Thursday, March 31, 2011

White Sox Season Preview Take 2


I did a season preview way earlier in the year when the pitchers and catchers reported. There was a lot that I didn't know back then about this team. Spring Training doesn't mean much, but it can tell you a lot about how some of the younger players are going to play.

I got a good vibe from spring training this year. The wins and losses don't matter and that's not what I'm talking about. I liked what I saw with Milledge, Morel, and Beckham. With those young guys in our lineup playing at their best we are a good team. Konerko will be solid as always, and the rest of our offense seems like it will be ready to play. Our pitching was great, I'm extremely excited about Johnny Danks and Gavin Floyd. Both pitchers came to our team without experience. Buehrle groomed them and now every year they get better. The pitcher I am most excited about is Chris Sale. When he first started playing last year I knew he was a gamer. I was asking for him to be out there as much as possible, he seemed like one of the few guys who could actually win a game for us. This year he will be better and I look forward to him most likely being a starter next year.

The bad things that I noticed were very few. I remembered a few things. I remembered that Adam Dunn strikes out a lot, and that is an understatement. I also remembered how terrible Teahen is at defense and that is why he didn't get the third base job. Other than those two I can't think of anything that was a bad sign. Buehrle didn't pitch well at the beginning of spring training, but he will be fine in the regular season.

The worst thing this off-season and spring training was the Peavy situation. The worst part was that I thought he would be out for a good chunk of the season, then he made a really rapid recovery and I loved what I saw. Right as he was about to finish his miraculous recovery he started to have tendinitis in his elbow and we are back to square one. Peavy will probably be back around the same time he was expected to with the first injury. White Sox fans shouldn't be worried. He will come back when he is ready and he will be fine.

Okay, now onto the future, where I think the White Sox are going to go this year.
They have gotten some love from some ESPN guys to be a dark horse in the league, and that's the position the White Sox like to be in. They have great pitching, and it will be even better when Peavy comes back. You could argue that this pitching staff is only second to Philly. The White Sox also have added a lot of good things to their offense this year. Our outfielders are going to be better than they were last year, and if one slacks off Ozzie won't hesitate to put Milledge in. Our infield is very young excluding Konerko. Morel, Beckham, and Ramirez are going to need to grow up and play well. Beckham needs to have a bounce-back season, which I think is very possible. I'm not too worried about the offense of the other two. This team is built to win a World Series. I'm not going to drink the kool-aid and say they will win, I'm saying that they are built to win it. If we do everything right and don't have very many injuries the World Series is possible. The twins and Tigers are tough, though and we are going to need to play well in every division game. If they play well against their division, and win the division they have a good chance at going all the way. The way the team is set up with great pitching and a good offensive core, they are built for the playoffs. Stay tuned to this blog for a AL Central preview soon, and for more up to date info follow me (@the_chicago_fan) and my blogs (@tcf_blogs)




I had to post this, since I love all team commercials, like the one goal series and I hope the All in series is just as good.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Shutout, Hawks Win 4-0


This game was the first game of our new forward Marcus Kruger who we called up for this game. He played well, he had his first penalty but overall had a good performance. I think he will do a lot of good things in the future and look forward to seeing him play more with the Blackhawks. This game was a first game for someone else too, this is the first game for Campbell after his ankle injury and he seemed to skate just fine. Sharp was still out today, but the Hawks didn't need him, because they scored pretty well by themselves.

In the second period, it was still tied 0-0 when Toews passed to Keith who passed to Seabrook who rocketed it towards the net and got the first goal of the game. Toews had another assist on the stalberg score in the 3rd Period. Also in the third period Kane scored on a sweet pass by Keith. Both Toews and Kane had multipoint games, this was Toews' 24th and Kane's 18th. Later in the 3rd the three slovs were together and teamed up to score an awesome goal. Frolik and Hossa got the assists and Kopecky got the goal.

The biggest story of the night in my opinion was that Corey Crawford was amazing. I can't even count how many times I tweeted something with #Crawesome in it. He was a beast and ending up holding on to get a shutout, his 5th of the season. He has been in net night after night and is still performing like that, I think we have a winner here with him.
The big problem of the game, at least in the first part of the game, was that there was terrible passing by the Blackhawks. They had plenty of chances that were killed because certain players couldn't pass the puck well. They have to improve on that, but later in the game the passes were the things that shined, so maybe Q mentioned it during intermission.
The three stars of the night were crawford, toews, and the number one star was seabrook because his goal opened up the shooting spree and helped lead the Hawks to victory. All three stars deserved it and they all played extremely well.
Overall the Blackhawks played a good game and played like they needed to win, which they did. Toews was a monster as always, and Kane got another goal. I don't think I could be any happier right now about this game.

Monday, March 21, 2011

HAWKS WIN. 2-1


The Blackhawks had a terrible loss a few days ago, and they knew going to Pheonix that they had to play well or they would not be in the playoffs. They rose up to that challenge and played a really good game. This game could have been a blowout for the hawks, but the coyotes' goalie made a lot of good saves, and most of those good saves were on Toews.
Nick Leddy had his birthday yesterday, and as a present got an assist on the Keith goal in the first period and got blamed for the yotes' goal. Kind of an up and down effect there.
The bad news from this game is that Patrick Sharp got hurt on a delayed penalty call. It is a knee injury and there has not been a comment on when he will be back or how he is doing. I hope he is back soon, he has been a vital part of our team this year and losing him for this final playoff push could be fatal.

The good news from this game is that Chris Campoli got his first Blackhawks goal. That is the goal that broke the tie and ended up winning the game for the hawks. Both goals were great goals and from almost the same spot. Great setups on both, one from Leddy and one from Toews. I was really happy for Campoli when he got the goal and I hope that is only the first of many on this team. He fits in well with the rest of the team.
The final minute of the game was crazy, but the Blackhawks ended up holding on. Hossa was about to put it away into the open net, but the shot was blocked and the yotes still had a chance to put the puck in the net and make the game go to overtime. That was huge, I'm done with the overtime thing. The Blackhawks have played too many overtime games, yes it gives you a point but if you end up winning you just give the other team a point. The Blackhawks played well and the score doesn't really show that but they are back to the form they were in when they went on that 8 game win streak.

I thought I would share this because Keith scored last night. Great song and video. I love all the songs that the score puts out.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The 3rd Base Battle


The White Sox have one big problem with their infield. They don't know who will be the starting third basemen. They have four good candidates for the job. They are Omar Vizquel, Brent Morel, Dayan Viciedo, and Mark Teahen. They all have a good chance, and I don't think one guy is running away with it. This is going to come down to the last few days of spring training. This competition is good and bad for the White Sox. It is good, because it will pick the best third basemen and not the one that had a good season last year and will let Ozzie see who has a good competitive spirit. The bad effect on the White Sox is that a competition doesn't always help to have a good locker room atmosphere. I think this group has a couple of mature players, so that won't be a problem but it's something to worry about. I don't know who is going to win this, but I do know a thing or two about each player.

1. Brent Morel
Brent Morel played a little bit last year, but not enough to say that he would be the starter at the beginning of the year. He has great defense and pretty good offense. He impressed a lot of fans last year when he did get to play and one of those fans was me. I was quick to say that he should be in there as much as possible. He has arguably the best defense among all the contenders and also can swing the bat pretty well. I think that qualifies him to be our third basemen, but the other players are also good. The downside of Morel is that he won't always swing the bat well and usually if you are a good fielder you put your body in danger a little too much and injuries could be a problem. I really like Morel to be the third basemen, but the other guys have pretty good arguments also. The defense is the key, if Ozzie wants defense Morel is the best, but if he wants offense it will all depend on who is hitting well at the time because all of the contenders are hot and cold hitters.

2. Mark Teahen
The first thing I have to say is that I didn't and don't like the trade that we made for Mark Teahen, we gave two of our top young infielders for a player who has done relatively nothing to help the team so far, so I might be a little bias while talking about him. He has terrible fielding. When he did play last year before the injury he committed so many errors it made me want to cry. Every time the ball was hit to third base area I would worry. That is not even an exaggeration of how bad he was at defense last year. I don't know if that was normal or abnormal for him, but if I were Ozzie I would be afraid to put Teahen out there with a young pitcher or any pitcher. Teahen's hitting is nothing to write home about, but its probably one of the top 2 out of this group. Like I said before all of these players are hot and cold hitters, so it will probably come down to defense.

3. Omar Vizquel
I liked the way that Vizquel played last year, but he is very old and I don't think he will be able to play as well this year. I was surprised that he could play as much and as well as he did last year and I don't think he will be able to pull that off again. I do like him to be a guy that will go in for whoever is the starter if they aren't hitting well during the game and can play a couple innings every other day. I just don't think that he will be fit enough and young enough to play game after game for the whole summer. If he is fit enough and he has another year like last year then, yes, play him as much as he can handle. I just don't want to push him too hard so that he just gets terrible. He is a good contender for this roll if he can handle it. He is probably the most consistent hitter of them all and he is consistently good.

4. Dayan Viciedo
Last, but not least is Dayan Viciedo. He recently injured himself, but he is one of the White Sox top prospects. If he isn't on the team this year, or the third base starter this year, he will sometime in the future. He is the White Sox utility man, but he is still fighting for this starting job. He has good fielding and good hitting, but like most of the other players he is a hot and cold hitter. He has a lot of potential and if he taps into that this year I think he can do a lot of damage. If Morel or Teahen don't turn out to be stars, I think this guy will. He is a great player that still needs to mature a little, but if he does he will be a great infielder or outfielder. I personally don't think he will get this job, because he will be wanted to be used as a utility man, so that he can go anywhere off the bench.

I thought I would share an AMAZING White Sox video with you that sort of previews the season, and it gives me the chills at the end. Watch it, its a great video.
SOX PRIDE.

Lastings Milledge


This is not one of the topics that I originally planned on posting about today. I was going to talk about the 3rd Base battle or the Peavy situation, then I got a great suggestion that I should post about Milledge and his effect on the White Sox this year and what his effect will continue to be as the year goes on. I still don't know for sure if he will be on the 25 man roster. Lillibridge is fighting for that final position also and today he hit a big home run. The White Sox lost, but that home run may have saved Lillibridge from being run out of the team. Milledge was showing Brent up in every way the whole spring. The race for that final spot was about to be declared over and then today he hit a home run. I'm not saying that that one home run he hit is going to get him on the roster, it will help him get momentum and maybe match up what Milledge has done this whole spring so far. For the purposes of what I say in the rest of this post, Milledge wins this race.
Lastings Millidge has been a relatively known name in the MLB so far in his career, but he hasn't had a good year in a long time. He will not be a White Sox starter on opening day, but as the season goes on he might. I think he will start as their 5th outfielder, but if he continues to dominate when he gets into the game he will move up to the 4th outfielder. By the end of the year I think he can be a starter for the White Sox. I think Juan Pierre might have a bad season, and if he starts to play bad I don't think Ozzie will hesitate to put Milledge in the game as a starter.
This spring he has a .267 average with 2 home runs and 8 hits. That's not a great showing of what he can do, but he has shown if you actually watch the games that he is a great outfielder and can be a very good hitter. He is only 25 years old and has a lot of good years to come and I hope those years are with the White Sox. By the end of the spring I expect him to have around 20 hits 5 or 6 home runs and a good average. That is a pretty good spring showing and will prove to be enough to put him on the roster.
I think that once he is on the roster he won't look back. He will go from the last guy on the roster to being a big part of our team. I have a feeling about this player and our outfielders could use a little pressure to play well enough so that they are not replaced. I think that will be the biggest effect he has the White Sox this year. He might not get to play a lot of time, but the fact that he is always there waiting for one of the outfielders to make a mistake will put pressure on the outfielders to play much better than they did last year and to not make any mistakes. Even by just sitting on the bench he will help our team. That right there is a player.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Power of the Hamburger, Bulls Win 98-79


Last night the Bulls played the Wizards. By winning they gained sole possession of first place in the eastern conference, and added to their winning streak making the streak 7 games in a row. They will play the Nets on Thursday to try to extend that streak to 8 games. Through the whole streak Derrick Rose has been the MVP that he has been all year. I hope the Bulls can continue to win like this to finish out the rest of the season.

The Bulls have won most of the games during the streak without Boozer and last night they didn't have Noah either. Those two players have had troubles this season staying healthy, but it will be good to have Noah back on Thursday. I don't know when Boozer will be back, but this injury is not his fault. He got almost killed by Kwame Brown. Boozer did shoot a little today, but I doubt he will be back that soon. I hope Boozer will be back soon, because when the Bulls have Noah, Boozer, Deng and Rose on the court to start the game they win a lot more games than when they don't. I also hope that Boozer and Noah will be on the court throughout the whole playoff run, when it comes that time.
Another big part of the game that probably shouldn't have been a big part of the game was that fans were a little upset with Brian Scalabrine for not attempting a three as time expired so that they could get a hamburger. I don't think this had a huge impact, but I did think it was kind of funny that some fans are fat enough that they would get mad at a player because he didn't try to help them get a free hamburger. Another point, who says that Scal would've hit the shot? I seriously doubt that Brian Scalabrine would have hit a three.
To recap the game, I don't really have much to say. I couldn't watch the game because it wasn't on my TV, but from what I saw on twitter they were sloppy. That is not the kind of play that will help us in the playoffs. My favorite thing that happened last night was that the Bulls won big, they took first place in the east and yet after the game coach Thibodeau was mad at the team. That is why I love having him as our coach, he pushes them hard and never stops asking for more. Some people say he pushes them too hard and they may not like it, but from what I have heard so far he is well liked by the players and he is doing a great job coaching them. In my opinion he deserves to get the Coach of the Year award. Getting to the NBA Finals, or even the conference finals would help him get that even more. That was the best pickup we had this offseason, even over the Boozer pick up.
I hope the Bulls continue to get better as the year finishes out and I hope they go far in the playoffs. Derrick Rose will win the MVP, I don't think any other player can put up an argument, because no other player has played as well as Rose the whole year. There might be some players that are starting to play well recently, but Rose has been the best player the whole season.


I felt the need to share that picture, because when I first saw it I almost peed my pants.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Hossa Scores Two


Last night the Blackhawks played a must win game against the Sharks. If we lost this game we could have dropped out of the playoffs for the time if we didn't win. The first period was shaky and the Blackhawks started to look like the team we had seen during the 3 game losing streak and no the team during the 8 game winning streak. The second period was a whole other story.
In the second period the Blackhawks scored 5 goals, and two of those goals came from Marian Hossa. Hossa recently has had some problems getting the puck in the net, but last night he almost had a hat trick. He was a beast and was fed by some crazy good passes from patrick sharp.



I have to admit I wrote this little post just so I could post this youtube video and song on my blog. You know you love it too.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

From 1991 to 2011






















Last night I was tweeting as I do most nights and I was watching the Bulls game. I was trying to make a really good point about the similarities between the 1991 team and the 2011 team and I completely failed. I said they were ten years apart, when they are twenty. So now everyone that reads knows that I am a legit idiot. Since cramming the similarities into 140 characters is a bit of a challenge, I figured I would write a blog post about it, so here we go.
In 1991, I was three years old. I don't remember the Bulls winning the championship that year at all, but I do remember the years after and I realize that the 1991 team was the team that started it all. Jordan finally got the teammates he needed to win a championship and so they did win one. It was Jordan's first championship and it started something huge for his career and for the city of Chicago. He went on to win 6 total championships and both of them 3-peats. On to the 2011 Bulls, they were in the playoffs last year but were missing just a little something with their team. They got that in Carlos Boozer and also with Deng becoming a much better player this season. Now they have a chance to win the championship as they are 1st place in the Eastern Conference. These teams seem way too much alike to be just a mere coincidence.
I know that Derrick doesn't like to be compared to Michael Jordan, but there are some very obvious similarities. In 1991, Jordan won the MVP, this year it looks like Derrick Rose will win the MVP. They both are very aggressive and really good players. Derrick Rose grew up idolizing Michael Jordan, and who knows maybe the next Bulls star is idolizing Derrick Rose this year.
That about raps up everything I had to say. The last thing is that the Bulls and Michael Jordan were recognized as contenders, but not really thought of as a championship team until 1991, the same this is with this Bulls team. I just hope that the Bulls can do what the Bulls did in 1991.
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Just for fun I posted this YouTube video. I am legit in love with it.

Monday, March 7, 2011

The Two MVPs


I just thought I would write about the two players in Chicago that are making a big impact on their teams, so much that they are MVP candidates, at least in my book. The first is Jonathon Toews. Lately he has led the team on an eight game winning streak and has scored a goal in the last three games. This is not the only reason that I think he should be MVP. It takes all year to earn the award. All year long Toews has been stepping it up as the team's captain. Together with Sharp they have helped the blackhawks get back into the top of the standings and into playoff position. Toews recently gave a big speech during intermission in St. Louis that fired up the whole team and really helped them get out of their slump. He has stepped up and really showed that he deserves his captain role. Right now he is scoring goals, getting assists, pumping the team up, and just flat out playing good hockey. I think that qualifies him for MVP.

The next player is a guy that I have been talking about being the MVP for a while now. Derrick Rose has had a great year. All year long he has stepped it up and has put up major stats. He is a great player to begin with and this is one of his better years. The Bulls are now 2nd in the east because of him and they are rolling. Every game that the Bulls play against a top team he steps up and scores tons of points. While scoring all those points he also gets little turnovers and a lot of assists. Derrick Rose is MVP and I don't think anybody can truly argue that. Everywhere he goes he gets MVP chants and everywhere he goes he deserves them. He is a scoring machine and also plays the point guard position well by getting a lot of assists. He is the real deal. I won't be surprised if the Bulls win the NBA Championship this year, but I really think that next year is their year. Derrick Rose can change that, he can make what I think the Bulls aren't ready to handle into something they handle very well. He is the NBA MVP. No question.