If Brent Lillibridge's Twitter comes true, it looks like an old friend is joining the White Sox:
Getting to Chi could not be hardr flight cancll, switch to another flight delay 2 hours back to Charlotte. So can't fly out til tomorrow.
No official announcement has been made, but in this universe in which Lillibridge has a good reason to fly to Chicago, he would replace Mark Teahen and his injured finger.
Lillibridge's presence could be harbinger of doom, as the streaky Teahen has hit .350/.413/.500 over his last 13 games. I don't see Jayson Nix, Omar Vizquel and Lillibridge combining for a run like that.
On the other hand, I've softened a little bit on Lillibridge. Obviously, the guy has a superior sense of humor to any other ballplayer on Twitter.
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Tyler Flowers capped off a terrible month with two more strikeouts, giving him this line for May:
.122/.215/.280, 10 BB, 36 K in 82 AB
As the K's piled up, I had a suspicion -- or maybe just a hope -- that he was changing his style. That appears to be the case:
Those changes were implemented by Flowers. But with all due respect to the organization, Flowers wants to somewhat return to a more familiar style that made him previously successful.
"At the point where I've tried doing it their way this last month, sadly enough the numbers speak for themselves, and that way doesn't totally work," Flowers said. "I have to go back to the old me. I have to go back to my style of hitting, while implementing the little things Walk [White Sox hitting coach Greg Walker] and Kenny talked about.
"I'm about being a little more aggressive. I haven't been happy with not driving balls anywhere, especially to right field. I'm not driving them like I can and why Kenny traded for me. I've lost that since spring. It has even been frustrating in batting practice. But I think I found where that piece was missing. I'm pumped up to get my game going and get my timing back and get rolling."
The obvious joke here is that Greg Walker can ruin a hitter in seconds, but reading between the lines, I wonder if the Sox have ever truly entertained trading A.J. Pierzynski.
I'm thinking that if they were truly interested in having Flowers ready enough to take over, they would have saved it until the offseason. Ramon Castro has proven that he's not durable enough to catch every day, so I'm guessing June 14 will pass with Pierzynski still on the South Side. I've been wrong about these things before, though.
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Tropicana Field isn't the worst ballpark I've ever been to. That honor still belongs to Shea Stadium, which did everything it could to make me miserable.
The Trop is the saddest, though, no matter how you approach it.
It has a ramshackle feeling from the outside, and the narrow, winding concourse with no access to baseball views but plenty of flashing lights and alcoves reminded me of Gurnee Mills.
When you get to the seat, it improves some. The sight lines aren't bad -- I could read the chances a flyball or line drive had off the bat -- and I was thankful it was 72 degrees instead of the 90s.
But there's a bizarre paradox at play. It looks like they're playing baseball in a high school gym. Every other dome has levels upon levels in the outfield, but Tropicana Field has only one section of seats that is overwhelmed by a towering, gray mass of concrete.
Despite the park's layout making it seem smaller, everything sounded distant. I thought the cowbells would bother me, but they sounded like they were in another room. When the PA system dropped out, I could talk in all directions without raising my voice -- and my voice doesn't carry.
Attendance wasn't the problem. They drew a respectable 26,878 on Sunday. It could be that the fans weren't into it, but I think there were some acoustic issues. The deadened atmosphere almost makes the cowbells a necessity.
There's a photo gallery of the day's events on the Facebook page.
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Minor league roundup:
- Pawtucket 4, Charlotte 1
- Carlos Torres struck out 10 over 6 1/3 innings, allowing a run on three hits and two walks.
- Tyler Flowers went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts.
- Jordan Danks went 1-for-3 with his 10th stolen base.
- Birmingham 10, Tennessee 1
- Brent Morel went 2-for-5 with a double and three RBI.
- Christian Marrero went 1-for-4 with a double and a strikeout.
- Potomac 4, Winston-Salem 3
- Nevin Griffith allowed two runs on six hits and four walks over six innings, striking out five.
- Jon Gilmore and Brandon Short each went 1-for-4 with a strikeout; Short doubled.
- Justin Greene had a single and a strikeout over three at-bats.
- Charleston vs. Kannapolis PPD
