Where Joe West is, balks follow
Leftover thoughts from the White Sox’ front-row seats to Angels with Dirty Crew Chiefs:
*Ozzie Guillen was surprisingly demure after the game, and I guess a comeback victory will do that — no point in risking a suspension with just 20 games left. We’ll see if Major League Baseball has anything more to say, but I wonder if they’d be more motivated to reprimand the crew had the Sox lost as a direct result of two more phantom balk calls delivered by Angel Hernandez. Instead, they overcame it.
Still, it’s just a little worrisome that the White Sox’ playoff hopes might rest in crew chief Joe West’s clammy, puffy hands. It’s not a good sign when an umpire has his own tag here.
*My theory: Joe West wasn’t just behind the two Mark Buehrle balks, but he’s also responsible for ordering Chris Sale to remove his bling. As somebody who can’t fit anything around his neck, he thought Sale was showing him up.
*Josh Fields was awfully kind to make us feel better about Mark Teahen. I maintain the former is better than the latter defensively, as Fields has no problems making accurate throws, but his hands are still suspect.
*Brent Morel earned his first career hit, taking Bruce Chen over the center field fence for home run No. 1. That should keep him in the lineup for a couple more days, which would then set him up nicely for the first two games against the Minnesota Twins, when they start lefties Francisco Liriano and Brian Duensing.
*Carlos Quentin has gone 87 plate appearances without a homer. If the season ends with a lengthy power outage, the Sox have a difficult decision on their hands.
interesting comparison of Jones and Quentin:
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/white-sox-observer/2010/09/what-if-we-lived-in-a-world-where-andruw-jones-was-better-than-carlos-quentin.html
Jones has rebounded a little. I thought his OPS revival was due to both a small sample size, and the fact that he was getting some really fat hanging pitches to drive out of the park while still flailing on fastballs.
But he turned around a fastball last week, which made me feel slightly more confident in him. Quentin was late on hanging sliders. He could use a day or two off.
Homers are the last thing Quentin should be worried about, his approach is so awful right now. He needs to take a page out of The Last Month of AJ Pierzynski. Line drives to the opposite field. Singles, turning into doubles, then maybe look for power down the line.
Agree with you in that way, that he shouldn’t be thinking homers. But in terms of evaluating him for next season, the Sox have to be looking at the column.
What Josh Fields taketh away, Josh Fields giveth.
I find myself more excited about checking soxmachine after a Sox win and a Twins loss. Does that make me a fair-weather soxmachine fan?
Also, Putz looked great last night. Nice to have the bullpen coming back to full strength.
Better than the people who seem to be more motivated to visit sites when the team sucks. Barring some kind of massive shift in online culture, I’ll never abandon registration for that reason.
Putz’s splitter looked to have a little something extra. Helped that Betemit got him started with a one-pitch out.
Three strikeouts and a first pitch flyout, by the way. Great seeing Wilson being Wilson, finally.
Think Sale’s difficulty throwing strikes had to do with a lack of ballast?
As you imply, it’s looking more and more to me like Quentin plays for a different team not in the central division next year.
Bennie and the Jets?