Paul, you’re right. The DH needs to be tossed.

Tom, using steroids is disrespecting the game. Betting on your team is disrespecting the game. Showing up late or hung-over is disrespecting the game.

Laying down a bunt single when your team is down by two runs and Tony Gwynn is waiting to pinch hit is not disrespecting the game. Doing everything within the rules to win is not disrespecting the game. Quite the opposite.

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From the Boston Herald this morning:

“After the first out in the ninth inning, I looked up at all the zeros (on the scoreboard) and saw a zero under the ‘H’ and I said, ‘Wait a minute!’” – David Ortiz

Dude had no idea until 25 outs had already been recorded. He was not a part of the ballgame.

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The bunt truth

Schilling had come within five outs of a no-hitter May 26, 2001, but lost it when Ben Davis of the Padres blooped a bunt single in the eighth inning of a game Schilling won, 2-0. Davis was ripped by Arizona manager Bob Brenly and Schilling’s teammates for resorting to bunting with a no-hitter on the line.

“The thing about the Ben Davis game, I was one of the few guys who didn’t say anything after that game, and I never have,” Schilling said. “It caught me off guard when it happened, but I wasn’t offended by it. It was a 2-0 game at the time.”

Schilling said he was mindful the Athletics might try to bunt in the late innings yesterday in a one-run game. “I know that [Mark ] Kotsay and Jason [ Kendall] both know how to play the game,” Schilling said of the first two hitters in the Oakland ninth. “I was ready for it if it happened.”

Third baseman Mike Lowell said he was looking for the bunt for much of the game. “I wasn’t going to let them get a cheap bunt,” he said.

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The Sox, record-wise, are starting to settle right where they’ll probably be all season long – at or around .500.

It’s very hard to argue that Ozzie Guillen is the root of all problems when for some of us, he was the catalyst that brought the championship home in 2005.

It may very well be the cyclical element of subtle rebuilding. Williams brought in talent by trading for Thome and Vazquez, but he lapsed in improving his bench.

And then there’s the loyalty factor. By signing Joe Crede (who’s been bothered by a bad back), the team was forced to let hot prospect Josh Fields simmer one more year in the minors. Whether he would’ve been more valuable to the team had he been allowed to play one full season is debatable. Two words: Brian Anderson. But Fields can hit .226 in the bigs just fine.

All things considered, the Sox are not going to win it all this season, so they ought to think about the next three to five years, and what better way than by making a few trades of the white flag type?

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Rogers uses a stat called the “Impact Factor”, which “quantifies the effect of managers on their teams by comparing season records against their finish in the Pythagorean standings, devised by Bill James to assign a team an expected record based on runs allowed and runs scored.”

Of all active managers, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre have the highest impact factor ratings, though Torre’s is way down this year. Here’s what Rogers says about Guillen:

“Sometimes managers get more out of their teams than they should. Sometimes they get less.

While this surely will surprise White Sox fans, Ozzie Guillen is a plus-3 this season, which means he has done a good job to hang around .500 with a team that has issues.”

Food for thought.

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