid for younger, cheaper talent. He snagged Johan Santana off the Marlins in the Rule 5 draft. He traded eventual Sox Legend AJ Pierzynski to the Giants for Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser (best fake name ever). He also increased the money the franchise spent on scouting for the first time in decades. Ryan stayed with the Twins until 2016 when Thad Levine was hired away from the Indians after their loss to the Cubs in the World Series. Levine was cut from the same cloth that Ryan was, having helped build Cleveland into the contender it was through the same methods Ryan did. He helped draft Carlos Santana, Francisco Lindor, and Jose Ramierez so he knew how to build through the lower levels of the minors.

The Sox in that same period continued along the path that Kenny Williams set them on in 2006, consistently trading away promising young talent for one last gasp after another, year after year, until finally the team had no choice but to trade away the best pitcher in the history of the organization to jump start a clinically deceased farm system. Now that the team started the season ranked 4th overall in the league for their minor league system, the question that falls before Rick Hahn and company is can they develop players they draft? They’ve been able to trade for other team’s well scouted minor leaguers, and had pretty good success bringing them along. The Sox international scouting crew has been nothing short of aces so far, but the continental US team has been pretty hit or miss. Has Nick Hostetler done enough at the lower levels to reap the kind of benefits the Twins have done for decades? Is Chris Getz the guy to guide the next round of Sox prospects to AAA and beyond?

The Sox farm system was absolutely decimated by a plague of injuries this season that bordered on the biblical, so the only grade that can really be given so far is “incomplete.” It will be very interesting to see how Zack Collins, Nick Madrigal and Andrew Vaughn fare at the higher levels in the next few seasons as they have the potential to solidify the Sox lineup like Kepler and Polanco have done for the Twins thus far.

Fingers crossed.

 

Baseball

Series Recap: Sox Take 3 of 4 From Rangers – Throwing Smoke

By Andy Jonathan 1164 0

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Sox 6 – Rangers 1

Game 2: Sox 8 – Rangers 3

Game 3: Sox 0 – Rangers 4

Game 4: Sox 2 – Rangers 0

 

 

 

Sorry about the late recap, had some family stuff yesterday. Better late than never, which seems to apply to Reynaldo Lopez and Dylan Cease lately, eh? At any rate, an excellent series win for our Pale Hose, as they found different ways to win each of the 3 games. Game 1 it was all about the offense, and the return of Yoan Moncada. Game 2 it was a mix of the offense and Dylan Cease saying “fuck it” and going into beast mode after the shitty first inning. Game 4 was all about the pitching as Lopez was rolling with a No-No before his Tum-Tum got icky, but the pen was more than up to the task of shutting down a spiraling Rangers offense. All things I like to see before the fucking Twins show their stupid faces again.  To the bullets!

 

The Numbers Don’t Lie

 

 

-First off, some credit where it’s due. Boss Detwiler showed up Thursday night and punched tickets from the get-go. It was a welcome sight after the Twins bounced liners off his skull in his previous appearance, and while I don’t expect it to last I’m gonna enjoy it for the time being. The Sox have an off day this week so if Ricky wanted to skip his spot in the rotation he could, but with them trying to manage Cease’s innings the rest of the way I would guess Boss Ross starts this week.

-Welcome back Yoan Moncada! Two home runs in his first two games back is exactly what I wanted to see. Like much of the Sox offense he was held down on Saturday and Sunday, but having both him and Timmy in the lineup for the first time since June makes the offense that much more effective. Having Jose Abreu and James McCann back contributing makes things even better and gives the Sox a legit 5-6 mashers in that lineup.

-Dylan Cease showed some brass ones in his start Friday night. After surrendering a 3 run shot to Big Willie Calhoun during a 32 pitch first it seemed the prize rookie was on his way to another early exit. Then he shut down the next 11 Rangers hitters including back to back punchouts after the dinger to Calhoun. He struck out a career high 9 in a 6 inning quality start and now has 50 strikeouts in 50 MLB innings. The questions about Cease have never involved his stuff, which was on full display Friday night. The “big inning” issue is one of confidence and experience, one that Mark Buherle famously faced in the opening months of his career. Once Cease gets that under control, his top of the rotation stuff can take over and it will be even more fun to watch.

-Reynaldo Lopez continued his second half resurgence Sunday until he was betrayed by his own body in the 6th inning and had to run and take a shit. His fastball was electric, and he was able to spot it up in the zone pretty much at will, striking out 6 in those 5 innings. His change was down at the bottom of the zone, and his slider seemed to have good life on it as well. More please!

-Since we cant have ALL nice things, Leury Garcia got drilled on the shin Sunday and had to leave. X-rays were negative, and the Sox have him listed as day to day.

-Jose Abreu drove in his 100th RBI of the season, and he now is 3rd all time on the Sox in 100+ RBI seasons, behind Big Frank and Konerko. That’s a quality club to be a member of, and once the ink is dry on his inevitable extension this offseason I’m sure there are a few more waiting in the wings.

-Next up is the fucking Twins again. Giolito starts off that series Tuesday night, here’s hoping he blanks them again as I enjoy free beers and the sadness of Twins fans.

 

Baseball

Series Preview – Rangers at White Sox: Lone Star Falling

By Andy Jonathan 1291 0

VS

RECORDS: Rangers 63-65 / White Sox 57-69 (nice) (not really)

GAMETIMES: Thursday/Friday 7:05,  Saturday 6:10,  Sunday 1:10

TV: Thurs/Fri/Sun NBCSN,  Saturday WGN

BECAUSE GOOD IS DUMB:  Lone Star Ball

 

Hot damn that was an awesome game to take the series from the Twins yesterday. Gi0lito was absolutely dominant in mowing down 12 Twins, who are the league leaders in team slugging percentage. Lucas truly has gotten his ship righted and the home stretch here should feature the Sox having a chance to win anytime he starts. Unfortunately for us, he’s not going to be starting at all this series, so hopes for a series win or split rest with Reynaldo Lopez and Ivan Nova. Thankfully this is not the same Rangers team the Sox faced back in June.

Since the last series with the Good Old Boys from Arlington, things ain’t so good no more for the Rangers. Turns out the team everyone thought was smoke and mirrors was actually comprised of smoke and mirrors. In the first few months of the season, the Rangers were 8th in the AL in hitting and 8th in the AL in pitching. All in all not a bad place to be, as with a little luck being in the middle of the pack everywhere allows you to compete.  They weren’t able to stay there however, as since July the Rangers have slid considerably down the Hill O’ Regression. They dropped to 11th of 15 in hitting, but managed to only slip to 9th in pitching. Some of the slide in hitting was (unbelievably) Hunter Pence hitting the IL, as he had miraculously been able to kick Father Time in the dick and post the type of numbers that hadn’t been seen since he first showed up in the Bay Area eight years ago. The other dagger was Joey Gallo hitting the injured list as well with a fractured hamate bone in his hand. While that sucks for him (and if I’m being honest, baseball as a whole as he was basically the AL’s version of Cody Bellinger before he went down) and the Rangers, it did result in this quality Twitter thread when TR Sullivan accidentally typed “hamster bone” instead of “hamate.”

Since the All Star game, the Rangers have had the same type of success as the White Sox, going 17-27 in that stretch, and now find themselves way outside of the playoff picture looking in. Much like the White Sox, they largely stood pat at the trade deadline. One of their only moves was to acquire Nate Jones on a flyer from the Sox for a couple of low-A minor league players. Veterans that could’ve fetched something at the deadline such as Pence and Shin-Soo Choo have stayed. The younger players here are somewhat of a mixed bag, as Danny Santana and Delino DeShields have been playing pretty well, but Rougned Odor and Nomar Mazara have shown to be only slightly above replacement level. Elvis Andrus is still a plus-level player at shortstop, but has entered the dreaded Year 30 season and we all know it’s a rocket sled to obscurity from here on out.

On the pitching side, Lance Lynn and Mike Minor have been able to continue their solid run and keep the rotation afloat for the most part. The other trade the Rangers made at the deadline was to acquire Kolby Allard from the Braves for the lead singer of Coldplay, Chris Martin. Allard was a pretty highly ranked prospect arm for the Braves, but they have a lot of those and Allard was deemed expendable. He’s been decent for the Rangers so far going 1-0 in his first three starts, two of which featured him giving up three or less runs. The other was six. He’s similar to Dylan Cease in that he features a plus fastball and curveball, and an above average changeup. When he can control his fastball up in the zone his stuff is pretty unhittable. Allard will go on Saturday against Nova in what I guess will be the marquee pitching matchup for this series?

As for the Sox, after their solid series victory against the Twins they come home having gone 3-4 on the seven-game road trip. Some very good starting pitching, and some very not good bullpen pitching makes that number what it is. The Sox bats have come alive as well, with Jose Abreu hitting .345 with four home runs and 15 RBI in that span. The Sox should also get Yoan Moncada back from his hamstring stint on the IL, which will hopefully move Ryan Goins over to 2b and planting Yolmer firmly on the bench, waiting for his chance to come in and bunt. Ross Detwiler gets the 5th starter spot this time around, and if he can replicate what Hector Santiago did in his start against the Angels I’d be OK with that. Dylan Cease gets another shot to keep the ball in the park, as he tries to straighten the learning curve out (pun intended).

Much like the past few series, if the Sox can keep the ball in the park they stand a decent chance of at least taking half these games. Getting Yoan back at the hot corner should provide a boost to the Sox offense, and hopefully it can carry them to a series win.

Don’t Stop Now Boys.

Baseball

Rangers Spotlight: Joey Abs

By Andy Jonathan 1538 0

What to make of Joey Gallo? When the Rangers drafted him in the late stages of the first round in 2013, they were hoping they had found their power hitter of the future. The rock they could build their roster around for years to come. During his trek through the minors, Gallo looked to be exactly that, averaging well over a 120 wRC+ throughout multiple levels of their system. Parallel to that was his extraordinarily high K-rate. Through his 3 1/2 years in the Rangers minor league system, the lowest K-rate he ever posted was  29% in high A ball, and that was with less than 250 plate appearances. The highest was in AAA where he spiked to 39.5% with 228 plate appearances.

So the Rangers had found their power threat, and when they called him up full time in 2017 he proved just that, swatting 41 home runs in his rookie season to go along with 80 RBI. The thing that stands out about that is that more than 50% of Gallo’s runs batted in that season came from the long ball. That’s inordinately high, as the MLB average in 2017 was just under 40% for the top 20 leaders in home runs. He also carried over his penchant for striking out at a hilariously high rate, with his K-percentage sitting just under 37%. These trends showed up the following season in 2018, with his K-rate again in the upper 30’s, his home runs in the low 40s, and his RBI totals in the upper 80s.

Then this year happened. He started out the season on an absolute tear, hitting 16 home runs with 42 RBIs. His K-rate was still high, but his walk rate spiked as well, going up to almost 20%. Gallo was attempting to buck the narrative that he was a true “three outcomes hitter” by displaying doubles power to the opposite field all of a sudden. Gallo also showed some maturity in the field, matching his career high for assists in a season (8) within the first two and a half months. Had he continued at that pace, he would’ve easily passed his season records for singles, doubles, home runs and RBIs. Unfortunately, he also spent a considerable time on the IL this season, most recently fracturing the hamate bone in the palm of his hand. Based on most projections pertaining to healing times, he’s probably done for the season.

So who is Joey Gallo, really? Is he the dinger/strikeout/walk guy from 2016-2018? Or is the complete player that appeared this season? Looking at his advanced stats from this year, his BABIP sits at .368, which is fairly high but not to the point where you would think regression would cut his progress so far off at the knees. When you combine his BABIP from the previous two seasons it sits at .250, which is .118 lower then his BABIP this season. It’s also way below the league average, even for a power hitter such as him. If you split the difference between the two you get .309, and looking at Gallo’s numbers he put up before the hamate injury that seems to be just about right. His wRC+ for 2019 was at 144, with it being around 120 the previous two seasons.

Looking at the big picture for the Rangers it seems like Gallo has turned into exactly what they were hoping for: a gigantic lefty power hitter who the club can build around for seasons to come. The main question for them now is are they doing a good enough job with it? Danny Santana has busted out in a big way this year, but a peek at his advanced stats shows a lot of smoke and not much fire. Delino DeShields started slow but appears to be coming on now. Elvis Andrus is still awesome, but at 30 years old now is he going to be a part of this rebuild the Rangers now find themselves in? Nomar Mazara was supposed to be a thing, but he’s just a guy. Rougned Odor throws a mean right and is good for 25 home runs, but can he bat above the Mendoza line?

These are all questions the Rangers need answered if they’re gonna build around Joey Gallo. He’s definitely the kind of guy you can build a contender around, but I don’t know if they’ve done a good enough job so far to make use of him properly.

Sounds a lot like Jose Abreu.

Baseball

Series Preview – Sox at Twins: Again?

By Andy Jonathan 1494 0

vs.

 

Records: Twins 76-48   White Sox 55-68

Gametimes: Monday/Tuesday 7:10, Wednesday 12:10

TV: Monday WGN, Tuesday/Wednesday NBCSN

Where The Wild Things Are: Puckett’s Pond

 

Ugh, these assholes again.

Since the last meeting between these two teams (in which the Twins took three of four from the Sox) life has been somewhat of a mixed bag for the Towering Terror of the Twin Cities. After winning the series against the Sox, the Twins took two of three from Miami and swept the Royals. All good, right? Well then the Braves came to town and took the series against them, then shortly thereafter Cleveland showed up and not only took three of four, but tied them for 1st place in the Central in a Sunday afternoon matchup that saw Carlos Santana plunge the dagger in Taylor Rogers heart with a walk off grand slam in extra innings that wiped out a nice Twins comeback in the bottom of the 9th.

Unfortunately the dagger wasn’t made of silver, because since then the Twins have won five of six, including a four game sweep of the Rangers this past weekend and have retaken first place from the Tribe (who now sit 2.5 games behind). They just won’t die. The Twins still sit at 4th best in the AL for hitting, having fallen behind the Yankees only because the Yankees played the Orioles seven times so far in August alone. The Twins still inexplicably lead the entire league in slugging percentage at .499, almost a full .010 ahead of the second place Yankees. The fact that they’re able to power the ball so much when they play so many games in their stadium with the cavernous outfield is even more impressive. Marwin Gonzalez has caught fire after a slow start, having hit .362 since the page flipped to August. Max Kepler continues to hit for power, mashing 10 taters since he last saw the Sox. Byron Buxton is still on the IL with a laundry list of maladies, this time with his shoulder. It’s severe enough that the Twins aren’t expecting him back until at least the beginning of September.

The rotation for the Twins is still scuffling a bit as Kyle Gibson and Jose Berrios both have seen their respective ERAs rise more than a point in the month of August. Michael Pineda has returned from his stint on the IL and righted the ship, having only given up 11 runs since the beginning of July, and despite his peripherals looking hilariously bad Jake Odorizzi has a 2.08 ERA so far this month and managed to shut down the Tribe in their only win that series.

The Twins bullpen has been a mixed bag since trading for some fresh faces at the deadline. Former closer now LOOGY Sergio Romo has appeared in nine games and given up three runs in that span, all in one game against the Braves. The other big acquisition Sam Dyson has gotten shelled out of the gate with his new team, giving up seven runs in 3.1 innings. In addition to that, closer Taylor Rogers hasn’t been as sharp as he was in May and June. He got charged with the loss against the Indians mentioned above and blew two other saves since the trade deadline. With Dyson being so shaky his job seems safe for the time being, however.

As for the Sox, they seem to have corrected the offensive malaise that infected them throughout the entire series with Oakland, having pounded out 40 runs in their last seven games. Ivan Nova has continued his excellent run since the All-Star break, having only given up 12 earned runs in 53 innings since the beginning of July. This has included some starts against pretty stalwart offenses like Houston, Philly, Cubs, and these Twins. I’ve said since the beginning that Nova would be a fine 5th starter on a contending team, and he’s making his case to stick around to see that possibility. The Sox will also toss out Lopez and Giolito, both of whom have had pretty good success since the break.

The key to this series is the same as it was against Houston last week. The starters need to keep the Twins big bats off the board, and the offense take advantage of a middling bullpen where they can. It’s looking like Yoan Moncada will be back for this series after his rehab stint in Charlotte, which will be a nice boost both offensively and defensively. Having him and Leury Garcia back in the lineup will make the Sox offense as potent as it’s been all year. Well, at least until Luis Robert gets here in a few weeks. Fuck the Twins, take two of three from them.

Lets Go Sox!