Life In The Cell

The OC vs Renteria

This isn’t a statistical analysis discussing who is a better shortstop; apparently Orlando Cabrera and Edgar Renteria flat out don’t like eachother. Actually, I should clarify, Renteria doesn’t like OC and Cabrera is baffled as to why the hate (child).

From the article linked before:

In the tunnels of Detroit’s Comerica Park, a clubhouse attendant, much like a carrier pigeon, delivers a message that will echo in a country thousands of miles away. It’s a simple request for a meeting between two shortstops, intended to avoid a full-fledged controversy — a polémica, as they say in Colombia. The attendant enters the Tigers’ clubhouse and finds Edgar Rentería. “Edgar,” the clubbie says, “Orlando Cabrera says he would like to speak to you.” But Rentería does not wish to speak to Cabrera, his counterpart on the White Sox, his fellow Colombian. The day before, Rentería explained why to a reporter: “I won’t accept dealing with him. I think he’s disrespected so many baseball people in Colombia who have been working to improve the sport. And that’s not something I can accept, even with an apology from him.”

So it seems the way Cabrera “disrespected the game” stems from his partnership in Renteria’s summer league in Colombia. Renteria and his brother started a 4-team summer league and Cabrera bought one of the teams. His team reached the championship, but after the year, he sold the team back to the Renterias. Edison Renteria is convinced that he left the team in shambles and he hows the money, while Cabrera believes the opposite that he is owed $25,000 from such revenue streams as the TV contract. If you read the article, the Renteria’s seem pretty bitter; Edison straight out calls OC a liar.

The article as a whole makes the Renteria’s seem a little silly. Orlando is trying to bridge the gap and fix things but they will have nothing to do with him. If anything you would expect OC to have sour grapes after he was effectively replaced by Renteria in Boston.

Some other interesting things about OC and how he’s connected to Renteria:

-His dad was a scout for the Marlins and tried to get them to sign him. The Marlins declined, so his father then recommended they sign Edgar Renteria.

-OC attended Renteria’s major league debut

-Cabrera used a Renteria style glove coming up in the league.

All this will make me watch that much more closely the next time either one of them slides into second to try and break up a double play.

Life in the Cell Radio - Ep 1 - April 22, 2008

*EDIT* Apparently only the first 5 minutes are freely available on the player below. If you want to hear the whole thing you have to download the veoh TV player at www.veoh.com I’ll try and figure out a way around that once I wake up

This is the new direction I’ll be going in. Weekly editions of “Life in the Cell Radio” supplemented by posts here and there. I go into greater detail in the actual clip.

This week’s episode talks about

The pitching, both the starters and then pen compared to last season
The hitting broken down in segments and as a whole
Swisher and Quentin are the Pods and Erstad of 2007 (I’m not crazy, listen to find this one out)

and it features

Songs by Andrew Bird, Architecture in Helsinki, Common and Hard-Fi

Online Videos by Veoh.com

The coming episodes will be more polished and slightly more direct with the topics. I needed to explore and see how things went, overall I’m pretty happy with it, but as time passes there will be more features, I guess you could say, that will repeat through each airing. Suggestions, comments, concerns are all welcome.

I did forget to add in the episode. If you have any questions or comments concerning the Sox or baseball in general, e-mail me at . If I receive any questions I’ll most definitely address them in the next episode.

Episode 2 will air (as of now) May 4th

MIA

I should have made an announcement earlier, but finals week is upon me, so I won’t be back to writing until I’m back in the Chi on Monday. I’ll get something up on Monday, I haven’t decided yet, but it won’t just be recaps; hopefully it’s something you can sink your teeth in to.

-Jeeves

Spring Training Game 17

Game 17

The Good

-The Sox beat the Scotty Pods and the Rocks 4-1!

-Javy was absolutely brilliant. He pitched 5 innings and struck out 7 while only allowing 1 hit. He even stranded a lead-off triple by striking out the next two and inducing a pop up. I knew it was going to be a good outing for him after he struck out the side to kick off the game.

-Javy was probably player of the game for the Sox, but if I had to give an award to player of the game, non-pitcher, Brain Anderson would take the cake. He went 2-3 with a solo homer. He also played some solid D. He gunned out a runner tagging up from third to bail Linebrink out of some trouble, and also made a catch amongst three other Sox fielders to record the final out of the game. At the rate he’s going, there’s no way he doesn’t get a roster spot, unless of course he is traded.

-Fields seems to be coming around. He made a slight adjustment with his hands and the benefits are evident by his 3-4 day following Game 16’s 2-hit effort. All three hits were singles, but I’m not complaining.

-Man Crush 2.0 continues his hot hitting by recording 2-hits. Swisher is doing quite well this spring, which is all I really need to say about him.

The Bad

-Linebrink was shaky though he didn’t allow any runs, and Egbert didn’t have a very good outing. He allowed 1 run on 3 hits, but did strike out 2. It’s amazing how he does it considering he doesn’t exactly have overpowering stuff. I hope he pitches a few more times so that I can see him action again.

-Crede went 0-3

The Ugly

-Crede is threating to bring his batting average down to 000, he’s currently at .080. He started the spring 2-7 with that second hit being a mammoth homer, but he has gone hitless since.

-Seeing Pods out there only reminded me of last year.

Spring Training Game 16

Game 16

The Sox lose a heartbreaking game in 5-7 to the Giants 10 innings.

The Good

-Fields and Alexei led the offense with two hits apiece. For Alexei it’s more of the same, but it’s tough to make out what this means for Josh. He did get two hits, one of which was a double, but he also had a hat trick of strike outs. Normally I don’t worry about Spring Training stats too much, but in this case I’m worried in the event that the Sox can’t find a trade partner for Crede. Oh yes, and Alexei continues to show his wiry strength by smacking out 2 doubles.

-Brian Anderson continued to make a push for a roster spot (or at least garner more coming to the Sox in a trade) by reaching base 3 times. He had 2 walks and a solo shot.

-Carlos Quentin doubled and walked in his return after resting his surgically repaired shoulder. Carlos needs more days like this if he want to have a starting spot with the Big League squad.

-MikeyMac pitched another scoreless inning of relief, though it wasn’t without worry. He allowed a single and a walk and threw in a balk for good measure. Though this is light years better than how he started the spring. Maybe this fella is slowly getting a grip on the mental aspects of pitching…maybe.

The Bad

-See Josh Fields strike out total for the game.

-I don’t know quite what to make of Floyd’s start. In an insider piece by Keith Law, he said that his curveball didn’t have the plus-plus bite that it used to. His description of the game didn’t sound too favorable for Floyd, but he wasn’t gawd-awful. He allowed 2 runs but did work 4 innings. Since I didn’t see it, I can’t be overly critical.

The Ugly

-Adam Russell blew the win for the Sox. He gave up 3 runs in 2 innings. I don’t really even have great hope anymore that Russell will pan out as a useful arm for the Sox. I won’t write him off completely until this year in the minors.