Guillen's blame game has easy answer
Ozzie Guillen fought fire with fire before Saturday’s game, responding to people calling for Greg Walker’s head in the midst of yet another slow start:
“I take the blame. I don’t want Walk or Coop (pitching coach Don Cooper) or Joey (Joey Cora) to take the blame. All of this thing, blame it on Ozzie. Don’t blame Kenny (general manager Ken Williams) or Jerry (chairman Jerry Reinsdorf) or anyone else. Don’t put anyone in the middle. When we are not hitting, not pitching or not winning games, my name is out there. That’s why I’m the manager.
“I’m not afraid to get blamed. I don’t give a (bleep) to be blamed.”
OK, Ozzie. It’s your fault. Now what?
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The funniest thing to me about the entire rant:
“It’s not Greg Walker’s fault,” Guillen said. “(Bleep) it. I’m not going to fire a guy that has nothing to do with this thing. Look at (Mark) Kotsay, (Omar) Vizquel and (Jayson) Nix, they don’t need a hitting coach. They need to (bleeping) get hits.
I’m starting to think that if Guillen is Michael Scott, then Nix is Toby. I mean, he’s started one game this season.
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Two more notes:
*Mark Kotsay just might be admitting that he’s 2010’s Wilson Betemit:
“As hot as I was in spring training, I’m as cold as I am at the start,” Kotsay said. “I haven’t done anything to help this club win.”
*Freddy Garcia will be skipped his next turn through the rotation. Sorry, not “skipped.” He’s resting.
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Minor league roundup:
- Charlotte 6, Gwinnett 3
- Dan Hudson wasn’t as sharp in his second time out: 5 1/3 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K. He gave up solo homers in the fifth and sixth innings.
- Tyler Flowers went 2-for-4 with his second homer and three RBI.
- Jordan Danks went 2-for-5 with a pair of doubles and his third steal. He struck out twice.
- Dayan Viciedo went 0-for-4;Â C.J. Retherford singled and walked.
- Clevelan Santeliz pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings, walking two and striking out one.
- Mobile 5, Birmingham 0
- Christian Marrero doubled, one of Birmingham’s four hits.
- Brent Morel was 0-for-4; John Shelby singled and struck out twice.
- Justin Cassel pitched six shutout innings in his return to Double-A, allowing four hits and no walks while striking out three.
- Winston-Salem 7, Kinston 3
- Nevin Griffith was in fine form: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K, and 12 groundouts to two flyouts.
- Kyle Bellamy pitched a scoreless inning in his High-A debut, allowing two hits but striking out two.
- Santos Rodriguez had his second straight rough outing, allowing two runs on three hits.
- Jon Gilmore doubled and drove in two; Eduardo Escobar went 1-for-3.
- Hickory 4, Kannapolis 1
- Trayce Thompson went 1-for-4 with two K’s in his first A-ball game.
- Miguel Gonzalez snapped his 0-for-12 skid with a single in four at-bats.
- Nick Cioill wears the silver sombrero: 0-for-4, 3 K’s.
- Kyle Colligan walked twice in four PAs.
Author
If it’s broke then don’t fix it. That seems to be Ozzie’s approach. Our lineup has been the same core (it varies to some degree) all year long and it’s not working. It’s time to move the lineup around. Teahen’s not hitting but he’s getting on base. Rios, Beckham and Jones are hitting, move all of them up and move Pierre, Quentin and Konerko down.
But don’t keep it the same.
Sure of course none of this could possibly be greg walkers fault the same dumb ass slow starts, horrible approaches against mediocre pitching, mounting a lot of runs in one game to only come back and suck the next three, A COMPLETE AND UTTER INABILITY TO EVER GET SOMEONE IN FROM THIRD WITH ONE OUT (I should look this up but the sox in my head are 1 for the season doing that, konerko in game two knocked pierre in with a sac fly). Different players same stupid mistakes equals bad coaching. ITS REAL DAMN SIMPLE
Im so sick of the greg walker cant get out their and hit for these guys, well f that, he has a paid job in the mlb 29 other teams also employ a hitting coach, are these teams just in love with throwing away money???? Heck no, a hitting coach like any other coach has responsibilities to get his guys hitting, when he constantly fails to get the most out of the talent given, he should then be fired.
Indians freaking blow and at best we are going to start the year off 2-4 vs them, YIPPPEEEEE
It’s not exactly “that simple,” because Kenny Williams has a history of loading up on low-BABIP hitters. Think of all of Hawk’s “popsitup” or “justmissedit” calls, and the general lack of “lucky” singles on the Sox’s side, and that’s a result of the style of hitter.
Now, Williams has compounded that by adding subpar hitters to the mix and expecting them to turn it around because of reasons undetermined. Guys who didn’t hit under coaches not named “Greg Walker” are suddenly expected to under an ordinary-at-best hitting coach. Well that isn’t a sound strategy.
I’m not particularly inclined to go off on Walker anymore because of all the years he could have been fired, this one would provide the least justification for doing so.
And so now Ozzie wants the blame. He’s already insulted the fan base once this season, and now he’s adding some angry empty rhetoric to the season. And he’s not even 1/10th of the way through the schedule. Guy needs to learn to pace himself, because this is the bed he’s made.
Low babip has nothing to do with inability to get guys in from third with 1 out. It also has little to do with poor in game strategy vs pitchers who are lefties, have a changeup, we havent seen before ect ect its freaking excuse after excuse after excuse.
I agree walker has had less talent this year then most, but that again doesnt mean he should be let off the hook.
Its an unbelievable hopeless feeling for me as a fan to watch the same thing unfold time and time again and noone be held accountable. A new coach atleast tells me management recognizes something isnt working. LOTS of hitting coaches have been fired much faster for not doing nearly as bad a job.
Ozzie is doing the right thing shielding everyone, but he has to beyond ticked off with whats happening offensively as well as kenny is too.
Well, the low BABIP is statistical proof of their approach, as is their line-drive rate (second-lowest in the league). Big huge swings that often result in easily fieldable balls, whether it’s choppers (like Quentin’s) or sky-high pop-ups.
The White Sox are third from last in batting average and tied for second-most in home runs in the major leagues. Same old, same old.
The White Sox offense has been constipated like this for how many years? It’s all or nothing. Guillen seems to be a guy who likes situational hitting and keeps trying to turn us away from the big thump approach, but still like Knox said, they can’t get a guy home from third with one out or less!?! Why or who’s to blame? The hitters mostly I think. These guys are all pros who have played in other organizations. Are they like Jim suggests, simply these sorts of hitters? That sounds like a theory worth exploring.
Still, I’m reminding myself we’re 12 games in and that anything I say can make me feel pretty stupid later. Still, losing four games to the Indians, who are ranked below us? That’s troublesome. Also, pitchers seem to have the edge over hitters in April and so with a pitching heavy team, I figured we HAD to get off to a good start. Now we’re not only going to be chasing the Twins for a while, we’re chasing freakin’ everybody!
There were too many offensive question marks starting off the season. So far, I don’t much care for the answers. They had better salvage the finale today.
The part of Ozzie’s rant I find most amusing is he singled out three guys who are clearly fringe Major League players and blamed them for not hitting. Two of the three guys are players Ozzie pressed to acquire and/or re-sign and now he’s bent out of shape because they’re lousy. Maybe he should also take the blame for trying to play GM this winter.
“Maybe he should also take the blame for trying to play GM this winter.”
If things really go south this year, thats going to be a HUGE storyline!
And who’s to blame for that? Ozzie isn’t the GM, KW is. Now maybe KW gave Ozzie a lot more input this year than previous, or maybe he didn’t and just decided to try something else. But the fact is KW is the one who decided who to acquire and who not to, no matter how much you want to talk about Ozzie “playing GM.”
This is KW’s fault.
Have you guys seen the line up for today? Quentin, Jones out; Kotsay, Vizquel in. And Kotsay is hitting third. Oh brother.
Oh Brother in deed! I logged on just in time to hear Choo-ie Slam it out and then came over and read about Ozzie’s stupid comments from yesterday.
And Yesterday’s move, or lack of move at leaving Peavy in to long…
I love Ozzie, I really do, but how long does the team get to go on like this?
I’ve always thought that the World Series kept Oz around when many a manager would have been let go (for many a different reason in Ozzie’s case or cases.) Walker… not so much.
I don’t even like talking like this. Let’s just get going with the wins (starting Monday now) and never think of these thoughts again…