Results tagged ‘ Juan Pierre ’
5/26 – Game 1 @ Blue Jays
How about that!?
Yet another spectacular outing from Mr. Philip Gregory Humber. I talked about consistency in yesterday’s post and I’ll bring it up again. Humber has been the most consistent starter on the staff this season and I had no idea we acquired him until he was on the mound out of the bullpen. Now he’s showing off a sparkling ERA of 2.85. How awesome has this guy been, huh? I’d give him some honorary bullpen points but that would be too cheesy. This blog draws the line at cheese.
The offense wasn’t much tonight but what we got was enough. Juan Pierre drove in A.J. Pierzynski in the fifth inning on a single that went through the gap between first and second. Pierre again reached base in the top of the tenth on a grounder to first baseman Juan Rivera. Pierre was chugging hard down the line and beat out Jays pitcher Mark Rzcpsuiueofhshfkhski… I think that’s how you spell that… anyway, two runs scored on that play. Adam Dunn struck out four times. *sigh*
Jesse Crain came through with another huge outing. He came on to pitch to Jose Bautista in the eighth inning, ending up walking him, then got Arencibia to ground out to Alexei Ramirez. The Mohawked Monstrosity gets three points for Situational Clutchness. Sergio Santos earns his eighth save of the year and collects two points in doing so. Crain takes over the top spot in the standings.
What a fantastic game. I jumped off my chair in the ninth inning when we scored the two runs. My dad looked at me and said, “Did they win?” and I said, “No, we’re in Toronto.” and he said, “…but did they win?” and I said, “No, but we scored two runs.” to which he said, “And you reacted like that?”
He just doesn’t understand.
Mark Buehrle (4-3, 3.92) will go against young up-and-comer Kyle Drabek (3-3, 4.34) tomorrow at 6:07.
Go Sox!!
5/19 – Game 2 vs. Indians
Gavin Floyd came out ready to pitch tonight. He gave up one run in the top of the first inning and then Cruised like Tom through the next six innings (for seven total). Three strikeouts and one walk is pretty darn impressive from Floyd. Not as impressive as Peavy’s outing last night, but I won’t complain. Gavin has been really back-and-forth over his last few starts and that is why I call him The Pitcher of Mystery. He had that fantastic start in Seattle (one of the Games of the Year that you can find in the sidebar) then he gave up five runs in four innings against the A’s in his next start. Go figure.
The offense was ready to go from the start as Paul Konerko drove in a pair in the bottom of the first. Doubles off the bat of Alexei Ramirez and Adam Dunn plated two runs each and then a Carlos Quentin two-run homer in the fifth inning gave Gavin Floyd and the bullpen all of the runs they needed.
Speaking of the bullpen, Chris Sale and Tony Pena both made appearances. Sale gets two points but Pena only gets one for allowing a run and killing the buzz of the evening. I was pretty pumped for the eight to one final score and then Pena had to give up a run. What a loon. Is it too much to ask for our bullpen to shut people down? I know they had a seven run pillow but still.
Overall, a good W from the guys. Offense, defense, pitching, bullpen, everyone was solid. Even Juan Pierre was fine.
The Sox welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers of a City that is Nowhere Near Los Angeles… oh wait, no, sorry, that’s the Angels. The team we’re gonna play is the Los Angeles Dodgers who are Actually in Los Angeles. Ted Lilly (3-4, 4.83) will go for those guys and my Humberometer is off the charts, which means Phil Humber (3-3, 3.18) is due for another start. Hopefully he can keep the magic workin’.
GO SOX!!
5/11 – Game 3 @ Angels
Adam Dunn started the scoring (for the Sox) in the top of the third inning with a MAMMOTH blast to right field, his fourth home run of the year. Dunn has gotten extremely hot on this West Coast trip and hopefully that will continue into Oakland and when we come back home. I don’t remember exactly when Omar Vizquel replaced Mark Teabag but I know that Vizquel’s first at bat was in the eighth inning and it was a double that scored Alex Rios. This brought the Sox within two runs with some work to do. A.J. Pierzynski hit a double in the ninth inning that scored Adam Dunn and moved The Bridge to second base. Vizquel hit a sacrifice fly that scored Lillibridge who moved to third base on a wild pitch.
4/11 – Game 1 vs. A’s
Juan Pierre strikes again.
4/6 – Game 2 @ Royals
That’s a little bit more like it!
“Probably.”
4/5 – Game 1 @ Royals
Jones to Make First Start
Nothing special about this post, just wanted to inform everyone that the Sox are going to be starting Andruw Jones in center field tonight, with Alex Rios in left and Juan Pierre at DH. Quentin will most likely be patrolling right field because I haven’t heard anything different.
As far as I know those are the only changes in the lineup for tonight’s game.
Go Sox!!
4/7 Game 2 vs. Indians
Well, you win some, you lose some, and even with the 2007 National League Cy Young award winner on the mound… we lost some…
Jake Peavy struggled his way through five innings of three-run baseball, and even though he only gave up three runs, it was painful to watch at times. It seemed to me like he was trying to get the batters to chase his breaking pitches that were outside of the zone anyway instead of getting a good fastball over to start things off. He did manage five strikeouts, one of them against Travis Hafner with two on and two out to end the third inning, but it was a rough first start for Peavy.
Juan Pierre was able to draw a walk from Fausto Carmona (one of six) to lead off the ballgame and ended up stealing his way to third. He was then driven in on a sacrifice fly from Paul Konerko allowing the Sox to jump ahead early. In Konerko’s second at-bat he cracked his second home run of the season, a 2-run blast into the bullpen in left field, to put the Sox up 3-0.
Unfortunately that’s where our scoring stopped and where Cleveland started to pile on gork shots, bloopers, and in-betweeners to eventually tie the game. Peavy was pulled after the end of the fifth inning which gave our so-far stellar bullpen a chance at some early action.
Randy Williams was the first to toe the rubber. He pitched an inning and a third, giving up the run that would saddle him with the loss.
Then came Tony Pena who pitched two thirds of an inning surrendering a hit and a walk in a decent effort.
Matt Thornton was once again lights-out, sandwiching a strikeout between two ground outs.
The bottom of the ninth inning brought on Big, Bad, Bobby Jenks… who is now officially demoted to “Just Big” Bobby Jenks. He let the final run of the game come across home plate while also walking two and striking out two. I know I said watching Peavy struggle was bad, but this was even worse. Peavy we need every five days while Jenks we’ll need close to fifty times this year.
We’ve only played two games and everyone in the division is currently tied for first until the Twins game finishes, at which time they’ll be in first by half a game, so there really isn’t anything to complain about.
Tomorrow we finish off the series by sending Gavin Floyd to the mound to face Justin Masterson. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 and, as always, you can catch all the action on AM 670 The Score starting with Chris Rongey’s pre-game show at 6:30.
Go Sox!!
Welcome, Juan
Boy, would you look at that? We have a lead-off hitter again!
After Scott Podsednik’s departure I was racking my brain trying to find who would be at the top of the order for the Sox come Opening Day. As far as I could tell, that man would’ve been Mark Kotsay. I wasn’t comfortable with him there but he was the best choice of anyone on the roster. There were rumors that Kenny Williams was aggressively pursuing Yankees’ center fielder Brett Gardner to patrol our outfield and hit lead off, but those rumors fell through quickly.
There were also rumors earlier in the offseason that the Sox were looking at (somehow) acquiring Cone Figgins from the Angels, Carl Crawford (yeah right) from the Rays, or even resigning Scott “I’m suddenly a greedy speedster” Podsednik.
It never crossed my mind that Williams would look out West and talk to the Dodgers about one of their many center fielders, much less Juan Pierre. I remember listening to Cubs games in 2006 when they had Pierre at the top of their lineup — his blue camo shirt and all. The guy stole fifty-eight base, was caught twenty times, had 201 hits, and batted .292. What a year he had…
Well, Juan is in Chicago once again, and this time he’s playing for the right team.
Pierre, a career .301 hitter, focuses mainly on speed. He’s quick on his feet and makes good decisions, which is why he has 459 career stolen bases. When the Marlins won the World Series in 2003 Pierre pilfered 65 bases out of the lead-off spot. With guys like Mike Lowell, Ivan Rodriguez, and Derrek Lee hitting behind him he could set them up for any number of things resulting in a run scored. The greatest thing about Pierre is that he rarely strikes out. In 5,533 career at bats, only 337 have finished in a strike out. Scott Podsednik, on the other hand, has struck out 512 times in 3,168 at-bats.
I’m looking at the Sox depth chart and I’m becoming more and more confident that we won’t finish battling the Royals for dead last in the Central division. But now that Pierre is our guaranteed center fielder, where will Rios play? Perhaps Pierre won’t play center… he could be our left fielder. In my opinion, though, we need his speed in center. However, I would like to see him in left because, as I’ve said before, I don’t want to see Carlos Quentin play one inning in the outfield next season. I hate cringing every time a ball is hit behind him.
Here’s our projected outfield right now
- Left Field - Mark Kotsay/Juan Pierre
- Center Field - Juan Pierre/Mark Kotsay/Alex Rios
- Right Field - Andruw Jones/Alex Rios
It could be different, but that’s how I see it.
So on behalf of all Sox fans out there I’d like to welcome Juan Pierre into our family.
Now… does he have a black/silver/white camo shirt to wear under his jersey? That’d look awesome…
Anders
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