Tuesday, August 22, 2006 - Posts

Get a boot, give a boot

If the previous four months are any indication, Ozzie Guillen's ejection might be the best thing that happened to them tonight. 



Ozzie got tossed by Dan Iassogna in the second inning, marking the fifth time this year that's happened, and the ninth overall.  Yup -- more than his first two years combined.

So far, the team has responded to his previous four ejections.  Let's break 'em down:

MAY 13

The ejection:  Ozzie is thrown out by Dale Scott after two blown calls force Javier Vazquez to record five outs in an inning.  Vazquez gives up five runs and the lead, and the Sox lose 8-4 to the Minnesota Twins.

The week before:  The Sox were 3-3 over their last seven days, and had a three-game losing streak entering the ballgame.

The week after:  The Sox take the last two of the Minnesota series to split one in the Humpty Dome, then play 2-2 ball against the Devil Rays and Cubs.

MAY 22

The ejection:  Ozzie argues balls and strikes with home plate umpire Doug Eddings and is ejected after Jon Garland gives up back-to-back homers to Frank Thomas and Bobby Crosby.  The Sox come back and win 5-4.

The week before:  It coincides with the 4-2 week the Sox had after their first ejection, but this game was after the Sox pitching staff collapsed against the Cubs and lost the chance of a sweep.

The week after:  The Sox complete a rare sweep of Oakland, playing 4-2 ball the next seven days.

JUNE 20

The ejection:  Ozzie readily accepts his ejection when David Riske plunks the Cardinals' Chris Duncan after warnings were issued.  The Sox won 20-6.

The week before:  No problems here -- the Sox played 5-1 ball against the Rangers and Reds.  This was pure retaliation, not frustration, as Ozzie was happy that one of his pitchers didn't miss.

The week after:  The Sox bloody St. Louis for the sweep, winning five of six overall against the Cardinals, Astros and Pirates.

AUGUST 10

The ejection:  Dale Cooper blows a double-play call when Bobby Abreu doesn't touch the bag racing back to first on a flyball.  Cooper then throws Ozzie out for speaking his mind.

The week before:  The Sox had an up-and-down week, going 3-3 against the Royals, Blue Jays and Angels.  However, the Sox had yet to beat the Yankees after being swept in the Bronx a couple weeks prior.

The week after:  The Sox lose the following game, but end up with a series win against the Yankees, a sweep of the Tigers and splitting the first two against the Royals. 

That makes the Sox a combined 19-7 in the week following an Ozzie Guillen ejection, and given that the Sox have the most difficult schedule remaining in comparison to the Tigers, Twins and Red Sox, they need all the help they can get.
posted Tuesday, August 22, 2006 11:50 PM by Jim with 0 Comments

What's wrong with Jose?

Since he returned from the DL on May 21, Jose Conteras hasn't been the force of nature that led him to 17 straight wins -- even though some of them came after his bout of sciatica. 

Though he looks better doing it, Contreras has actually been effective as Latter-Day Mark Buehrle.  His ERA since his return is 5.02 over 120 innings, where he's given up 127 hits over that time.  That's huge, because he only gave up 100 hits in the 131 innings preceding this stretch.  His walk and strikeout rates have been the same, so, like Buehrle, the answer is somewhere in the hit column.  Especially since his velocity is around what it should be.

I can come up with four separate possibilities as to what's derailed his successful run, although not being Contreras, Don Cooper or Ozzie Guillen, I can't say for sure what's up.  Maybe you fellas can help.

1) Bad luck.  Self-explanatory.  Basically just one of those bad runs every pitcher has.

2) Bad health.  Contreras is leaving more pitches up, and a bad back could be one of the causes.  When you can't bend, it compromises the release point, and also affects push-off power.
 
3) Dropping down too much.  Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Contreras has been going sidearm more often than usual.  That seems to defeat the purpose of dropping down, because the novelty is supposed to mess with the hitters' ability to pick up the ball.  The sidearm pitches seem to have less movement, so it doesn't seem like something he'd want to overexpose.  His two-seamer and forkball seem to have less life from where I'm sitting.

4) Runners distracting him.  Maybe it's just me, but it seems like Contreras is paying too much attention to runners.  Last year, he seemed to improve when he shrugged off runners, because they were going to steal on him no matter how many times he threw to first.  Maybe it was a byproduct of his uber-low WHIP (less than 1.00), or maybe it was because of it, but he seemed to attack hitters relentlessly, even if runners were getting big leads.  I liked that Jose.

I didn't catch every pitch of Conteras' start tonight, since I was watching it at a bar while playing trivia with some co-workers.  I did see the snowball innings, but perhaps I might be missing something from the quick frames he worked.  At 70 pitches, tonight's outing was the shortest one Contreras has worked with the White Sox in terms of pitches, not counting the time he came out of a game against Kansas City after pulling his hamstring in the fourth inning (61 pitches) in early 2005.
posted Tuesday, August 22, 2006 12:17 AM by Jim with 2 Comments