2005 MLB Thread

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Red Sox attempting to piss their season away. Right now it's David Ortiz and 8 automatic outs. Wakefield is the only starter that they can count on. Very disheartening, but they're not done yet.

And please Tito, leave Millar and Rentererror out of the lineup for the forseeable future.
 
Cubsfan23 said:
Indians about to close it to 2.5!
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:D :D :D

The White Sox gave their fans hope too by coming back from 4-0 down to taka a 5-4 lead just to blow the game. The White Sox have been infected by the lovable loser Cubs curse! Woo hahahahah YOU CAN'T ESCAPE YOUR DESTINY.
 
Wow, what a game. I had to leave the forum there for a bit but it moves me closer to the White Sox, passes the Red Sox and keeps the Yankees at bay, 1.5 games back.

This series with Chicago is going to be epic.
 
Sucks for their fans (not that I really care that much) but I LOVE watching epic collapses in sports as long as it's not my team. Keep it up, White Sox! :lol
 
not as much as you'd think.
we have 5 games left with cleveland, and we're still 2.5 up on them. once we completely lose the division lead is when we'll go nuts.
right now it's just severe disappointment, and nothing else.

just gotta stay optimistic. I love our matchup tomorrow. Buehrle against Westbrook.
 
Sons of bitches, what's wrong with those White Sox? They need to man up. They're making the Braves look good at this point in the season. :p They haven't been to the World Series/playoffs since 1919 right? I'm not a big fan of them, but I think it's more than time for the White Sox to have their time in the Sun.
 
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bubblicious.jpg
 
I love how the White Sox and their fans are all "We're good, all is good here."

:D :lol

They are fucked.
 
Y2Kevbug11 said:
I love how the White Sox and their fans are all "We're good, all is good here."
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wtf do you expect the team to say? "Yeah Mr. Reporter, I think we're gonna totally not make the play-offs. We're just gonna continue to collapse."

get fucking real. Fact is, we ARE making the play-offs, even if we don't win the division. Magic number against Cleveland is 11, magic number against NY(perhaps Boston in a few days) is 10.


and just so you all know, every single one of you that is talking shit now, wait till we DO win the division. all you'll be able to come back with is "yeah, well they only did it by X number of games after being up 15!"
yeah, no one can argue that. but the fact is we will still win the division, no matter by how many games, and that'll be more than any Cleveland fan, and ESPECIALLY any Cub fan can say.
 
Eminem said:
wtf do you expect the team to say? "Yeah Mr. Reporter, I think we're gonna totally not make the play-offs. We're just gonna continue to collapse."

get fucking real. Fact is, we ARE making the play-offs, even if we don't win the division. Magic number against Cleveland is 11, magic number against NY(perhaps Boston in a few days) is 10.


and just so you all know, every single one of you that is talking shit now, wait till we DO win the division. all you'll be able to come back with is "yeah, well they only did it by X number of games after being up 15!"
yeah, no one can argue that. but the fact is we will still win the division, no matter by how many games, and that'll be more than any Cleveland fan, and ESPECIALLY any Cub fan can say.
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Uh, no. False dilemma.

How about, "Yeah, we're nervous. We're not playing well." The opposite of "WE'RE FINE" is not "OMFG WE'RE DOOMED." Maybe on GAF, not on Earth.
 
Y2Kevbug11 said:
Uh, no. False dilemma.

How about, "Yeah, we're nervous. We're not playing well." The opposite of "WE'RE FINE" is not "OMFG WE'RE DOOMED." Maybe on GAF, not on Earth.
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ahem:

"We're playing lousy baseball on the bases, pitching, everything," manager Ozzie Guillen said Thursday after the Kansas City Royals emerged with a 7-5 win over the mistake-prone White Sox. "There's no doubt about it. We really flat-out stink. It's not the same team I've been watching all year."

"If I named all that I'm disappointed about, we might be here all day," Guillen said. "The entire week was disappointing. Even the game we won, I was disappointed. If we continue to play like this, good luck."
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"Ever since the All-Star break, it seems like I haven't had too many good games. It's frustrating," said Buehrle. "We've still got six games with Cleveland. And the way that they're playing, they could sweep us right now. If we keep on playing like we're playing, we're not going to the playoffs. We'll be home on Oct. 3."
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Really, nice try though.
 
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=stark_jayson&id=2166652"

Only one team in the history of baseball -- the 1914 "Miracle" Braves -- was ever 15 games out at any point of any season and came back to finish first. But that team fell 15 back in the first week of July, not the first week of August.
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But no team that started 62-29 or better ever finished its season by playing sub-.500 baseball for the rest of the season. The White Sox, we regret to report, are 28-30 since then.
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.
 
ForzaItalia said:
#3 for Barry "Balco" Bonds
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i hope you're not implying that the best baseball player to ever set foot in a major league ballpark is a user of illegal steroids.

although his stats compared to other "sluggers" in the mlb do make u laff. if i were them, i'd be throwing out conspiracy theories too. :lol
 
Eminem said:
ahem:






Really, nice try though.
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I was talking about you.

And what's the date on that quote?

"Nice try?" What the hell is your issue? I am not "trying" anything. You said you were not worried. I said I think that's relatively comical and I am saying now it is from a position of insecurity. Then you proceeded to say, yeah, look, they are saying what you said they should say but I didn't.

Yeah good job.
 
Y2Kevbug11 said:
I was talking about you.

And what's the date on that quote?

"Nice try?" What the hell is your issue? I am not "trying" anything. You said you were not worried. I said I think that's relatively comical and I am saying now it is from a position of insecurity. Then you proceeded to say, yeah, look, they are saying what you said they should say but I didn't.

Yeah good job.
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date is last saturday. so, roughly 3 days ago.

and i have said i'm worried, but i'm not gonna panic. i said once it got below 5 games i was scared.
but, being a die hard fan i can't force myself to be anything but optimistic.

if you woulda told me coming out of spring training that on september 20th we'd won 90 games and had a 2.5 game lead, would i take it? fuck yes i would
 
holy fuck we caught a HUGE break on that call. jesus. LUCKY

this ump is fucking ALL OVER the place. certainly helped us more than the tribe that inning, but that last at bat by martinez, all 3 of those balls coulda been strikes.
then you go back to hafner who got a strike called on him on a pitch that was 2 feet outside.


christ
 
gah. prolly our last chance to beat up on westbrook and we blow it for the second straight inning. MOTHER FUCKER


well unlike yesterday, our shitty hitting is what is gonna cost us this game. jesus
down 5-3 right now, but our offense should have at least 5, if not more.
 
AJ FUCKING PIERZYNSKI IN THE CLUTCH


woooooooooooooooooo

now let's get those next two home boys.

Aaron Rowand, become my jesus RIGHT FUCKING HERE
 
FUCK YES. WE GOT THE LEAD SAOKJHSDLIASALIUSALFSA


me and my roommate talking over aim:

AngryGodOfJebus: if our bullpen blows this one i'm gonna cry
souLRusH12: if they blow it
souLRusH12: look for my obituary
 
How is it Alan Embree has kept his era stable around fucking 7, and yet still gets to pitch almost every other night. Even a 5 run lead isn't safe. C'mon Torre, wake the fuck up.
 
Rowand, you are a fucking piece of shit and if we don't win the central it's entirely your fucking fault. Goddamn idiot.



I'd murder my brother for a walk-off here in the bottom of the 9th. Somehow I sense us losing this game in some ridiculous fashion. An error in the top of the 11th or so sounds about right.
 
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CHICAGO -- A funny thing happened Tuesday night to the Collapse of the Century.

The Amazing Collapsing White Sox forgot to keep collapsing.

What's up with that?

If they were really intent on making collapse fans everywhere happy, the last thing those White Sox would have done Tuesday was find a way to beat their pals from Cleveland, 7-6 -- on a stunning Joe Crede walkoff homer that sprayed grand-finale fireworks all over a spectacular, 10-inning, laryngitis-inducing baseball game.

Paul Konerko chipped in with two hits and two runs scored for the White Sox Tuesday.
But that's what those gasping, wheezing, suffocating White Sox did, even though this game gave them more opportunities to take a dive than Chantelle Newbery.

Heck, they trailed in this game three different times (2-0, 3-2 and 5-3).

And their No. 1 starter, Mark Buehrle, served up three gopherball platters in one game for the first time in 25 starts.

And just when it looked as if they absolutely, positively had this tussle won, of course they didn't -- because their soon-to-be-all-star center fielder, Aaron Rowand, let a ninth-inning line drive land someplace other than his glove.

But after all that, the White Sox won this classic anyway. So before we start calling Ralph Branca and Mike Torrez for those Mandatory Collapse Comparison stories, maybe it's time we should all ask ourselves this:

Do teams in mid-foldo mode really find ways to win games like this?

"I guess we're not supposed to," said catcher A.J. Pierzynski with a laugh after his team had stretched its AL Central lead back to a mammoth 3½ games. "Everyone keeps asking that, so I guess we're supposed to lose these games. But no one told us that. No one told us we're supposed to just roll over when they go up, 1-0. But maybe we should.

"Then, whoever scores first, people could just go home. They want to speed up the games, right? So Bud [Selig] would be happy. First team to score wins. That would speed it up. It would be just like overtime in football."

Nah. Sorry, pal. Not interested in that innovation. For lots of reasons. But one of them is that there is nothing about this series, or this pennant race, that feels anything like football.

No other sport gives us anything remotely resembling the drama that White Sox-Indians has become -- and then drags those two teams out to the same intersection and makes them play each other three nights in a row. And after watching two sensational duels between these warriors in a row, we're now eternally grateful for that.

"This," Pierzynski said, "is the fun part. September baseball. This is what it's about."

Then again, we should mention that the "fun" looked for a while there as if it might get trampled by the subplots -- especially because the subplots were threatening to become the main plot if the White Sox didn't mix in a win in one of these games.

And that subplot could be summed up by some of the sympathetic headlines the White Sox awoke Tuesday morning to find splattered all over their local newspapers -- headlines, for instance, like this:

NOW PLAYING IN CHICAGO: CHOKE-JOB THEATER (Sun-Times)

Very touching.
Now some managers involved in races like this, races in which their team had turned a 15-game lead into a 2½ game lead in just seven short weeks, would be walking around wearing blindfolds to make sure they avoided reading prose like that. But then again, Ozzie Guillen, of these White Sox, isn't like some managers.

Or possibly any managers.

Ever.

"When I read headlines that say, 'YOU CHOKE,' I read those [stories]," Guillen told the circling media vultures before the game.

And why, he was asked, would he possibly want to read those stories?

"I want to see if maybe they're right," he giggled.

Well, apparently, those stories haven't convinced him -- because Guillen announced pointedly, both before and after this game, that "nobody's choking."

And he punctuated that announcement afterward with a more direct, more personal adjunct: "I'm no choker."

"Somebody asked me today, 'Well, if you're not a choker, what should we call you?'" Guillen chortled. "I said, 'I don't know -- a loser?'

"But let me tell you something," the manager said. "It's hard to be a choker when you've won 92 games (a remark we'll allow him even though his team has won "only" 91)."

This would be manager Guillen's way of reminding his admirers that despite all this choking that allegedly has been going on here, his team still has won more games than any club on earth except the Cardinals. And that's true.

So after a wrenching loss to Cleveland on Monday, this was Not Just Another Game these White Sox were playing Tuesday.

"We needed this one," Guillen said, after exhaling for the first time in about four hours.

And every time the Indians scored, back they came. To pull even at 2-2 in the third. And then again at 3-3 in the fourth. And then, with disaster lurking after a two-run Cleveland burst in the top of the seventh, they managed to answer with three in the bottom of the seventh, off starter Jake Westbrook and reliever Bobby Howry (a guy who hadn't been scored on since Aug. 2 -- 22 appearances ago).

But with one out in the ninth and a runner on first, along came One of Those Moments that Happens to Teams Working on Historic Cliff Dives.
Victor Martinez roped a long line drive to center field, where Roward normally slurps up balls like that without even breathing hard. But not this time. Rowand broke in. The ball exploded back. And he never did catch up. Double. Second and third. Uh-oh.

Guillen then played the infield back and conceded the tying run on a ground ball by Ronnie Belliard. And as all that unfolded, Rowand stood there in center field, trying to figure out if he should shoot himself -- or just join the witness-protection program.

"I had one guy yell at me that I was gonna be working at the factory with him the next day," Rowand chuckled later. "Tough crowd."

But Rowand handled the whole debacle with stand-up-guy class, saying numerous times afterward: "If we'd have lost this game, I would have put the blame squarely on myself."

Nevertheless, no one was more grateful than him that it never came to that -- because Crede dug in and pounded David Riske's second pitch of the 10th inning halfway to Joliet.

Crede knew what this meant the moment he swung, too. And so did the rest of civilization. So Crede started trotting, pausing for a quick burst of applause at first base. And the Indians started marching off the field, not even bothering to glance over their shoulders. And fireworks lit up the sky. And many, many White Sox gathered at home plate to administer the most enjoyable mugging Joe Crede has ever absorbed.

"I've hit other walkoff homers," Crede said. "But the situations were so different. Either it was real early in the season, or we were out of it. But to hit one when we're in first place, in the next-to-last week of the season, against a team we're battling back and forth, I'd have to say that was the biggest hit of my career."

Right. And maybe all of their careers.

As long as they win this division, no one will ever remember how many games these White Sox used to lead by.

As long as they win this division, they can look upon this whole mess as just a fascinating little final chapter to a great season.

As long as they win this division, they can even rationalize it the way their GM, Kenny Williams, is at the moment -- with a hearty "This might be the best thing that ever happened to us."

Maybe this team needed to be tested, their GM theorizes, to get back to playing the way it played in April, May and June. Maybe it needed to be pushed to get back to doing those little things that got them into this mess in the first place.

So fine. They're being tested. And as long as they don't flunk the test, they'll never have to hear about Mike Torrez and Ralph Branca ever again. So that's the deal.

"I'm sure everyone in here would like to have a 25-game lead like the Cardinals and get it over with," Pierzynski said, "because the truth is, no one ever really wants to be tested. But this is just how it is. Cleveland is not going to go away. They're a very good team. So we just have to keep fighting -- and two weeks from now, we'll see what happens."

Yep. Sure will. And after the way the first two nights of their heavyweight championship bout has gone down, we can hardly wait for the rest of it.
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