Sunday, February 27, 2011

White Sox Season Preview Take 1


If your first expression of this post title is that you are wondering why I said take 1 I will explain. I plan on making a season preview before opening day. This is the spring training one, so it may prove to be super wrong or be super right.
Tomorrow the White Sox play their first spring training game. They are playing against the Dodgers. This should be a good game. I think both teams have good chances, although I think the White Sox have a better chance. I can't wait for baseball season and that's why I have been blogging like crazy about them and tweeting about them a lot. I really hope they have a good season, because only the Bulls are really doing well and making me completely happy this season.
This year is bound to be good. We signed a pure DH in Adam Dunn. I think last year we got way to caught up in trying to have a speedy team that we forgot that power is okay also. We didn't have an official or pure DH last year and I think this year we do. That will be a huge difference in our offense. The White Sox biggest problems in the past few years have been that they have not been able to get runners home when they are in scoring position. This stresses me out almost every game. I hope this year they have solved that huge problem with their offense.
The pitching last year was pretty good. The starters were all good pitchers and they will again this year. Peavy will be back early in the season, which was not expected, and that will help our starters have a better year as a total. Buehrle will again be the opening day starter. He is a great pitcher and I love him as our ace. Our other pitchers are great also and they end up performing well. You can read more about all of the pitchers in my blog post about when the pitchers and catchers reported. I went into much more depth in that post.
Overall I think the White Sox are going to have a great season. They made a lot of great additions this offseason and kept a lot of important players. I think resigning Paulie and A.J was huge. Keeping them will help our offense and keeping A.J will help keep our pitchers steady with him. He is a great defensive catcher and keeps the game running quickly. This offseason the White Sox improved both their offense and their pitching staff. Improving both of those parts of the team will make this team much better and will give them the edge to win this division.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Patrick Sharp 300 Career Points


I realize that I am late to the party on this, but if you have ever read my blog you know that I am late to the part on blogging on most things. Patrick Sharp got his 300th career point on Thursday. One of my twitter friends was asking for photo-shopped pictures of sharps head on a 300 character. I did not post this to her, I made this today. I saw her blog and you can visit her blog by click the MsBlackhawks link at the bottom right of my blog page. I saw the images that she got and I decided that I should make my own so that I could blog about how amazing my favorite Blackahawks player is. Okay, I'm done with the citing and boring stuff, onto Patrick Sharps amazingness.
When I saw that he got his 300th point I was super happy, he ended up getting another point for scoring on the open net later in the game. I was really happy when I saw this, though because I have known for awhile that he was a good player. I chose him to be my favorite around 2007 or 2008 when the Blackhawks started to be talked about again in Chicago. This year he has shown his talent the best and it just seems right that this is the year that he hits a great milestone. He is a beast and he has been scoring goals like a machine,(refer to my last post for a great pic to represent that) and he has also been getting a lot of assists. That leads to a lot of points. I guess what I'm trying to say is CONGRATS SHARPIE ON 300 POINTS!!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Blackhawks Struggles


I was planning on posting this basic post about four days ago, when the Blackhawks were making me very mad and they were not playing well at all. Now they won last night and they won earlier today, against pretty good teams, but not great teams. This is a step in the right direction, but we still need a lot more wins and not to lose a couple days after a win. There is something in hockey called a winning streak. Apparently the players don't understand what that is this year. The Blackhawks players can't seem to get it in their head that just because they won last year doesn't mean that they will automatically be in the playoffs this year. It doesn't work that way. They have to play like they want it, they have to play like it is last year. I have a feeling that Johnaton Toews' speech pumped up this team in a major way, no matter what he said. If we get a 10 game winning streak starting with these two games I would not be surprised. People say that Toews is not a good leader for our team. They must be kidding. He was the reason we won the game today and he is the reason we win many games. Just because he isn't a bitch like Crosby and doesn't have a big personality like Ovechkin doesn't mean that he isn't a good leader. He is a big leader for our team and a lot of the players on this team say that.
Back to the Blackhawks struggles. One of the reasons I think they are having a bad year is the beginning. They are a young team. I am as old as Patrick Kane. I know if I won the Stanley Cup the next year I might not play as well; I would feel invincible. I think that is what happened to a lot of these players. They won and therefore thought that nobody could ever beat them now. That caused the beginning of the season to be not such a great start and now we are in a tough situation as we get into playoff push mode.
Another reason for the slow start and not great season is that we have had a lot of injuries. Kane has been injured once for a long time. Toews was out for a little while. Hossa has been out for a lot of this year. Those guys were the first line last year. If you expect a team to win a lot of their games with those guys gone at points, you are crazy and have very high expectations. I knew from the point when they all got injured that this wasn't going to be a fabulous year. You can't blame a team for that, and I know I sound like a Cubs fan pulling the injury excuse, but Kane, Toews, and Hossa??
I'm going to end on a positive note. My favorite player since 2008 when I started paying attention the blackhawks again is having a monster year. He is, obviously, Patrick Sharp. He has 30 goals and most of those were while the other big parts were injured. He stepped up in a big way this year. He knew that some of the better players were injured and the Blackhawks would have an even worse year if somebody didn't step up. He knew this and he stepped into that position and scored like crazy. @blinkfink182 even made a great photoshopped picture of him. Everyone reading this follow him on twitter at that name.

(visit blackhawksdl.com for more)
I think that picture sums it up well.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Pitchers&Catchers Report Tomorrow


Since tomorrow is the day that the pitchers and catchers report, I will talk about them even though this is the start of spring training which is the start of the season. I will post about the White Sox and what I think will happen this season later, but right now I will talk about the pitchers and the catchers.
The first pitcher is one of my favorites, Mark Buerhle, and he sort of made a big deal recently talking about Michael Vick and how he hoped that he would get injured, because Mark is a very passionate dog lover. I don't think this will effect his performance, but nothing really does. He will be the opening day picture for the 11th time, i think. This is a guy that loves playing with the White Sox and loves pitching in general. He is one of the quickest pitchers and I think he will have another great season.
The second is Mark's prodigy, Johnny Danks. Every year it seems like Danks gets better and I think that will continue this year. I like the fact that we have both good lefties and righties. Danks is an important part of our team and works quickly just like buerhle.
The third is Gavin Floyd. Like with Danks he keeps getting better every year and I think he will again this year. Both are young pitchers with promise learning from two greats in Buerhle and Peavy. I expect him to come back better this year and get a couple more wins.
The fourth is Sale. I think the White Sox are getting ahead of themselves with him. They drafted him last year and are ready to start him this year. I think they should keep him in the bullpen for a year or two. He needs time to mature, and we see that with other pitchers. I like his pitching and I think he is a very good pitcher, but he should wait to start.
The final is Peavy. I'm not sure when he is back. Part of me wants him to come back soon, because I obviously want to see him play and pitch for us. The other part of me wants him to get as much rest and rehab as he possibly can so that when he comes back he is better.
I know this was quick, but I will get in deeper later on in spring training.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Jack Skille Traded

jack skille was just trade for a panthers player named frolik. i dont know much about him, but skille hasnt been playing well and so i think anyone is vetter than he has been lately. we also got a goaltender from the panthers and that will help in the future. Turco has been playing well as long as crawford, but at some point turco will be too old and this guy will hopefully be a good step in for the second goalie position. overall i think this is a good trade. skille wasnt playing well lately and fans were expecting someone to get traded so i think they made the right decision. i hope this new guy will make a big impact and i look forward to seeing him work with the hawks.