Baseball

Series Recap And Cleveland Preview: Sox Split With Royals – SSDD

By Andy Jonathan 1166

BOX SCORES

Game 1: Royals 0 – White Sox 6

Game 2: RAINED OUT

Game 3: Royals 4 – White Sox 3 (10 Innings)

 

This shit continues to happen. The Sox bring the heat in the first half of a series against an opponent and are completely unable to close it out in the finale. The bullpen is responsible yet again, as Aaron Bummer and Liam Hendriks combined to cost the Sox after Adam fucking Eaton was able to bring the team ahead 3-2 with a pinch hit dinger in the bottom of the 8th.

It’s extra frustrating because the team looked so damn good in the home opener on Thursday, with Lance Lynn giving the bullpen the rest it so desperately needed by going the full 9. Yet all the good feelings from that game were washed away with a 4-seamer that caught way too much of the zone to Carlos Santana from the Sox lone big off-season acquisition. He didn’t miss, and the Sox end with a 1-1 split in the rain-shortened series.

I’m pretty sure that Bummer, Marshall and Hendriks aren’t going to be this bad the whole year. I’m pretty sure the Sox aren’t going to be dead last in the league in defense the whole year. I’m absolutely certain the team isn’t going to hit .255 for the rest of the season, and Jose Abreu and Yoan Moncada are going to stay below the Mendoza line. All that said, those three things are costing the team games right now, and I’m just hoping those aren’t wins that they’ll desperately need come September.

TO THE BULLETS:

 

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

-Right off the bat, just gotta say that Lance Lynn is one beefy, badass motherfucker. There was not a single point in that game on Thursday night where he didn’t seem completely in control. It certainly helped that the D behind him wasn’t actively trying to sabotage his start, but he was still nails. Scattering 5 hits and no walks over 9 innings with 11 strikeouts is pretty majestic, especially against a team that was averaging over 6 runs per game coming into Thursday night. More please.

-The flip side of that coin is that Dylan Cease still throws too many fucking pitches, and watching his starts feels like waiting for continental drift to take effect. He rarely has any trouble getting ahead in the counts, but once he gets to 2 strikes the nibbling begins. Throw in a few fouled off pitches, and suddenly he’s at 82 in the 4th fucking inning. Cease better tighten it up soon, because…

-Michael Kopech seems nigh unhittable right now. Through 6.1 innings he’s struck out 11, walked 2 and allowed 1 measly hit. Out of the 21 batters he’s faced, only 8 of them have been able to put the bat on the ball. If Cease still can’t give the team quality innings by the time the calendar flips to May, LaRussa could have the decision made for him to move Kopech into the rotation. Bare minimum he may have to think outside the box and go with 6 starters.

-Sure was fun watching Brad Keller and his stupid face get rocked again. Love to see it.

-While Yoan Moncada got his first dinger of the year with a beautiful opposite field jack in the first game, that was the extent of his offensive output for the series. His slash line is now at a very ugly .161/.297/.587. I’m not personally worried about him yet, as he was smoking the ball in spring training but this bears watching.

-Yermin Mercedes has an OPS of 1.451.  Send Tweet.

-Once again, TLR’s Sunday lineup leaves a ton to be desired. There was no reason that Grandal’s bat could not have been in the lineup today. Giving playing time to Zack Collins is admirable, but not at the expense of getting one of your best weapons going offensively. On the plus side, despite the shitty outcome, his bullpen usage was much better. Let’s hope that continues into the next series with…

 

SERIES PREVIEW: Cleveland @ Sox – Divisional Damage

Bob Uecker: Mr. Baseball vs. Juan Marichal | BallNine VS

Records: Cleveland 5-3 / White Sox 4-5

First Pitch: Mon/Tues/Wed 7:10 Thurs 1:10

TV: NBCSN

We’re Not Detroit: Covering The Corner

PROBABLE STARTERS

Monday: Triston McKenzie (0-0, 2.45 ERA) vs Carlos Rodon (1-0, 0.00 ERA)

Tuesday: Shane Bieber (0-1, 3.65 ERA) vs Lucas Giolito (1-0, 4.22 ERA)

Wednesday: Aaron Civale (2-0, 2.45 ERA) vs Dallas Keuchel (0-0, 7.00 ERA)

Thursday: Logan Allen (1-1, 2.70 ERA) vs. Lance Lynn (1-0, 0.00 ERA)

 

With the arrival of Cleveland into town tonight, the Sox head into their second divisional opponent of the season sitting on a 4-5 record. The Cleveland Baseball Team currently sits atop the division with a 5-3 record, fresh off a three game sweep of the Tigers at home. Things started out for the ex-tribe about as poorly as they did for the Sox, with Cleveland dropping 3 of their first 4 games, one of which happened with a Miguel Cabrera walk-off dinger in the middle of a blizzard. Since that first series, however, they’ve put it together offensively, scoring 24 runs in their last 4 games.

The Cleveland offense, while not looking like much on paper with the departure of All Universe shortstop Francisco Lindor, still has one of the best hitters in baseball in Jose Ramirez. After a weird down year in 2019 that saw his HR total cut almost in half, his slugging percentage crater to .800, Ramirez got back to his old ways in 2020. He rocked 17 dingers last season, which was only 6 less than he hit in the entirety of 2019, and his OPS came roaring back to .906 which is more the norm for him. Oddly enough, his K% rate was actually the highest of his career, just under 17% (he had averaged 11% up till that point, even in his down year), though some of that could be due to the sample size of the shortened season. He’s picked up where he left off last year, hitting .300 thus far with a pair of HR.

Replacing Lindor is one of the more unenviable tasks out there, and unfortunately for Amed Rosario that duty has fallen squarely in his lap. As part of the return the Mets sent westward for Lindor, Rosario was a former top prospect of the Mets, signed as an international free agent in 2012 out of the DR. He worked his way up through the system, finally making his debut in a September callup in 2016. He was full time with the team in 2017, but didn’t really hit his stride until 2019 where he slashed .287/.323/.755 with 15 HR and 19 SB. He’s a below average fielder, with his best DRS score of -3 coming in 2019. He’s obviously not going to be able to fill the cleats left behind by Lindor, but he’s more than serviceable at SS.

The main story for Cleveland (as it’s always been) is it’s pitching staff, and this year is really no different despite some new names in the rotation. The Sox got a taste of Monday night’s starter Triston McKenzie late last season after they had moved him into the bullpen to save his arm. His fastball is his primary weapon, and his lanky delivery is reminiscent of Garrett Crochet and Chris Sale. He also throws 3 off speed pitches (SL/CB/CH), with the slider being his preferred punch out pitch, but he likes to live upstairs with his fastball.

Night two features the Battle of the Aces, with Shane Bieber facing off against Lucas Giolito. Neither guy has gotten off to the kind of start we’d all come to expect out of them, but the underlying metrics all say that the stuff is fine. The Sox actually have fared fairly well against Bieber the past 2 seasons, going 2-1 against him in 5 starts, scoring 19 runs in that span. Yoan Moncada and Jose Abreu both apparently enjoy facing off against him, as they’ve hit a combined 5 HR off him and are both hitting over .310.

As for the Sox, we get to see if Rodon’s first start really was the beginning of a turnaround or just a blip against a sub-par Mariners lineup. Dallas Keuchel also gets his 3rd chance to get out of the 5th inning, and show us all that last year was not just him feasting on a crappy central division.

More importantly, the Sox need to stop stranding runners on base. Especially facing a Cleveland bullpen that typically just doesn’t give much away. The ex-Tribe had the Sox number completely last year, including that disastrous sweep in September that almost ended the Sox playoff hopes. If there was ever a time for the team to put it all together, this is the series for it. Cleveland, while depleted on offense, is still a dangerous team, if only for their ridiculous ability to pull pitchers out of their farm system and turn them into plus plus contributors pretty much at will. There’s enough pop in that lineup to give them the lead, and that’s something their bullpen doesn’t give away. Score early, and score often.

Let’s Go Sox

Baseball

Series Recap And Royals Preview: Sox Win 2 Of 3 Vs Mariners – Good?

By Andy Jonathan 1139

BOX SCORES

White Sox 6 – Mariners 0

White Sox 10 – Mariners 4

White Sox 4 – Mariners 8

 

It takes a special kind of fuck up to take a series win like the Sox had and make it feel like they just got swept, yet here we sit. The Sox took the first two games against the Mariners in very high quality fashion, with Carlos Rodon hitting 98 on the gun on night 1, and Jose Abreu launching his 2nd granny of the season in night 2.

Then came the 6th inning in game 3.

With the Sox holding a 4-1 lead, Dallas Keuchel took the mound and promptly gave up a walk and a single, which involved Adam Eaton attempting to throw out Jose Marmolejos at second and it ending up in front of the Mariners bench. That was the end of Keuchel’s day, and in came Matt Foster to attempt to stem the bleeding. 5 hits and two walks later the Sox were down 7-4 and the game was out of reach.

 

TO THE BULLETS:

 

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

 

-Let’s get this out of the way to start: LaRussa totally left Matt Foster out there to drown. After the game, LaRussa had this to say about the whole situation:

Yeah, no shit.

-The big selling point of having TLR over Ricky Renteria on the bench was the fact that Tony was supposed to be this mad genius working with the bullpen. Leaving Foster out there for 40 pitches and 6 runs while you have Aaron Bummer and Liam Hendriks, neither of whom had thrown in days, sitting on their hands in the pen is inexcusable. These guys are supposed to be your HIGH LEVERAGE relievers, and you’ve got the game on the line. What in the fuck are you waiting for?

-Also, the lineup that TLR threw out for game 3 made me think it was 2018 again. The rebuild is supposed to be over, and yet Billy Hamilton (who is fine, don’t get me wrong), Jake Lamb and Danny Mendick are all starting. This was insanely apparent when Justin Dunn walked 42 people in 5 innings, yet the Sox could only scratch 4 runs off him.

-Dallas Keuchel is beginning to worry me as well. He has yet to get out of the 6th inning in either of his starts and most of his stuff is up in the zone. Sinking fastballs don’t do much good when they’re letter high. He may still not be stretched out yet, but this definitely is a red flag right now.

-Anyways, Carlos Rodon looked pretty good on Monday night, going 5 strong innings with 9 Ks. His 3 walks all came in the same inning, but he then turned around and struck out the next 3 guys to get himself out of his own jam. Hard Carl indeed.

-Zack Collins had himself a strong series as well, going 3-9 in his two starts with 5 RBI, 3 of which came on a bomb shot in game 2. Once Engel comes back, playing time for guys like Collins and The Yerminator might start being pretty sparse, which sucks because you need them in the lineup right now, especially with the Human Sinkhole playing in RF.

-Lucas Giolito had pretty much the same start as Rodon, giving up 3 and striking out 10 in his 5.1 innings of work. He looked great, but with no Sox starter making out of the 6th inning the bullpen is begging them to last longer. Lance Lynn will get his chance, as he takes the bump on Opening Day on the South Side against the Royals, which leads me to:

 

Series Preview: Royals At White Sox – Homeward Bound

VS

Probable Starters

Thursday: Brad Keller (0-0, 40.50 ERA) vs. Lance Lynn (0-0, 0.00 ERA)

Saturday: TBD vs. Dylan Cease (0-0 5.79 ERA)

Sunday: TBD vs. Carlos Rodon (1-0, 0.00 ERA)

Coming home in front of fans for the first time since the end of the 2019 season should feel pretty good for the Sox. Getting the fuck out of the West Coast should feel even better. Waiting for them on the South Side are the Kansas City Royals, who sit on a 3-2 record after absolutely blowing the doors off the Rangers in their first series, then splitting with Cleveland in the second. The Royals bats have come out of the gate on fire, scoring 33 runs in their first 5 games. 14 of those runs were scored against the Rangers opening day, with 8 different Royals plating a run in the fracas.

Under normal circumstances, the Royals offense is powered by Whit Merrifield and Jorge Soler, with the corpse of Salvador “No Bat Flips” Perez helping out when he can. This season featured the arrival of Carlos Santana and Andrew Benintendi to the mix. Santana signed as a free agent from Cleveland in January, and the Royals acquired the services of Benintendi from the BoSox in a 3 team trade that sent prospect Khalil Lee to the Mets. The 5 of those guys combined with Hunter Dozier give the Royals (on paper) a pretty decent middle of the batting order. Obviously it’s worked out pretty well thus far.

As far as the pitching staff goes, coach Mike Matheny goes with Brad Keller on Thursday, who will be supremely disappointed to find out that Tim Anderson is on the DL. I’m sure he’ll find someone else on the Sox bench he can throw at. Maybe Yermin? Anyways, Keller got shelled his first start of the season, only lasting 1.1 innings, giving up 9 hits and 6 runs against the Rangers. Keller is a fastball/slider combo guy, who also uses a sinker about 20% of the time. He was converted to a starter in 2018 after the Royals basically ran out of pitchers, and has had decent success there, sporting a 21-23 record with a 3.63 ERA in that span. There isn’t much that’s exciting about Keller, but he keeps the ball in the park and his team in the game.

As for the rest of the starts, Matheny has decided to treat it (as he usually does) like some kind of national secret, preferring to announce the starters day of. Realistically, we can probably expect to see Mike Minor and Brady singer over the weekend. Mike Minor at this point is a known quantity, a career 4.00 ERA kind of pitcher who will give you innings and not much else. Brady Singer, however, is a far more intriguing figure in terms of ability. Singer was the Royals 1st overall pick in 2018, taken 18th out of the University of Florida. He made his debut last year in the covid season and performed pretty admirably going 4-5 with a 4.06 ERA. Right now, Singer works as a two pitch pitcher, primarily a sinker/slider type guy. Both of them are pretty solid, but they could benefit greatly from adding a 3rd option. Over the off-season he added a changeup, which he began throwing in spring training to middling success. If he can refine it, I could very easily see Singer becoming something much more than a back-end starter, which is where he’s currently projected to end up.

As for the Sox, escaping from the West coast with a 3-4 record is not exactly ideal, especially since they very easily could have won 6 of the 7 if the defense had been league average. Sadly, that was not the case and the Sox blew leads in every loss they had. The hitting hasn’t quite come around yet either, with the team stranding runners on 2nd and 3rd like it was going out of style. Combine that with the, shall we say, questionable bullpen management by TLR, and we’re left with a lot more questions than answers thus far.

With Lance Lynn taking the bump today, and an off day tomorrow, the Sox bullpen should hopefully be able to get considerable rest before the weekend. Odds are they’re probably gonna be needed at least on Saturday, with Dylan Cease on the mound. Both him and Rodon had exceptional spring trainings, but only Rodon has carried it over to the regular season this far.

With Tim Anderson officially going on IL yesterday, we can expect to see a lot of Leury Garcia at SS this weekend. Leury has not exactly gotten off to a blazing start so far, going 2-20 with no RBIs. While the Royals have the kind of staff that should theoretically allow Leury to turn stuff around, the Sox are really going to need him and Madrigal to fire up the bottom of the order.

With a week of home cooking for the Sox, it’s a good chance for them to set things right. Hopefully TLR’s issues with the bullpen this far is just him being acclimated to his new crew and how relievers in general are being utilized in today’s MLB. The Sox starters are better than anything the Rangers throw out there, so theoretically the Royals hitters should have a more difficult time finding pitches to drive. Now’s the time to right the ship and take that first real steps towards the postseason. Get it done.

LET’S GO SOX

Baseball

Series Recap and Mariners Preview: Sox Lose 3 of 4 To Angels – Hauntingly Bad

By Andy Jonathan 1002

BOX SCORES

White Sox 3 – Angels 4

White Sox 12 – Angels 8

White Sox 3 – Angels 5

White Sox 4 – Angels 7

 

Well that was not the start we all envisioned, was it?

For a team that touts bullpen strength as one of it’s weapons, the White Sox didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory in that department. The Sox very easily could have (and probably should have) walked out of Anaheim with 3 wins, but instead now have 3 losses to start the season. Aaron Bummer and Evan Marshall are the two prime suspects here, both blowing leads in the 8th inning in games 1 and 3 respectively. They were aided and abetted by some atrocious defense by the Sox and an inability to capitalize on runners in scoring position. To add insult to (more) injury, Tim Anderson came up lame in the 1st inning, attempting to run out a ground ball in his first at bat Sunday night. He shouldn’t miss too much time, but for a team that’s depth is already paper thin this is asking quite a lot.

TO THE BULLETS:

 

NUMBERS DON’T LIE

 

-As mentioned above, Aaron Bummer and Evan Marshall had a rough weekend. It was pretty clear from the jump that neither guy had their premium stuff. While Bummer was the victim of a boneheaded throw by Nick Madrigal in the 8th inning in game 1, he still had a chance to get out of the jam and ended up walking Justin Upton to set up the dagger by Pujols. Marshall didn’t fare any better in game 3, He managed to strike out Mike Trout, but then gave up a single to Rendon and a triple to Jared Walsh, then hung a cookie to Justin Upton who deposited it into the left field seats. *Fart Noise*

-All was not terrible with the bullpen, however. Both Michael Kopech and Garret Crochet were fucking nails in their appearances. They each went 2 innings in their respective games, striking out 3 per and keeping the Angels off the board when Keuchel and Lynn couldn’t make it out of the 5th inning. Kopech and Crochet are awesome weapons to have out of the pen, but if Cease and Rodon can’t cut it they may be needed in the rotation before too long.

-Speaking of Dallas Keuchel, I realize that he didn’t have a full spring training to get into game shape, but him constantly missing upstairs with his stuff is concerning to say the least. It begs the question as to whether his numbers last year were the true him or just the benefit of feasting on shitty central division lineups. It certainly bears watching.

-The defense has been absolutely atrocious to start the season. Through the first 4 games the Sox have allowed 7 unearned runs out of the 24 that were scored against them, the ones in the outfield being the most egregious. In game two, Matt Foster came in to get Keuchel out of the jam he created. He got Ohtani and Trout to both strike out, and managed to get Rendon to hit a catchable fly ball out to right. Eaton came running over and just flat out missed the ball. Game 3 featured Luis Robert running in to call off Tim Anderson on a high pop behind 2nd. The fly ball glanced off his mitt, then off his forehead, allowing two runs to score. Eaton then proceeded to use his pool noodle arm to throw the ball off the pitchers mound. All around Benny Hill-level shit.

-For the most part, LaRussa’s first series back in a Sox uniform went pretty well until the 9th inning of game 4. With everything tied up after the Sox clawed their way back to knot the game up at 4, instead of turning to a rested Liam Hendriks in a high leverage situation he opted for Jose Ruiz who allowed the winning run to get on base. He then turned to Matt Foster who served up a 3 run bomb to Jared Walsh. Foster was great in game 2, but situations like this is why the Sox supposedly went out and paid the money they did for Hendriks.

-Dylan Cease picked up where he left off last season, throwing waaaaay too many pitches, very few of which were in the strike zone. He worked out of a few jams, but what the Sox really needed from him was innings. Throwing 52 pitches through the first two isn’t going to give the bullpen any relief, especially since Lynn and Keuchel couldn’t make it out of the 5th inning. I really wanted to believe that him and Ethan Katz had fixed his control issues, but the results thus far are not encouraging.

-Congrats to Yermin Mercedes for living his dream and making history by going 8-8 to start his major league career and being the first of what is hopefully many feel good stories of this MLB season. Love to see the happiness on that guy’s face.

– 1 and 3 is not how any of us pictured the Sox to start the season, and I totally get the frustration but big picture: even with everything that went wrong in this series the Sox still had chances to win every game. They weren’t getting their doors blown off, and the issues (with the exception of Tim Anderson’s hammy) are all correctable. Which leads us to:

 

Series Preview: White Sox at Mariners – Yarrr, I Don’t Know What I’m Doin

 

VS

 

Probable Starters

Game 1: Carlos Rodon (0-2, 8.22 ERA) vs. Justus Sheffield (4-3, 3.58 ERA)

Game 2: Lucas Giolito (0-0, 3.38 ERA) vs. James Paxton (1-1, 6.64 ERA)

Game 3: Dallas Keuchel (0-0, 6.75 ERA) vs. Justin Dunn (4-1, 4.34 ERA)

 

After the shenanigans in Anaheim concluded, the Sox travel up the coast to the birthplace of Grunge and Starbucks to take on the Mariners. The M’s, fresh off a series win against the Giants, are smack in the middle of what may turn out to be a sped up rebuilding phase. Having completely turned over their roster over the past 3 years, sending everything that wasn’t nailed down to either the Mets or the Yankees, the Mariners are chock full of young talent that can only be described as “fun.”

Taking the bump in game one for the M’s is the son of Gary Sheffield, and once prized prospect of the Yankees, Justus Sheffield. The Mariners acquired Sheff from New York in a deal (much like the Sox with the Nationals and Lucas Giolito) where they sent James Paxton out East in return for him and a few other prospects that haven’t made it to the major league level yet. Sheffield toiled in the M’s system for a season before making the rotation in 2020 after a brief callup in September of 2019. He quickly made his impact, going 4-3 with a 3.5 ERA, and was 4th among all qualified rookie starters with 1.6 WAR in the shortened season.

Game two features Gio’s second start, and Paxton’s first as he was skipped in the rotation to give him extra rest. The Yankees didn’t really get the value out of Paxton that they were hoping to when they made that trade in 2018. He had a solid 2019, going 15-6 with a 3.86 ERA for the Yanks, but cratered in 2020 only starting 5 games and ending with a 6.68 ERA before he went under the knife for a flexor injury in his elbow. The M’s brought him back this season on a one year “prove it” deal for $8.5 million that could be worth up to $10 if he hits certain bonuses.

Justin Dunn, the former 1st round pick of the Mets in 2018 was acquired in the deal that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to NYC. Dunn, a former closer in college, was converted to a starter by the Mariners in 2019. He’s got a decend 4 seam fastball, and two quality breaking pitches in his curve and slider. For a kid who had only been a starter for less than a year, he performed pretty admirably in 2020. He doesn’t strike many people out, with a 7.4 K/9 average to go with a high 6.1 BB/9, so he can be gotten to if the Sox offense can wait him out.

Offensively for the M’s, last year’s ROY Kyle Lewis is still out with a knee injury, so that’s a bonus. The rest of the squad outside of the returning Mitch Haniger is still fairly unproven, though there is a lot of upside there. Dylan Moore is a Leury Garcia-type who plays all the diamond but hits for more power. Evan White is the M’s version of Andrew Vaughn, a 1B/DH type with very good power but not the eye of AV. Kyle Seager is still here, toiling away in the shadow of his more talented sibling down in LA.

Realistically if the Sox starters can keep the ball in the park and not walk anyone they should have a good chance at winning at least 2 of 3. I’m very curious about the return of Hard Carl tonight against Paxton. Hoping he has better results in his first start than his fellow Ethan Katz protégée Dylan Cease did last night.

The starters need to eat some innings this series after the bullpen threw a combined 14.2 in 4 games. They desperately need a break, and with no off day until Friday, it’s up to Gio and Keuchel to give them one. Offensively, going up against two lefties this series should theoretically work in the Sox favor. Moncada and Grandal need to pick up some of the slack that losing Tim and Eloy caused. Now would be a good time for Andrew Vaughn to break out as well.

Let’s Go Sox.

 

 

*Credit for the glorious Ghost Eloy pic goes to @RightSox. Follow him for more hilarity.

Hockey

Nothing Can Kill The Grimace – Hawks @ Preds, Game 39

By Andy Jonathan 1190

VS 

 

Records: Predators 19-18-1 (39) Hawks 17-16-5 (39)

Puck Drops: 2:00 pm

TV/Radio: NBCSN and WGN 720

Why Don’t You Have A Seat Over There: On The Forecheck 

 

As if things weren’t bad enough, the Hawks reward for pissing away points against the Hurricanes in the last 30 seconds in game two on Thursday night is another game against the team that owns them up and down the ice, the Nashville Predators. The last meeting against Smashville went about as poorly as you could think, and if it wasn’t for the impressive effort of Alex DeBrincat most likely would’ve resulted in the Hawks only netting a single goal.

Nashville just plays the type of game that completely pulls apart whatever you would call the breakout “system” employed by Jerry Manuel-Colliton. The forecheck of the Preds completely exposes the inability of the Hawks D  to move the puck out of their own zone. A large majority of the goals scored by Nashville in the last series came off of panicked turnovers by Hawks players in front of their goalie as they tried to fire the puck up and out of the zone by going right up the middle of the ice. This resulted in interceptions by fuckwaddles like Rocco Grimaldi, and were usually deposited right behind Kevin Lankinen.

So what can the Hawks do to flip the script on the Preds? By trading Brad Morrison to the Panthers and bringing back Vinny Hinostroza, duh! On the surface, this is pretty much a nothing trade for the Hawks, as Morrison hasn’t been anything of note. That being said, it’s the most Stan Bowman thing ever to bring back yet another former player. There’s definitely a spot for Hinostroza right now, since everyone’s favorite 3rd liner Brandon Hagel was thrown into the league’s COVID-19 protocol on Friday. Hinostroza plays a very similar North/South style game to Hagel, and the fact that Stan jumped on the phone to replace him this quickly makes me think that Hagel may be out for an extended period. This should not, however, be taken as a sign that the Hawks are going to be buyers at the deadline. The price for Vinny was essentially zero, so Stan can still try and keep the Hawks in the mix and yet gain assets next week by trading players that aren’t going to be part of the plan (whatever that may be) going forward.

As it stands right now, both the Hawks and Preds have the same amount of points, but Nashville has the tiebreaker thanks to the fact that they have the stunning ability to earn points during regulation, a feat that continues to elude the Hawks. After their single game this weekend, the Preds schedule (other than 3 more against the Hawks and two against the Scum) turns more difficult with matches against Florida, Carolina and Tampa all on the docket. It will be very interesting to see what the Preds do a week from Monday when the trade deadline rolls around. Both teams have to know what awaits them even if they make the postseason, so I can’t imagine Nashville being buyers, as hilarious as it would be.

Regardless of what they decide to do at the deadline, if either team has deigns of making the dance they’ll have to stake their claim over the next few weeks against each other. Based on what’s transpired thus far, I don’t like the Hawks’ chances. We’ve yet to see any adjustment by Jeremy Colliton to alleviate the pressure created by the Preds forecheck. As the guys mentioned in the podcast this week, even doing something simple like chipping the puck up and out of the zone off the boards and allowing the faster skaters like DeBrincat to roll with it could help. Really, I’d just like to see ANYTHING different than the piss poor shenanigans that define the defensive breakouts thus far. It’s not a super high bar to clear, but I’m also not holding my breath.

Two very important points sit out there for the taking this weekend, hoping they can get it done but also not gonna place any bets on it.

Let’s Go Hawks

Baseball

Series Preview: White Sox at Angels – California Dreamin’

By Andy Jonathan 986

VS

 

Gametimes: Thursday 9:05 / Friday 8:38 / Saturday 8:07 / Sunday 7:37 (I don’t get it either)

TV: Thursday-Saturday NBCSN / Sunday ESPN

We Got Rocks In Our Outfield: Halos Heaven 

 

Probable Starters

Thursday: Lucas Giolito (4-3, 3.48 ERA) vs. Dylan “Al” Bundy (6-3, 3.29 ERA)

Friday: Dallas Keuchel (6-2, 1.99 ERA) vs. Andrew Heaney (4-3, 4.46 ERA)

Saturday: Lance Lynn (6-3, 3.32 ERA) vs. Alex Cobb (2-5, 4.30 ERA)

Sunday: Dylan Cease (5-4, 4.01 ERA) vs. Shohei Ohtani (0-1, 37.81 ERA)

 

 

After what seems like an eternity, White Sox baseball will finally return to us tonight as the boys take on Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels of Southern California But Not Including LA Or San Diego Really Just Disneyland And A 2 Mile Stretch Of The 405. After an off-season that featured the Sox punting on all the good toys except for the closer that is awesome but they really didn’t need, and Eloy going on the IL for attempting to rob a home run in spring training that would’ve required the Silver Surfer’s board to catch we finally get to see what the results of a 4 year rebuild gets us.

Because make no mistake, the ultimate goal for this team in 2021 is nothing short of wresting the division away from the playoff chokers to the North. Anything less than that should (and will) be deemed a failure by the fanbase and hopefully the front office. The Sox have a boatload of homegrown talent, and have spent a little money here and there to address (some) issues to fill out what should be a very fun and powerful lineup, but unless the results are there the misery of 2016-19 will all have been for naught.

Lucas Giolito will take the bump tonight against the best the Halos have to offer, which is Dylan Bundy. While on the surface that statement seems ridiculous, (much like Lance Lynn) Bundy has reinvented himself the past two seasons, dropping his ERA by almost a full point and a half since escaping from Camden Yards. Developing a new approach to attacking hitters with more of his off-speed stuff as opposed to relying on his two seamer worked wonders for Bundy last season. He was able to lower his BB/9 and raise his K rate by more than 1 each with his new approach, and his FIP of 2.92 shows that it probably wasn’t a fluke.

Sunday night will feature the return to the mound of the two-way international star Shohei Ohtani, and the Angels have been waiting quite awhile for his double debut. After being felled by Tommy John surgery back in 2018, Ohtani was able to serve as a DH during his rehab in 2019, though it clearly affected his ability to hit for power. 2020 was supposed to be his triumphant return to the mound, but it ended almost as soon as it began with a flexor strain in his forearm that took over two months to heal. Acting with an overabundance of understandable caution, the Halos shut him down completely. He’s looked pretty healthy thus far in his return to the mound in spring training, striking out 17 in 10 innings pitched. He’s also pounded out 5 dingers from the offensive side of the plate, so all eyes will be on him Sunday night to see if it’s the real deal.

As always with the Angels, however, it’s all about Mike Trout. While he’s had some competition from Mookie Betts recently for the title of Best In The World, he still hasn’t lost it yet. While having a down year (for him) in 2020, he still managed to post a 162 wRC+ rating and a 2.5 WAR season. Having Anthony Rendon and a healthy Ohtani around him should only offer more protection and opportunities to drive in runs, and the White Sox staff will be well aware of his presence in the lineup I’m sure.

As for the Sox, prized prospect Andrew Vaughn had his contract selected by the team yesterday so there will be no service time shenanigans with him. With the loss of Eloy, Vaughn is expected to see time in left field, which will basically involve him standing out there and watching Luis Robert run down anything that isn’t directly on the LF foul line. Vaughn will also fill in at DH, so we will finally get to see how those plus hit tools hold up against legit MLB pitching. He’ll be watching opening day from the bench, however, as Leury Garcia will be manning LF for game 1 against Bundy. Vaughn most likely will get a crack and Andrew Heaney on Friday night, realistically a much better matchup for his first game as a pro.

Luis Robert still has questions to answer about what version of himself was the real one last year. Was it the July and August Luis with the wRC+ of 157? Or was it the September version of himself that slashed .136/.237/.309 with one home run and a 34% strikeout rate? The athletic ability and the hit tools are all there for Luis to be the better version of himself, he just has to get better at working pitchers over to make sure he gets something he can pound. Personally, I fully expect him to rebound back to what he was at the beginning of last season and be hitting in the top half of the batting order. I have no advanced stats to back up my assertation, but hopefully I can tell you all “I told you so” in September.

The road to the playoffs for the White Sox starts tonight in Anaheim. Most betting outlets set the Over/Under for the Sox win total around 91. Were that to be the case, it would most likely be enough for the Sox to win the AL central, squeaking it out by a game or two over the Twins. Personally I feel like the 87-89 win range is more likely, setting up a showdown with Minnesota and quite possibly Cleveland as well (who’s pitching is nothing to be sneezed at and pretty much owned the Sox last season). So much hinges on the Sox not only being able to stay healthy (because of the zero depth), but Dylan Cease and Carlos Rodon being able to rebound from last September. There’s a lot that has to go right for this team, but if it does….look out. It’s been 6 long months with only the dark of winter to keep us company, but now the sun is shining out and the Sox take the field tonight. Hope shines eternal, LFG.

Let’s Go Sox

Hockey

Galaxy Brain Games – Hawks Lose Both To Preds 3-1, 3-2

By Andy Jonathan 1298

BOX SCORES

Game 1 / Game 2

Natural Stat Trick

Game 1 / Game 2 

 

I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Nah, fuck that. I’m pretty mad too. With the Hawks early playoff points cushion all but erased by the butthole puckeringly difficult month of March, what was once just another series on the calendar suddenly took on a whole new level of importance to the team’s playoff future. During the coaching tenure of Jeremy Colliton, any time there came a game that took on an extra level of importance the Hawks routinely biffed the landing, typically not only losing that game but the next few following it. Would this series against the Preds be any different?

NOPE.

The Hawks, despite the triumphant early return of Kirby Dach (fresh off his broken wrist back in December at the World Juniors) managed to shit all over themselves this series with backbreaking turnovers and some fluky goals by the Preds. The Hawks complete inability to solve the heavy pressure of the Preds forecheck led directly to 4 of the 6 goals surrendered by the Hawks.  Instead of making adjustments as McClure mentioned on Sunday night, the Hawks just continued to try the same shitty breakout of their own end with absolutely predictable results. If it were not for Alex DeBrincat deciding “Fuck it, I’ll do it myself,” the Hawks very easily could have scored a single goal in both games.

Nashville now sits tied with the Hawks for the last playoff spot in the division, with the Jackets nipping at their heels 3 points out. While the Hawks still have 5 more games against the Preds to undo this mess, I don’t hold out a whole lot of hope that happening after watching just how easily Nashville dismantled them in the 4 meetings thus far.

 

Numbers Don’t Lie

 

-If the Hawks ultimate goal for Calvin deHaan is to have him playing well enough that the Seattle Kraken decide to snag him in the expansion draft, Stan Bowman needs to find every video copy of this series and destroy it. He had an absolutely miserable time, directly contributing to 3 of the Preds goals and assisting on another one. Granted not all of this is entirely his fault, as the defensive “system” the Hawks play can’t entirely be quantified by any known metric, but he certainly didn’t do himself any favors. On the first Preds goal Saturday night (video here), deHaan has decided to go on walkabout, inexplicably choosingto go pressure Eeli Tolvanen along the half boards, leaving Adam Boqvist to pick his poison between Viktor Arvidsson and Ryan Johansen. He choose poorly, and Johansen had a clean shot at the top shelf. On the third goal (video here), deHaan intercepts a pass and instead of playing it up the boards, he tries to fire a pass up the middle that’s immediately tipped then picked off. One pass to Granlund later it’s 3-1 Preds and the game is over.

-David Kampf didn’t cover himself in glory either (video here). He did the same thing deHaan did on the 2nd Preds goal, snagging an errant pass and without a single Nashville forechecker within 5 feet of him, he tries a home run pass up the middle that’s picked off by Rocco Grimaldi and ripped top shelf on Kevin Lankinen. All of these turnovers born of the fact that the Hawks had no plan or answer for the forecheck of Nashville. Panicky plays like this are made when there’s no structure for a zone exit and the defenders have less and less time each play.

-If the lack of adjustments weren’t damning enough, Colliton proved just what a Brain Genius he was by not calling a timeout with :46 seconds left in the 2nd game and the team with the goalie pulled and a draw in the Preds zone. No, he saved that timeout until there was .7 seconds left in the game so he could draw up his grand plan to win the draw and fire in the game tying goal in less time than it takes for a hummingbird to fart. BRILLANT.

-Malcom Subban had a pretty solid game, as only one of the three Nashville goals went in off the blade of a stick. The first was a bank shot off of (who else) Calvin deHaan’s skate after the Hawks D was pressured by the Preds forecheck (seeing a pattern here?) after a misplayed puck by Subban and then promptly losing a board battle. The 2nd was kicked in by the skate of (YOU’LL NEVER GUESS) deHaan after a shot from the dot by Jarnkrok snuck through about 3 people and in. He definitely played well enough to win, but so it goes.

-Kevin Lankinen, while not the victim of the bad luck of Subban, was the victim of his own defense. He really didn’t have a prayer on any of the 3 Nashville goals, as two of them were absolute snipes top shelf, and the other was a tap in after more terrible D in front of him. He actually kept the Hawks in the game a lot longer than he should have, making some excellent saves on some in close chances from the Preds after (DRUM ROLL) turnovers behind him due to forecheck pressure.

-Kirby Dach seems pretty healthy as within 5 minutes of his return he danced through 2 Nashville defenders for a pretty sweet chance that he was unable to put home. He also made a backbreaking turnover that lead directly to a Preds goal, so take all this with a grain of salt. He’ll get better once the rust shakes off.

-Alex DeBrincat was unstoppable in game 2, putting the whole offense on his back and tying the game single handedly with a Herculean effort. The 2nd goal was particularly awesome, as he lowered his shoulder from the blue line in and muscled past Fabbro like he was made of crepe paper, then deked Pekka Rinne down and out to tie the game at two. Top Cat really is a pleasure to watch, and he’s put the struggles of last year deep in the rearview mirror.

-Nashville has now won 7 of their last 8 games to come roaring back into the playoff race after being left for dead at the end of the first week of March. While none of us believe that this is entirely sustainable, it’s nevertheless an issue for the Hawks as they’re being pressured from pretty much everyone but the Red Wings now.

-March ends for the Hawks this week with two more games Our Sweet Boy Teuvo and the Canes, before another game against the Preds. Things aren’t gonna get any easier, and when you’re fighting not only the other team but your own system as well, it can feel like you’re trying to skate uphill. Every game now takes on added pressure, and the Hawks under Colliton have routinely puked all over themselves in games like those. If they’re gonna flip the script, taking two out of the next 3 is almost a must do.

Let’s Go Hawks

 

Baseball

FUCK – Eloy Tears Pec, Out 5-6 Months

By Andy Jonathan 841

Who possibly could’ve seen this coming?

 

In back to back off-seasons, the White Sox had multiple chances to bolster their outfield depth with quality options. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, they instead decided to keep the purse strings closed and settled for the decaying shell of Adam Eaton. Today, that cheapfuckery bit them straight in the taint.

In an absolutely meaningless spring training game a week before the season started, Eloy Jimenez attempted to “rob” a home run that was 20 feet past the wall. He got his armpit hung up on the top of the fence, and the entire weight of his beautiful frame yanked down on the joint, rupturing his pectoral tendon and putting him on the shelf for 5 to 6 months at a minimum. This comes after Adam Engel tweaked his hamstring two days earlier, putting him on the shelf for a few weeks as well.

Just like that, whatever Rick Hahn and Jerry Reinsdorf wanted to consider “depth” in the outfield went up in smoke. Now they’re left to patch together a functioning outfield with a week to go before the season begins, which sucks. What sucks harder is this didn’t have to be this way, yet the Sox refuse to get out of their own way when it comes to spending money. Even their lone decent free agent signing this year, Liam Hendriks, had his contract structured like a fucking payday loan to make sure Jerry wasn’t paying out too much at any given time. So now the Sox are left with few options, none of which are any good.

So where do they go from here?

 

The Internal Options

Leury Garcia

2021 ZiPS Projections: .267/.301/.688 10 HR 45 RBI 86 wRC+

I went with ZiPS here, because they were much more bullish on his projected stats than some of the others. Leury’s reputation as the Swiss Army Knife of the White Sox defense pretty much moves him to the top of the list as most realistic internal replacements for Rick Hahn. He’s a quality switch hitter with a decent arm and a career -5 DRS to his name when he’s playing in the outfield. Not bad, right? The bad thing is that he has trouble staying on the field as well, missing half the (admittedly shortened) season last year when he fucked up his hand. in 2019 he played 140 games, by far and away the most in his career with the previous watermark being 87.

Andrew Vaughn

2021 ZiPS Projections: .235/.311/.685 13 HR 54 RBI 84 wRC+

With Rick Hahn already stating that Vaughn will be playing in LF for the remainder of the spring training games, we’ve reached the point where the Sox are asking a kid who has never played above Single A ball to now start in the majors and move to a position he’s never played before. If he’s even remotely successful after all of this, he better be winning the fucking Rookie of the Year award. After that, he can tell Rick Hahn to shove his extension up his ass because nobody in their right mind would piss away their arbitration years at a discount after bailing out this cheap ass team.

Adam Engel

2021 ZiPS Projections: .227/.276/.618 11 HR 41 RBI 41 wRC+ (YIKES)

This option may or may not be available when the calendar flips to May, so take this with a mound of salt. Personally, I think ZiPS is a little on the low side for Engel here, but him playing everyday against righties instead of platooning with Eaton could end up bringing these projections a little closer to reality. Engel is at least a plus defender in the field, so that would help Luis Robert not turn into a pile of ash by August.

Billy Hamilton

2021 ZiPS Projections: .227/.283/.594 3 HR 20 RBI 30 wRC+

LOL NOPE. If Hamilton is starting more than 2 times a month for this team, the Sox are in bigger trouble than we ever knew.

 

EXTERNAL OPTIONS

Josh Reddick

2021 ZiPS Projections: .261/.319/.707 11 HR 49 RBI 89 wRC+

Probably the most realistic remaining free agent on the market, Reddick saw his tenure with the Astros come to an end this past off-season. A career .263 hitter, Reddick would be another left handed bat in the lineup. With better splits against LHP than Eaton, he wouldn’t hurt the team at the plate either. He’s only 3 years removed from his 127 wRC+ (though how much of that was trash can based we can only guess), and plays slightly below average defense in the OF. At this point, he wouldn’t cost much and probably wouldn’t kill himself out there either.

Yoenis Cespedes 

2021 ZiPS Projections: .227/.289/.723 12 HR 39 RBI 87 wRC+

Cespedes will probably be the most talked about potential add for the Sox, mostly because they just inked his step-brother to a minor league contract during this past international signing period. Cespedes hasn’t played anything resembling a full season since 2016, and hasn’t taken the field since the first week of July last year as he opted out of the COVID schedule. The power is enticing, as is the arm, but he’s basically what Eloy will turn into in 10 years so this is a giant risk.

Mitch Haniger

2021 ZiPS Projections: .253/.335/.799 18 HR 57 RBI 113 wRC+

This one is a long shot, but if the Sox wanted to swing a trade that wouldn’t just be papering over the issue for a single season, Haniger would be the guy I’d look at. Granted, so much of this is based on Seattle’s willingness to part with him (and if he’s recovered from his exploding testicle) but there isn’t much I wouldn’t be willing to part with outside of Andrew Vaughn. Would they bite on a package of Garrett Crochet or Michael Kopech? You’d think they’d at least have to consider it. Haniger is only 30, so you’d still have good years left in him. Unfortunately when you cheap out like the Sox did, you have to give up something else down the road, and Kopech or Crochet could be that price. Guess we’ll see.

 

Hockey

Spring Breaking – Panthers @ Hawks, Games 33-34

By Andy Jonathan 1081

VS

 

Records: Panthers 20-7-4 (44) Hawks 14-13-5 (33)

Puck Drops: 7:00 Both Nights (Tue/Thur)

TV/Radio: NBCSN and WGN 720

You Sure Do Got A Purdy Mouth, Boy: Litter Box Cats

 

Not much has changed for these two teams in the week that’s passed since they last met, other than the Panthers racking up 2 more points and the Hawks attempting to divide by zero. The Swamp Cats split with the Preds, and then lost a one shot against Tampa Bay on Sunday, giving up 3 goals in the 3rd when they’d had them on the ropes in the first two periods. The loss Sunday puts the Panthers 4 points behind the Bolts in the division, back with Carolina.

Sergi Bobrovsky was in net for both losses, as he continues his streak of uneven play. The win came on the shoulders of a 2-0 Chris Driedger shutout of Nashville, which while admittedly not a difficult thing to do, is still more than Bob has been able to accomplish of late. While the numbers between the two tenders continue to drift further apart, Coach Q still seems reluctant to turn the reigns over fully to Driedger, content to let Bob work things out on his own.

On the forward end of things, after I wrote about Aleksander Barkov last week, he proceeded to drop 9 points in 5 games, so at least for once it seems like I knew what I was talking about. 6 of those points came against the Hawks, who seemed completely unwilling or unable to do anything at all to slow him down in the slot, and he absolutely did not miss his chances.

The line centered by Barkov continues to be an unholy terror since Q added what apparently was the missing link in Carter Verhaeghe. The trio of Barkov, Verhaeghe and Anthony Duclair has been carrying the play at even strength at over a 63% clip. Add in a total of 19 points over the last 5 starts and you can see why Q is a fan. The speed and creativity that Barkov possesses compliments the North/South games of Duclair and Verhaeghe. Once they’re in your zone, they’re extremely hard to remove, especially when they’re backed up by Mackenzie Weegar and Aaron Ekblad on the blue line.

As for the Hawks, they continue to get beat down by the March schedule, dropping both games in Tampa last week. They couldn’t solve Andrei Vasilevskiy, and much as they’ve done all season the Bolts capitalized on every mistake the Hawks D made. Both Kevin Lankinen and Malcom Subban were given the chance to right the ship, but neither were able to do so, both being aided and abetted by the D in front of them. That brings the March record to an unsightly 2-6-1, and into a standings tie with Columbus, who’s managed to take 2 in a row from Carolina in the last week.

The reason behind the points drought is more of the same, as the Hawks are unable to carry the play for any extended length of time at 5 on 5 (with the 1st two periods last Saturday being the exception, more on that in a bit). When the power play suddenly runs dry and the goaltending has regressed to the mean this is what you get. We’ve spoken at great lengths about where the deficiencies lie with this Hawks team, and with Kevin Lankinen no longer able to paper over the possession issues things become even more glaring in the light of day.

As grim as it seems now, the Hawks are almost out of this Hell Month, and critical games against the Jackets, Stars and Preds await on the other side. We’ve reached the spot in the season where pretty much every point is desperately needed by the Hawks. They’ve allowed their lead to slip to the point where there’s no more margin for error at all, and for a young team like this we will really get to see what they’re made of. There’s definitely a spark there that shows at times what this team could really be.

There was a period in the game against Tampa this past Saturday when the Hawks looked like the possession monsters of old. The advanced stats bear this out, as in the 1st period the Hawks topped the CORSI list with a 58% share, and then went hog wild in the 2nd with a 69.57%. Sadly, Vasilevskiy was up to the task, and the Hawks entered the 3rd down 3-0. It’s something we haven’t seen since the 2nd game in the 1st series against the Jackets where the Hawks ended up with almost a 59% share for the entire game.

There have been flashes this season of the Hawks being able to carry the play for extended periods of time against higher quality teams like Carolina and Tampa. They key here is doing it on the regular against all of them. If a majority of the beat writers are correct, and this young team truly is “buying in” to what Colliton is selling then they’re going to have to show it now. Florida is a solid team from the blue line out, but Bobrovsky has been mediocre at best. If the Hawks can keep the play in their end at all, he’s ripe for the picking. We know that the Hawks D is paper thin, so the forwards absolutely have to convert when they get the chances. Time is running out, show us what you got.

 

Let’s Go Hawks

 

Hockey

Everything’s Going South – Hawks @ Lightning, Games 30-31

By Andy Jonathan 995

 VS

 

Records: Hawks 14-11-5 (33) Lightning 20-6-2 (42)

Puck Drops: Thursday 6:00 / Saturday 3:00

TV/Radio: NBCSN and WGN 720

Tom Brady’s Minions: Raw Charge

 

Hoo boy, here we go again.

The last time these teams met up over a week ago, things went fairly positively for the Hawks with them going 1-1-1 in the 3 game series. The last game on the 7th, however, saw the Hawks cough up a 3 goal lead en route to losing 6-3. Since the middle of February, coughing up leads has become a shitty new trend for them as they once again jumped out to a 3-1 lead against the Panthers last game and proceeded to implode defensively again en route to yet another 6-3 loss. As Summer pointed out in her recap, the Hawks since the beginning of February have been unable to hold multi-goal leads in 7 of 9 games where they’ve had them. That, as the kids like to say, is “not good.”

The clown show that March has been is unlikely to get any better over the next week, as not a whole lot has changed with the Lightning since the Hawks last faced them. They dropped a game each against the dregs of the division in the Red Wings and Predators. The common thread in both those losses is that Andrei Vasilevskiy was not in the cage for either of them. In fact, Vasilevskiy hasn’t lost a game in almost a month, as his last L came on February 20th against the Canes. His backup, however, has not fared nearly as well. Curtis McElhinney has managed to go 2-3 in the same time frame, averaging more than 1.5 more goals against than Vasilevskiy does, with a considerably worse save percentage.

Despite the difference in netminder quality, Tampa head coach and professional hedonist John Cooper continues to split playing time between the two at about a 60-40% rate. Mostly because Cooper is smart enough to know that the talent level on his squad is more than enough to make up for any deficiencies in net, and it’s far more important to keep Vasilevskiy rested and healthy as they inevitably roll towards the playoffs.

Offensively, the Lightning don’t have many weak spots up and down their lineup, either from the forwards or their defensive corps. As McClure mentioned in his preview recently, the Bolts are tops in the league in goal differential which when paired with a nails penalty kill and a top 3rd power play usually results in some easy wins. Some of those stats have dipped a bit in recent weeks, but there’s no reason to think that it’s anything more than a blip on the radar as they haven’t lost anyone to injury, and Vasilevskiy is still the bees knees.

As for our Men of the Four Feathers, March has gone pretty much the way we assumed it would points-wise. I just didn’t think it would come with such spectacular meltdowns. A huge issue with the Hawks being unable to hold leads has been the fact that the special teams well has completely dried up. If you take away the 2 power play goals scored in the win at Dallas, the Hawks have gone 0 for 13 on the man advantage and managed to give up two shorthanded goals. On the other side of that coin is the penalty kill has been completely exposed in March. Much of that is the fact that they’re playing teams that have competent power plays, but the stupid penalties like the one Duncan Keith took in the last game against Florida are particularly back breaking.

Another major concern for the Hawks is Kevin Lankinen has come crashing back to earth in net. Over his last 5 starts he’s given up an average of almost 4 goals per game (19 total), and his save percentage over those games is below .900. Rebound control has become an issue, especially since the Hawks D is unwilling or unable to clear bodies away in front of him. Malcom Subban hasn’t fared any better, and with these next stretch of games becoming uber critical points-wise I wouldn’t expect to see him until the Preds series.

Offensively, the Hawks continue to get waxed night in and night out with possession metrics. They haven’t won the CORSI battle since their overtime win against the Lightning, and continue to average around a 42% share each game. When Lankinen and the power play were humming along in February and early March, the Hawks were able to paper over their inability to score at even strength. Now, however, with all of their flaws laid bare it’s becoming apparent that they’re just a tier below the Canes, Bolts and Panthers.

The majority of the Hawks even strength scoring has come on odd man rushes and not as the result of extensive offensive zone time. More often than not, their forays into the opposing team’s zone ends up being a one and done affair. Until the Hawks are able to set up shop in the opponent’s end for extended periods of time, they’re not going to be able to rack up any offense unless they start shooting at a 50% clip.

While this all seems very grim for the Hawks (and it pretty much is), they’ve shown that they can hang with teams like Tampa before. The 1st period in their last game against them where they jumped out to a 3-1 lead is proof that when things are clicking for the power play, the Hawks can play with anyone. We’ve seen flashes of what some of these kids can do, now it just needs to become more consistent. You have to figure Cooper will probably give McElhinney a start, so the Hawks pretty much have to at least get to OT in that one. Points have been hard to come by this month, and with the Preds being the only shitty team they’ll face the rest of March they absolutely have to secure every one possible. Get it done.

 

Let’s Go Hawks

Hockey

Miami Vice – Hawks @ Panthers, Games 29 & 30

By Andy Jonathan 1326

VS

 

Records: Hawks 14-9-5 / Panthers 17-5-4

Puck Drops: Saturday and Monday 6:00 PM

TV/Radio: NBCSN and WGN 720

Swamp People: Litter Box Cats

 

OLD FRIEND ALERT: The Hawks travel to the tip of America’s Penis to take on the Joel Quennville-led Florida Panthers over the weekend. The last time the Hawks ventured this far south during the season opening road trip the Panthers dong whipped them up and down the ice, dropping 10 goals on them in the two games they played. Since that time, the Swamp Cats have been one of the more consistent teams in the league despite getting lower than average goaltending out of their high priced free agent, Sergei Bobrovski.

While Bob has played much better of late, winning his last four starts has only brought his save percentage up to a cool .903 to prop up his 3+ GAA. He’s also been splitting way more starts than the front office of the Panthers probably would’ve liked, only starting 2 more games than his “backup” Chris Driedger (.920 sv/2.44 GAA).

This blip in Bob’s goaltending stats hasn’t prevented the Cats from racking up the points, however. The Panthers as a team average the most shots per game in the entire NHL, and as a whole are shooting an even 10%. They also have a fairly deadly power play unit (though not currently as deadly as the Hawks), scoring just over 26% of the time, which does not bode well for our men of the four feathers.

The majority of the Panthers offense flows through Jonathan Huberdeau, who leads the team with 32 points (which puts him 7th in the league, 4 spots behind Kane’s 40). Huberdeau is a monster at controlling the puck at both even strength and the power play, averaging a 56% CORSI for this season while keeping the ice tilted in the Panthers favor. He also racks up the points on the power play, and kills penalties. So he’s…kinda good.

After Huberdeau comes another possession beast the Hawks D will have to worry about in Aleksander Barkov. Drafted 2nd overall by the Cats in 2013, Barkov has lived up to the hype despite playing on some absolutely dogshit teams the past 8 years. A big boy at 6-3″ 220, Barkov has the legs and wingspan to create space in the opposing zone, as well as the finesse to finish off his shots. Much like Jonathan Toews, he was expected to do everything at the beginning of his career. From running the power play, to killing penalties and taking defensive zone draws. Now that the Panthers have a more well rounded forward corps, he’s been used more appropriately as a purely offensive weapon. The switch paid off handsomely, as in 2019 he topped his previous career high in points by almost 20 with 96. He’s found a quality running mate on his line with Carter Verhaeghe, who’s potted 9 thus far with Barkov centering him.

On the back end Keith Yandle is still here. He’s had a minor resurgence this season offensively with 17 points to his credit, but has been less than stellar on the defensive end. This is probably why Coach Q has him start almost 70% of his shifts in the offensive zone. In addition to Yandle’s points, the Panth have been getting excellent production out of Aaron Ekblad thus far this season, and that’s with him picking up the slack of Yandle’s offensive zone starts. In addition (just because you knew Coach Q had to have THAT ELEMENT on the team), professional asshat Radko Gudas is here, taking runs at people and generally being a boil on the taint of hockey.

For our Men of the Four Feathers, they come off a split series against the Stars that saw them get completely owned on every spot on the stat sheet except the one that counted in the 2nd game. Managing to score 4 goals of 8 shots in 2 periods isn’t something that you want to depend on going forward. The powerplay seems to have come back to earth a little bit, though they were able to notch a goal in the second game against Dallas with a nifty shot by Top Cat combined with a quality screen by Carl Soderberg.

Not much in the way of lineup changes in this series, though I would most likely expect Kevin Lankinen to get both the starts as Malcom Subban looked urpy again in his last game. The Hawks still haven’t found a way to get consistent pressure on the opposing team during 5 on 5 hockey, so they’re going to have to rely on their transition game more than any team probably should. Good thing Domanik Kubalik (who’s very very good at this) only gets about 12 minutes a night. If the Hawks can get any traffic in front of Bobrovsky they’ll have a decent chance at putting a few past him. He’s been playing better, but not THAT better. Overall, they need to stay out of the box since the penalty kill has melted from a mountain of ice down to the dirty ass snow puddles left in the gutters.

If the Hawks want to keep their grip on the #4 playoff seed strong, they’re going to need a point or two out of this series. The Panthers are good, but I still think they’re a shade below the Lightning and Hurricanes. The goals are there if the Hawks can get enough pressure. 2 is nice, but 4 is preferable.

Let’s Go Hawks