posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008 2:21 AM
by
Jim
Three scouts out; nothing's plenty for Floyd
The Sox extended their winning streak to three with
a 2-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants, but a lot of the talk over the next 24 hours will be about
the three scouts fired for undisclosed improprieties, including player personnel director Dave Wilder:
SAN FRANCISCO - The White Sox fired player personnel director David
Wilder and two scouts following an ongoing investigation in Latin
America that has been turned over to federal authorities.
The firings of Wilder, who has been with the Sox since the fall of
2003, full-time scout Victor Mateo and part-time scout Domingo Toribio
occurred after a two-month investigation conducted by Major League
Baseball's Department of Investigations.
An international scout for another major-league team said two weeks ago
that the commissioner's office was interviewing the parents of several
Latin players about the bonuses they received from MLB teams. Sox
general manager Ken Williams, however, declined to comment on whether
financial improprieties were part of the Sox's investigation involving
Wilder and the two scouts.
The money quote is from Kenny Williams in the next graf:
But you will never see me, even though there were obviously some things
that have drawn us to this day, you're not going to hear me say a
disparaging word about any of the people who are involved in this,
simply because we're going to maintain a level of professionalism."
"...for once."
The Sox have an abysmal lack of activity with regard to international free agent signings in Latin America, so it makes some sense that they'd get in trouble after signing Juan Silveiro and setting up a camp in the Dominican, although there's no way to know if those events are involved in any way. Maybe they've stayed out of the game because they had no clue how to play it.
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On to another mystery, Gavin Floyd improved to 4-2 with six shutout innings thanks in large part to the Giants and
their second-worst offense in the National League.
One thing is becoming clear -- Floyd needs to throw more strikes early on in the game. He still had a hard time getting pitches down, and he saw a lot of hard-hit balls that were just foul or hit right at defenders, including himself on a 1-4-3 double play.
The Mariners' offense isn't great by any means, and yet
it dismantled Floyd his last time around. Had the Giants received a little better luck, Floyd would have been in the same boat. Instead, he saw only four of 18 balls in play land for hits. Mark Buehrle has to be wondering who he wronged.
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Attention, Greg Walker and Co: Gametime temperature was 82 degrees. Just sayin'.
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Minor league roundup:- Syracuse 7, Charlotte 2
- Wes Whisler allowed one run on three hits over six innings. He walked two and struck out four.
- After Ray King threw a scoreless inning, Mike MacDougal (1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 1 K) and Oneli Perez (1 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 1 BB) blew it.
- Royce Huffman went 2-for-4 with a homer and two RBI; Paul Phillips had three hits, including a double.
- Jacksonville 6, Birmingham 4
- Kyle McCulloch pitched six shutout innings, allowing one hit. He walked one and struck out one.
- Like Whisler, McCulloch didn't get the win. Joe Winkelsas allowed five runs and didn't get out of the seventh inning.
- Dave Cook hit a homer and drove in two; Cole Armstrong had two hits.
- Kinston 6, Winston-Salem 1
- Michael Dubee pitched a quality start, but was tagged with the loss. He allowed three runs over six innings on five hits, and two of them left the yard.
- The Warthogs had four hits -- Brandon Allen, John Shelby, Lee Cruz and C.J. Retherford had one each, and they all were doubles.
- Hagerstown 8, Kannapolis 5
- Jose Martinez doubled, homered and drove in four.
- Adam Bowling pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings in relief of Nathan Jones, who was pummeled.