Results tagged ‘ Carlos Torres ’

July 24 Pregame – Sox in Detroit – Game 1

The Sox have a quick turnaround from their dramatic afternoon as they fly to Detroit to take on the Tigers. The timing on this series is great from a baseball fan’s perspective since the Tigers and White Sox are now tied for first place. Including the doubleheader today, neither team wants any worse than a split in the 4 game series. 

The White Sox lineup for game 1 from Scott Reifert’s Twitter account ( http://twitter.com/InsideTheSox/status/2818991502 ): 
Wise – CF
Ramirez – SS
Dye – RF
Thome – DH
Konerko – 1B
Pierzynski – C
Quentin – LF
Getz – 2B
Beckham – 3B
Contreras – SP
The big surprise in this lineup is Wise leading off. Wise was one of the hottest topics in baseball after his amazing catch yesterday; we’ll see if he can ride that momentum into today. I am also  surprised that Castro is not catching Contreras. Castro, who caught Buehrle’s perfect game yesterday, has been Jose’s personal catcher since Contreras returned from the minors. For the most part, Jose has found success with Castro, but was roughed up last time out against Baltimore. You figure Castro will play in Game 2 (it could also be possible that Colon requested him), but I’m also surprised since Ozzie is picking the lefty against Verlander. A.J. is hitting over .300 against Verlander, so it’s nice to see Ozzie straying from an obsession with playing the percentages. 
Sox fans know Verlander well. Justin has a stellar 1.34 E.R.A. with a 6-0 record at home this year. He doesn’t give up a lot of home runs or walks, and figures to be a tough customer for the Sox today. The Sox should have some hope going into this game. In the past the Sox have given Verlander a tough time, even when the rest of the league has trouble with him. Verlander has a 3-9 career record and 5.44 E.R.A. against the Sox. That is Verlander’s worst career E.R.A. for any team he has faced over 3 times.
One quick note for Game 2, Bartolo Colon will be making the start, and to make room for Colon, the Sox sent rookie Carlos Torres back down to AAA. Torres had a quality start in his major league debut against the Rays.

July 22nd Postgame – Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Cuban

The Sox rebound nicely after last night’s disaster and set themselves up for no worse than a split heading into the series finale. Alexei Ramirez and Jermaine Dye save the Sox offense with the help of some terrible CF defense by B.J. Upton. Even more unlikely then the Rays’ gaffes this series was the home run by Scott Podsednik. Carlos Torres kept the Sox in the game, and you can’t say enough about his effort. A quality start with 6 IP and 3 ER in his major league debut against a very good lineup comes up big, followed by D.J. Carrasco’s quick inning of holding down the Rays were part of a great effort in the win. 

Ozzie Guillen had Matt Thornton go 2 innings to close out the game. I normally don’t like relievers being stretched out when not used to it, but it worked tonight. There can be a few different schools of thought towards not going to your closer tonight, but I have no problem with Jenks getting the night off. Jenks will get a chance to redeem himself, but returning to the scene of the crime too soon could’ve led to another meltdown. One thing that troubled me tonight was the performance of Jim Thome, who is now 0 for 9 since sitting in the series opener. At the time, Thome was red hot and coming off a ‘Player of the Week’  award. Even if he would’ve faced a lefty, you shouldn’t really mess with what’s working, especially when dealing with a future hall-of-famer. 

July 22 Pregame – White Sox look to recover against Rays; Torres makes debut, Poreda sent down

As we learned yesterday, John Danks is missing his start tonight. Luckily it doesn’t seem to be anything serious and this should be the only missed start. The Sox have called up Carlos Torres to face the Rays tonight. Torres has nice numbers in AAA, going 8-4 with a 2.20 ERA. It’s only AAA, but those are solid numbers considering he pitches in a hitter’s park in Charlotte. He will have a tough test against the Rays lineup. Hopefully he can have some sort of edge by this being a last minute change and the Rays not knowing much about Torres. 

The Sox sent down Aaron Poreda to make room for Torres. I thought Poreda should have gotten a shot at the 5th starter spot, but he was taken away from pitching regularly and was being used too sparingly. For this reason, I like the move of him going back down and starting again. 
Tonight the Sox face James Shields, who is starting to rack up multiple good years in the majors. Shields will throw strikes and he doesn’t give up a ton of walks, so the Sox will have to be able to put a few hits together and play smart to score tonight. The same lineup as last night per beat writer Mark Gonzales’ blog on the Tribune website: 
Podsednik – CF
Ramirez – SS
Dye – RF
Thome – DH
Konerko – 1B
Pierzynski – C
Quentin – LF
Getz – 2B
Beckham – 3B

Jenks blows brilliant outing for Richard – July 21st Postgame

There is no other way to put it. This loss rests entirely on the shoulders of Bobby Jenks. It’s one thing to get hit around. It’s another thing to hit batters and give up walks in critical spots. Unfortunately, the unbelievable outing by Clayton Richard gets lost in the shuffle.

More to come later in the night…I need a break after a game like that

Alright, Clayton Richard deserves some more attention. 8 IP, 4 hits, 2 walks, 7 K’s and 1 earned run. His fastball really had some action tonight. I’m not sure if the extra rest helped him. It could also be a matchup factor with the Rays, who Richard performed well against in last year’s playoffs (1.42 ERA in 6 and a third, out of the bullpen). His mentality may have also helped him. This was a big start for both Clayton and the team, and he probably gained some confidence after the Rays came out of the 3rd inning with just one run. Bottom line, Clayton came up huge for the Sox tonight. It’s a shame his start was wasted and the Sox threw away a possible win with such an unlikely performance.

Like I said, all the blame goes to Jenks. Could the Sox offense have done better? Sure, they squandered some opportunities, but Niemann is a great pitcher and in the end, it was a Sox lead in the 9th and Jenks did not do his job. As a fan, I can only hope that this type of game doesn’t have a carryover effect.


A blog post wouldn’t be complete without complaining about an annoying Ozzie Guillen tendency. Again, I hate a pinch hitter being used against a closer, and I hate Ozzie’s obsession with avoiding R/R and L/L matchups. This happened when Nix pinch hit for Getz, even though Getz, a lefty, has a better average against lefties, and Howell, a lefty, has a higher batting average against stat against lefties.

Also, an important note for tomorrow’s game. John Danks has been scratched because of a blister and the Sox have called up Carlos Torres to make his debut and start in his place. http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090721&content_id=5980586&vkey=news_cws&fext=.jsp&c_id=cws



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