Lead off home runs are nice to see. Unless your team is not the one who gives it up. Tonight there was a lead off home run. Unfortunately, if you root for the Chicago White Sox, it was not a good thing. The Seattle Mariners’ Franklin Gutierrez led off the game with a ball that initially appeared to be a routine fly to right field. Then the wind got a hold of that ball and out it went for a quick 1-0 lead. The Sox would tie things up in the fourth inning, but then the Sox and Mariners decided it would be a good idea to start trading runs.

yeah, he didn’t help his cause tonight

Jose Quintana started off the evening pitching like the starters had in previous nights. Getting his pitches over and keeping the opposing batters off balance. Then the fifth inning came. And he just fell apart. First, Jason Bay hit a double to left field. Then what should have been an out on Dustin Ackley resulted in Jose committing the first error of the season by someone on the infield. From there, The Mariners decided getting hits was a good idea. All told, they ended up scoring five runs for a 6-1 lead. After they scored the five runs, Jose was off to take a shower for the night. Oh and there were no outs recorded yet.

In came Matt Lindstrom and he did a good job to finally get guys out. He lasted for 2.1 innings before being relieved by Donny Veal. If you thought all hope was lost after that disaster of a fifth inning, all was not as the White Sox came back to score four runs off Mariners starter Blake Beavan. Perhaps that was because he sat in the dugout too long. In any event, the Sox pulled to within one run. » Continue reading “In A Game of Trading Runs, White Sox Come Up Short”

Hello Sox Fans!!!! Sorry that I have been away from talking to you. Unfortunately, my “real” job got in the way of me keeping up as meticulously as I should with White Sox news of late. However, hopefully you’ve been kept abreast of what has been happening with the team.

So far this off season, we’ve seen some decent re-signings as well as having to say goodbye to old favorites we all love for one reason or another. And now that it is late January, we might be starting to get itchy for baseball. The World Baseball Classic will soon be starting up, which will slightly fill the role of the game until Opening Day. Speaking of WBC, congratulatiosn to Jesse Crain (Team Canada), Alex Rios, Hector Santiago, Andy Gonzalez (Team Puerto Rico) and Andre Rienzo (Team Brazil) on their participation. But of course, the big news is that SoxFest is next weekend. Are you going to be there? If not, no worries as I will be there again to live tweet what is happening. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for all the happenings at SoxFest. » Continue reading “Spring Is On The Way”

A few things:

First, have you gone and made a prediction on when The King will hit number 400? You haven’t? Oh, well click here and go do that. I’ll wait for you to take care of that business as you can win a replica Frank Thomas statue AND Roger Bossard bobblehead if you guess correctly. The link will open in a new window so you won’t lose your place here » Continue reading “Home Runs Do In White Sox, Lose 3-2 To Orioles”

0-0 this season

It’s Opening Day for the White Sox. It’s actually probably day three or four of Opening Day, but for Sox fans it is Day One of the long slug of a season. In the inaugural season of Robin Ventura as manager, here is his first “real” lineup:

Alejandro De Aza CF, Brent Morel 3B, Big Donkey DH, The King 1B, AJ Pierzynski C, Alex Rios RF, The Cuban Missile SS, The Cuban Tank LF, Bacon 2B

John Danks will start for the White Sox. Last season, John was 8-12. He actually appeared to be pretty awful starting out 0-8 on the season. A few of those games John actually was terrible, but a lot of them he suffered from having no offensive support. He did have 135 strikeouts on the season. » Continue reading “Game One Of 162: White Sox at Rangers”

Are the White Sox coming around right on schedule? Yesterday afternoon, they won by a final of 5-2 over the San Francisco Giants. Granted, Barry Zito was pitching and he was . . . awful. He lasted only 2.1 innings before being chased from the game.

The offensive heroes yesterday? AJ Pierzysnki and that Alex Rios. Both had home runs. AJ even went opposite field with his home run. I am not quite sure to what to make of either Rios or Pierzynski hitting bombs. » Continue reading “Right On Schedule?”

So it was only a spring training game. And it was against that other Chicago team. But somehow, the White Sox did manage to actually win the game yesterday afternoon. Early on, the Sox were down by three runs. Then they managed to score five. Then they let things get tied up on walks.

Good news? Well, the other team left the bases loaded. However the score was tied. No matter as eventually, Jordan Danks hit a home run to put the White Sox ahead. Most of the games this spring have been rather blah. It is nice to see some people (like, oh Big Donkey) not doing things you were worried about for the upcoming season. Sure, it is small sample size, but hopefully some of the good we are seeing will carry over into the season.

Just a couple more weeks of this warm-up baseball until the real thing begins. Until this afternoon’s game against Reds, here are some stories to keep you occupied. » Continue reading “Come From Behind And Win? Surely, You Jest!”

Happy Tuesday! The White Sox are now 2-7 in Spring Training play. Some things have looked good and others not so much. In any event, there is still plenty of time for the Sox to get things together and gel as a team before things actually count. Yesterday, Jake was. . .  not good. In fact, Jake says his fastball was shaky. I still don’t really care to hear from Dirt Bag much, but it’s spring so I can mostly ignore at this point. Until this afternoon’s game, here are some stories to keep you occupied.

Don’t forget, you have until Friday to get me ideas on new stats to keep track for the season. So far, I’ve had ONE entry and I just cannot believe NO ONE wants that Roger Bossard Bobblehead. Oh and you should guess when The King will hit 400. At stake is a replica Frank Thomas statue. Come on, you KNOW you want one of those. For more details, click here. » Continue reading “Happenings At 35th & Shields: March 13, 2012″

The wait is over. Yesterday the Sox finally played a spring game. They lost that game. Some players looked good. Others, not so much.

It’s still too early to really make solid judgments about this team, but at least now there are games to start evaluating things. In listening to Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson talk during the game, it was very interesting hearing what they had to say about the prior pitching staff and how the team is behaving now under Robin and his guys.

I am starting to look forward to what happens this season. And listening to the game yesterday just felt so right. Like things in the world are finally right now that baseball is back.  To get you through the day, here are a few stories to occupy your time. Today’s game will be on tape delay on MLB Network (though, that appears to be in the middle of the night)

 John Danks looks like he will be tabbed as the Opening Day starter. » Continue reading “It’s Just One Game . . .”

Oh hey, the White Sox will FINALLY have a spring game this year. That game begins at 2:05 pm CST. Chad Billingsley is slated to start for the Dodgers and Philip Humber is slated to start for the guys in black.

If you are in the Chicago area, you can listen to it on 670 the Score or stream it online if you aren’t in the area. Hopefully, I will have signal in my cave building I am working in so I can listen to the game while working this afternoon.

As promised last week, I have another contest to give away something. This time, it is a replica Frank Thomas statue. Hopefully it will pretty easy for everyone to participate if being creative in stats isn’t your thing.

By the way, there is still PLENTY of time to get me an idea for a new stat to track this season. You can get details on that here. Remember, you can win a Roger Bossard bobble head. Who doesn’t want the Sodfather added to your collection of White Sox memorabilia? » Continue reading “Predictions”

That is what fans might be screaming this season at the team. As things stand, there might not be a ton of excitement on the field because well, this team doesn’t appear that it will be fantastic.

Too many things have to go right for the Sox and too many will have to go wrong for the other teams in the division for the Sox to perhaps sniff post season play. And even then, I am not sure people would say the World Series Ring will be obtainable.

Last season you may recall that I had a few things to keep track of during the season to entertain myself, such as when The Carlos Quentin smiled or how many times Juan Pierre slid head-first into first base (because he said “don’t do it”) and of course, the number of games that Big Donkey had that did not have him striking out. » Continue reading “ENTERTAIN Me!”