Baseball

Series Wrap – Sox Sweep Tigers: Shenanigans Edition!

By Andy Jonathan 1534 0

Holy shit, what a weird-ass series.  Night one featured some weapons grade wackiness, and one call that I’ve never seen before in MLB. Night two never happened because it fucking snowed the last Saturday in April, and Sunday featured the White Sox setting a team record for Ks in a game.  There’s a lot to unpack, especially with only two games to talk about.

TO THE BULLETS

– Carlos Rodon had a night he probably wants to have Total Recalled from his memory.  Everything he threw was barreled up hard by the Tigers, and quite a few of them left the yard.  After his previous two performances I’m willing to chalk this one up to just not having it, but he’s yet to make it through the 7th inning and that’s mildly concerning.

– Jose Abreu had a memorable night for multiple reasons, first of which was that he poked a dinger over the left-center field fence, but was too busy watching the flight of the ball to notice that Tim Anderson was also watching the flight of the ball and preparing to tag up from first base.  So nobody was watching anybody since Mr Boston missed Jose chugging down the line, inadvertently passing Timmy at first base and getting not only Anderson out, but having his HR turned into the weirdest single in Sox history. This also cost the Sox at least one run, which the Tigers managed to scrape back immediately the next inning.  That was all right because it set the stage for…

-TIM ANDERSON’S BAT FLIPPING, GAME WINNING EXTRAVAGANZA.  Seriously, I’m falling in love with this guy. I hope he starts throwing the bat farther and farther every dinger until he knocks out a kid up on the Skillz Deck.  He’s the kind of guy the Sox have been missing since Sale left; the type of player who people buy tickets to see.  Butts in seats, baby.

-The night was not all roses and cherry bombs (T-T-T-TIMMY BOMBZ!  Sorry Sam).  Unfortunately, Eloy Jimenez managed to sprain his ankle trying to rob the 5th HR given up by Rodon that night.  Honestly, he was about two miles away from even touching the ball, so it was kind of a useless gesture.  It was later diagnosed as a high ankle sprain, so we will see just how long Young Skywalker will be out of action, but were I to guess I’m thinking its gonna be June-ish

– Game 2 was fucking SNOWED OUT.  Seriously, spring can bite my ass.

-Game 3 was all about the Lopez four-seamer.  The Kid had all of his pitches working today, but none more so than the 4 seamer.  He threw it 69 times today (NICE), and used it as his punch out pitch on 13 of the 14 Ks he had.  This might be the best I’ve ever seen him throw the ball, and he’s improved on every start this season.  Once he realized home plate umpire Tony Randazzo was going to give him the outside corner, he was spotting his pitches right on the edge of the black all game long.  His last strikeout happened on the 104th pitch, and he touched 96 with it.  The Sox rotation needed a start like this, especially after DFA’ing Ervin Santana a few days earlier.

–Alex Colome worked the 9th in both games and came away with a win and a save.  Can’t complain about that trade at all, as he’s come as advertised.
-Jose Abreu seems to be shaking off his slump nicely, as he went 6 for 8 with 5 RBIs (should’ve been 7).  Now if we only had a league average OF to talk about this team might be sniffing .500

-The Sox now stand at 11-14, with 2 more games against the Orioles due up.  Don’t stop now, boys!

Baseball

Series Preview – White Sox vs. Orioles: Into The Pit Of Despair

By Sam Fels 1785 0

vs.

RECORDS: White Sox 8-12   Orioles 8-15

GAMETIMES: Monday-Wednesday at 6:05

TV: WGN Monday, NBCSN Tuesday and Wednesday

CHARM CITY COLLECTIVE: Camden Chat

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Manny Benuelos vs. David Hess

Ivan Nova vs. Andrew Cashner

Ervin Santana vs. TBA

PROBABLE SOX LINEUP

Leury Garcia – CF

Yoan Moncada – 3B

Jose Abreu – 1B

Yonder Alonso – DH

Tim Anderson – SS

Nicky Delmonico – LF

James McCann – C

Yolmer Sanchez – 2B

Ryan Cordell – RF

(Note: This is tonight’s lineup, Eloy is just on the bereavement list. Calm down so you don’t end up being the one bereaved)

PROBABLE ORIOLES LINEUP

Joey Rickard – CF

Jonathan Villar – 2B

Trey Mancini – RF

Renato Nunez – DH

Hanser Alberto – 3B

Stevie Wilkerson – LF

Rio Ruiz – 1B

Pedro Severino – C

Richie Martin – SS

 

If you need to feel better about the Sox position in the baseball world, boy are the next three days for you. They’ll head into the pit of humidity and hoplessness that is Baltimore in the summer for three games, where the Orioles are buys diving headfirst into one of the worst teams in recent memory.

The lead story for the Sox is tonight, where Manny Banuelos will take Lucas Giolito‘s start while he’s on the shelf. There was a time when Banuelos was an untouchable in the Yankees organization, even though he was repeatedly asked for in whatever deadline deal they were making that year. Sadly for Manny, that was like eight years ago. Manuelos had the same problem a lot of pitching prospects have, in that his elbow went kablooey in 2013, and since then he has struggled to carve out a role and health in New York, Atlanta, and now the Southside. He was able to win a relief role out of Arizona, but walks have been a problem which is not something the Sox need more of now. Still, it’s been a long road and at 28 and making his first start in the majors you can’t help but root for a guy like that.

Elsewhere, Eloy Jimenez is on the bereavement list and will be missing for a few days. In his stead the Sox have called up the very handsome and very useless Nicky Delmonico. Your complaints about Eloy’s early-season will evaporate quickly.

Then again, the Sox shouldn’t need much other than to keep intaking oxygen to win this series, as the Orioles are indeed an unfortunate organization. This was a team bent to the incomprehensible and incalculable will of Peter Angelos for too long, taking a couple of goofed playoff appearances for too much and never building a foundation. They never got on base, they never pitched particularly well, and yet thanks to their home ballpark being able to disengage gravity most nights were able to homer their way to over 90 wins a few times. That and Zach Britton one year.

We could go through their lineup and rotation, but you’ve never heard of most of these guys and it’ll probably stay that way. You’ve definitely heard about Chris Davis struggling to breathe at the plate, and he was bad four years ago. The only player in the lineup who might, might matter is Rio Ruiz at third, and he looked like he stalled out at AAA for the Braves last year.

Whatever grouping of otters running a human suit designed as Andrew Cashner is in the rotation, and that should tell you everything. Seven players have attempted to start a game for the Os this year, including Dan Straily and Alex Cobb, two players I was sure had moved on to being gym teachers in the south. The only starter who hasn’t been pop rocks in soda has been John Means, and he’s an opener. Let’s not even get to the pen. It’s just that bad.

But hey, it isn’t May yet. So the humidity won’t be suicide-inducing. The baseball might be.

 

Everything Else

They Want to Look at Etchings

By Rose Rankin 1593 0

By now you all know about the stir caused by Tim Anderson’s emphatic bat flip following a home run against the Royals, and how he was summarily drilled by a pitch in retaliation, which led to the benches clearing and general consternation over the fact that celebrating in baseball is such a hot-button issue that a gesture after the game’s most heralded outcome of an at-bat results in dangerous physical retribution.

A lot of people have rightly observed the stupidity of baseball’s general anti-celebration stance and pointed out it’s sometimes driven by the players themselves, not just crusty league management guys and shitheads like Joe West. But we need to remember that baseball isn’t the only Buzz Killington in the sports world, when in reality there’s a depressingly large number of them.

Take hockey. Mark Lazarus tweeted yesterday about how pretty much every goal in hockey is celebrated with leaps into the glass and music and hugs, and that’s of course true—the visceral release after a goal is one of hockey’s most endearing qualities. But let’s not forget the opprobrium heaped on the Carolina Hurricanes earlier this year by established voices in the hockey world.

Of course the most obvious of these was Don Cherry. First, the fact that Don Cherry even has a job yelling into the TV when he should be yelling at traffic somewhere is absurd, but then throw in how stupid his beef with the ‘Canes was and it’s truly something to behold. The horror! A team whose job it is to physically move together in sync decided to do a different type of movement together in sync that also happened to be clever and entertaining—whatever shall we do? The NHL was rightly criticized for emphasizing faceless monotony among players as the standard of behavior, and the fact that the celebrations even caused a fuss was pretty damn sad. It threw into clear relief how much entertainment could really be getting lost because of outdated norms of behavior.

Remember when football pulled a similar stunt? Not only is excessive celebration still a thing, but it wasn’t all that long ago that group celebrations were banned outright (really, it was 2017 when they lightened up about it). There was a time when a cell phone incorporated into a touchdown celebration led to a penalty. And think of how much more fun it is now that teams can do Motown routines and conduct an orchestra?

Basketball has been better about accommodating personality in its players and acceptance of those players celebrating what they do on the court. But the NBA is basically the exception, not the rule in major American sports in this sense.

Why do leagues hate fun so much? Or, why do they tolerate certain types of fun but not others? It seems like an extension of the behavior that makes team sports function, i.e., subsuming the individual to work together in a complementary way as a whole. When someone breaks out of that systems they run the risk of upsetting the functioning of multiple personalities together, by leading to one person not playing their role or not executing on their tasks. So I guess it’s not all that surprising that even some of the athletes within these systems would want to reinforce the behavior that is fundamental to overall success.

But it’s doubtful that this contradiction is going away, and both the management of the leagues, in all of their incestuousness in terms of the same coaches/GMs/former players that borders on that of the Lannisters or Targareyns, and current players will need to recognize it. The celebrity nature of athletes isn’t going away either, certainly not in our culture right now, so the behaviors that heighten the entertainment factor and play upon the existence of outsize personalities might as well be embraced. It’s not that every player has to act that way or celebrate wildly, but for those who do, at the end of the day sports are entertainment and that’s what this is all about. The drama of competition, and the collective experience of being a fan with countless others focused on a shared goal are part of it too, but the theatrics can’t be discounted. It’s why the amazing feats that athletes can pull off—which us normies can’t even really understand how different that capability is—are cheered by spectators in the first place.

Someone should remind the rich white guys who run these leagues that they can get even richer by allowing those theatrics, and players who may resent it need to examine why they’re so mad anyway. Let’s all agree so we can stop the teeth-gnashing every time something funny or entertaining happens and all the Buzz Killingtons come out of the woodwork.

Baseball

Luis Robert and The Importance of Impatience

By Adam Hess 1516 0

There have been so few things to get truly excited about with the White Sox so far this season that trying to figure out which one of them is the most exciting is kind of like a weird version of a positive Sophie’s Choice. In order to identify or work yourself up about any one of them almost feels like you’re ignoring or discounting the rest of them as not good. At the big league level there has been the dominance of Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson coupled with Eloy Jimenez‘s encouraging start, but other that the big club offers nothing but disappointment. Plenty of the prospects are off to good starts, with Dylan Cease making a case to be in the Bigs by May, but for the me the biggest Sox story going right now is the pure dominance of Luis Robert in Winston-Salem (A+).

It’s not exactly surprising that Robert is playing well in A+ ball, because he’s probably among the most physically imposing players at the level and almost certainly the most athletic player. At 6’3″ and 185 with 70 grade speed, Robert would probably fit in just as well on a football field as he does on the baseball field, if not better. And while MLB Pipeline rates his hit and power tools at 50 and 55 respectively, he’s easily creeping more toward 60 grades on both.

In a perfect world, had Robert not dealt with and missed significant time due to injuries last year, he probably would’ve been in AA to start this year with optimism on him being in Chicago come August or September. There were some scouts who said Robert would be MLB ready by 2019, and Sox fans certainly hoped as much as well. While that hasn’t worked out, it’s pretty clear that he won’t be in North Carolina much longer, as keeping him away from Birmingham longer than Memorial Day would just be negligent to his development.

Through ten games now in Winston-Salem, Robert is slashing an eye popping .477/.521/.977, and before a two single game on Monday night that slugging percentage had been four digits. So far 10 of his 21 hits have been for extra bases, and half of those have been dingers, with a few of the monster variety. There may be valid arguments for letting Robert spend a bit more time in Carolina, but I have yet to hear a convincing one. He’s reached the point already where he is clearly not being challenged by what A+ pitchers have to offer.

A move to Birmingham and the challenges of AA baseball would prove to be the ultimate test for Robert’s offensive prowess. Regions Field is one of the most brutal to play in, especially for a power hitter given the deep outfield. And given that AA ball is full of pitchers who can pump 97+ MPH heat but lack control, which is almost definitely harder to hit than pitchers who pound the zone, if Robert can continue his torrid pace there, any doubt there may be about his sky-high ceiling would be removed.

That’s not to say that the Sox should be in any rush to get Robert to the majors. If he were to get to Birmingham and struggle, they would be smart to slow play that process and let him continue to develop there, but that would still be better for his development than just continuing to mash pitching in A+ when pitchers are clearly overmatched by him at that level.

But if Robert gets to AA and continues to rake, there is no reason for the Sox to even thinking about the brakes on his development. Given the quality of talent – or more accurately, the lack thereof – that they’ve been trotting out to center field this year, getting Robert out there would be a major upgrade both talent wise and from a watchability standpoint. And with the Sox having targeted 2020 as a potential contention year, getting him involved in the MLB as soon as possible only helps them inch closer to that becoming a reality.

I’m not saying they should or need to take the Juan Soto approach with Robert and call him up to the bigs if he dominates AA ball for two weeks. The contention plans and timelines of the 2018 Nationals and 2019 White Sox are nearly polar opposites, regardless of how last year ended for Washington. But Robert has the kind of talent and ceiling that should essentially remove any need for the cautious approach. If he doesn’t stop raking, don’t let him stop ascending.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Sox Take Two Of Three From 2/3rds Of The Yankees

By Andy Jonathan 1361 0

When I volunteered to write my first ever Sox recap for FFUD, I assumed the title would be something along the lines of: “Sox Get Nuked From Orbit By Judge, Stanton, and Sanchez,” and not what I actually wrote above.  Granted, the Yankees were almost hilariously undermanned for this series but by crackey I’m taking it.  The series itself ran the gamut of major Sox storylines this season, from Moncada’s continued elevation of the ball to Eloy finally smoking two out of the park, to Rodon finding the placement of his slider.  It wasn’t a perfect series win by any means, but at this point we can’t be too picky.

 

TO THE BULLETS!

 

-Firstly, we get to talk about ELOY!  Not only did he finally mash his first tater of the season to dead center off a 92 mph rising fastball from JA Happ, but then he followed it up with a towering blast to left center field that was estimated at 445 feet.  Total for the series he went 3-9, bringing his average up to .288 for the season.  Also important were the two professional-ass walks he took in the rubber match which helped Tim Anderson rack up a bunch of RBIs when he hit his series clinching granny today.

-Yoan Moncada continues to just do work at the plate, going 4-11 with a couple of runs and RBIs.  More importantly, he only struck out once the entire series bringing his K-rate down to 24%. He’s seeing more pitches so far, and the eye test continues to be very positive.  Tim Anderson didn’t have many hits this series, but he made one of them count, taking an 0-1 cutter off Masa Tanaka opposite field for his first career grand slam.  He’s now batting a cool .429 this season with an obscene 1.093 OPS.  This is clearly sustainable throughout an entire season, and Tim should begin clearing space on his mantle for his first ever hitting title.

-While I expected this team to run more, I did not expect to be typing the words “James McCann stole a base,” which he did.  Also, professional speed demon Jose Abreu managed to swipe two bags this Sunday on Kyle Higashioka, who now must be treated for PTSD after allowing five Sox stolen bases today.

-Carlos Rodon started shaky today, but pulled a full Verlander by getting better and better each inning he was out there.  By the 5th and 6th innings he had complete feel for his slider, and was placing it on the outside 1/8th of the plate at will.  The fact that it took him until the 5th and 6th inning to get that feel is concerning, but I’ll take it for the time being.

-Ivan Nova deserved a better fate than what he got Saturday after Yolmer continued his shaky play at the cornerstone.  He booted a tailor made double play in the 7th inning that would’ve allowed Nova to escape the inning with no earned runs and a no-decision.  Instead he got the loss and the Sox were flummoxed by a returning CC Sabathia.  Such is baseball.

-Lucas Giolito was back to his old tricks again in the first game, walking 4 in 5 innings while somehow managing to throw 100+ pitches, only 62 of which were for strikes.  Granted the weather looked miserable from my seat at the bar in Vegas, drinking some cocktail made out of gin and smoke, but if he’s going to have a place in the rebuild going forward then its time for him to prove it by looking more like the version we saw in his start against the Royals.

-Next up brings our old friends the Royals back into town, where Ervin Santana will look to bring his ERA below 10. Onwards!

 

-On a side note, I’d like to thank Sam for letting me dip my toe into the Sports Blogging pool.  I’ve been following his stuff since he sold programs outside the UC ages ago and I’m stoked to be adding whatever I can to this awesome site here.  Cheers!