Chicago White Sox (72-53) at Toronto Blue Jays (64-58) - August 23-26

[GoRapstheoriginal]

JAYS WIN! JAYS WIN! FINALLY! WOOHOO! HOORAY! ! ! !

[vaff87]

I wonder if Kirk would have done that last Friday in the 9th inning. We will never know.

Kirk had two of the top three, and three of the top seven hardest hit balls in the game. Now imagine if he wasn’t just a singles hitter with no power, right, Buck?

[Schad]

I wonder if Kirk would have done that last Friday in the 9th inning. We will never know.

Kirk had two of the top three, and three of the top seven hardest hit balls in the game. Now imagine if he wasn’t just a singles hitter with no power, right, Buck?

He's no Breyvic Valera, that's for sure.

[Hottie McShotty]

Masterful pitching perfomance by Ray. Still quite a hill to climb! Let's see what happens.

[And1Skip]

valera for dickerson. fire this man before the inning is over.

That it worked is somehow funnier than the bit where he did it in the first place. Charlie probably feels so clever!

You called it:

“We wanted Kirk to get to the plate and the best chance to do that is trying to get somebody on base,” manager Charlie Montoyo said post-game. “Valera had a better chance against the lefty and he got the hit. It worked out great.”

[Fairview4Life]

Charlie Montoyost.

[GoRapstheoriginal]

Afternoon game, glad my days off are Thursday & Sunday. GO JAYS GO!

Hopefully Ryu Throws out of his mind.

[polo007]

Read on Twitter

[vaff87]

White Sox seem to be hitting some decent pitches.

[s e n s i]

**** horrible start by ryu.

[Randle McMurphy]

Brad Hand is really bad. He's pitching (poorly) in blowouts at this point, but probably should have been DFA'd by now to prevent Montoyo for costing us another game with him (we're already at 3 and counting).

[StringerBell]

Thank you Charlie for pulling Thornton after 1 inning

[Hottie McShotty]

Starting to get a bit of heartburn at the thought of 2 more years of Ryu. He's looked pretty mediocre to awful since they started checking pitchers for foreign substances. Wonder if that has anything to do with it. Hmmmmm...

I'm still puzzled at how bad Brad Hand has been for us. Look at what Riley Adams is doing with the Nationals. This trade sure doesn't look good on Shatkins right now.

[LLJ]

Did juiced balls make THAT much of a difference with Ryu?

[Randle McMurphy]

Did juiced balls make THAT much of a difference with Ryu?

He was 6th in the AL in ERA among qualified starters until last night. He's clearly not as good as he was in that shortened 2020 season, but I wouldn't be entering panic mode or anything with him.

[Schad]

Did juiced balls make THAT much of a difference with Ryu?

He has definitely been inconsistent, but in the 11 starts since the announcement of the crackdown until yesterday, he had an ERA of 3.66 with opponents hitting .254/.292/.373, which is not ace-level, but also not terrible. He just got shellacked yesterday.

The bigger issue is that his K rate has fallen off quite a bit this year, but that was notable even prior to the crackdown. He isn't getting anywhere near as many whiffs on his changeup compared to 2020 and giving up quite a bit more hard contact with it, and as his changeup is by far his best weapon, that represents a problem.

Hard to say whether it's something we can expect to rebound.