The Sox are back (?)

The White Sox have won seven of nine games behind improved pitching and some lively hitting from Carlos Quentin and others. Good signs of things to come? Maybe...

The Sox pitching staff was impressive against the Cubs over the weekend, but the Cubs have been pretty woeful of late. This week, they beat up Pittsburgh, but everybody does that (well, except for the Cubs).

More promising is that CQ has been pounding the ball recently, and while Gordon Beckham continues to disappoint and Mark Teahen is injured, it's Quentin's role in the line-up that is most significant for the Sox in taking more advantage of stellar seasons thus far from Alex Rios and Paul Konerko. If the meat of the line-up is getting on base and driving in runs, that should be enough for Sox pitchers like Mark Buehrle and Gavin Floyd, each of whom looked good in their last outing. And, amazingly, Freddy Garcia is still vexing everyone.

Unfortunately, Jake Peavy continues to be a source of stress, annoyance and disappointment. The dreaded "shoulder problems" issue has come up, for now only pushing back a start, but we'll see. Peavy actually has tried hard through a tough season to contribute to team unity and motivation, but the Sox need his arm, not his coaching abilities.

Meanwhile, a winning streak and some good vibes could go a long way toward mitigating the supposed tension between GM Kenny Williams and manager Ozzie Guillen. There have been almost daily reports about how the two don't need to get along to win, or that they actually do get along--whatever... Just win, baby.

The Cell, May 6, 2010

Juan Pierre sizes up Jays' pitcher Dana Eveland while on deck... The Sox eventually lost 2-0. John Danks pitched well enough to win with seven strikeouts in seven innings, but Eveland and his bullpen mates, including, Kevin Gregg, held the Sox line-up to just three hits. The Commish and I enjoyed the view from the Scout Seats, but the night was cold and the overall attendance pretty sparse. The Scout Seat pre-game spread was good, though I think they have dialed down the choices in recent years. The best offering was a warm blueberry-peach cobbler for dessert--a perfect ending for a chilly night in May.

In the second photo, Alex Rios digs in against Eveland. He hit the ball very hard that night (though only went 1-4) and seems to really have re-gained the line-drive stroke he was missing last season. I chose not to take a photo of the jack-ass who jumped from the stands late in the game and ran through the outfield, not wanting to grant him the attention of my dozens of readers. He was the third fan to run on an MLB field in three nights after two previous incidents in Philadelphia, including the now famous Taser incident.

From hit parade to almost hitless

Just a night after the Sox had their biggest offensive explosion of the season thus far, they were almost no-hit tonight by Toronto's Ricky Romero. Eeveryone in the line-up took the night off except for Alex Rios, who for the second night in a row seemed to relish sticking it to his old team. Rios hit a 2-run homer with no outs in the eighth just after A.J. Pierzynski was hit by a pitch--again A.J. ends up as the Sox' good luck charm.

The luck didn't last too long though, as the Sox still lost 4-2. Well, this is one of those rare losses where it could have been worse.

Hopefully, the line-up won't be too shell-shocked after tonight because they had a great team effort coming back to beat Toronto 8-7 in extras on Monday. Andruw Jones hit two homeruns and was 3-4, Alex Rios was 3-5 with a stolen base, and Mark Teahen continued to break out of his slump with a 3-5 night that included a game-tying homerun in the ninth. It all made up for another bad performance by Jake Peavy, who suddenly looks like he's trying to throw the ball through a brick wall when he's on the mound.

Well, it's still early...

Weekend update

After their first weekend of play for the 2010 season, both are teams are 2-4, with line-ups on both sides of town still struggling mightily. The White Sox actually did manage five runs Sunday, the most either team has managed since the Cubs scored five in a hopeless effort back on Opening Day.

The Sox got a nice surprise from Andruw Jones Sunday in the form of an eighth inning game-winning hit that kept them from losing their fifth in a row and getting swept by the Piranhas. Paul Konerko had a two-run homer to continue his tear, and the Sox got solo shots from Mark Kotsay (finally make Ozzie look good for sticking with him) and Gordon Beckham, but Jones' pinch-hit single may have been the brightest moment for this team since Game 1.

Mark Buehrle also was good enough in holding the Twins to four runs over eight innings, keeping a somewhat taxed bullpen off the field.

The win came after a frustrating 2-1 Saturday loss in which a gutsy performance by Freddy Garcia's was wasted. The Sox had a number of scoring chances, but couldn't manage timely hits, and all the recent talk of aggressive base-running backfired at one point when Alex Rios, after his lead-off double, was doubled off of second on a fly ball out.

The Sox head north for a series in Toronto early this week, and it seems unlikely they will find their hitting touch in a dome (damn domes...), but at least they won't have to face Roy Halladay anymore.

The Cubs really should have won all three games in Cincinnati, yet they leave losing two out of three, and when they don't get sabotaged by their own bullpen, they can always count on Alfonso Soriano's clumsy fielding to do the job. On Sunday, Soriano's fumbling of a catchable fly ball in the seventh inning--while not extending the inning, since it would only have been the second out--changed the karma of a game in which Tom Gorzelanny had pitched very well.

After Soriano's error, and with the bases now loaded, Lou Piniella decided to take his anger out on Gorzelanny, removing the lefty for... another lefty, Sean Marshall. Still, Marshall has been dominant this past week, and we've been hoping he'd get the call more often, so the change wasn't a complete surprise. In any case, the karma had changed for the Cubs, and what we got next was a pure bad luck play in which a possible double-play grounder deflected off Marshall's glove and brought in the tying run.

The Reds scored two runs an inning later, and three runs is just too much for this Cubs team. The Cubs didn't do much hitting against rookie starter Mike Leake, with Kosuke Fukudome collecting three of the Cubs' five hits, but they didn't need to, as Leake awarded them seven walks. Still, except for an RBI single by Derrek Lee, the Cubs did nothing with the free runners. The worst was a waste of a bases-loaded, no-outs situation in the first inning. So maybe a little of the bad karma was there from the beginning.

Saturday featured the Cubs' second win of the season and a nicely modulated performance by Carlos Zambrano, who fell behind early 3-0, but didn't implode, and kept the Cubs in the game until homers by Soriano, Fukudome and Jeff Baker brought them a 4-3 lead. Carlos Marmol was at his unhittable best un the ninth for the save, but Zambrano was most impressive. With the obvious exception of his no-hitter in 2008, I've rarely seen get tougher to hit and more calm as a game has gone on. It was an especially nice recovery after his Opening Day horror show.

Home opener for the Cubs tomorrow against the Brew Crew.

Just getting started

A nasty week-long cold has me filled with delirious thoughts, so maybe that's why I'm picking the White Sox to win the A.L. Central Division in 2010.

The headache, fever and ticklish sinuses are combining with a few other strange notions--that Alex Rios is going have an epic 30 HR, 30 SB, 100 RBI year; that the Piranhas will give up more power-runs and score fewer of their own patented small-ball runs in their new park; and that the Sox will have not only the best starting rotation in the A.L. Central but also the best bullpen, while the Joe Nathan-less Twins bullpen struggles--to convince me that the Sox are destined for an 87-75 record and division crown.

That's exactly where I had them a month ago.

My delirium has its limits, of course, and though the Cubs were better than the Sox this spring (18-12-3 to the Sox' 12-17-5), and have emerged with some surprises--Tyler Colvin on the roster and Carlos Silva in the rotation--I still see them no better than 83-79. That's not bad, and a game or two better than I had them a month ago, but I don't think they have the horses to beat either the Cardinals or Brewers.

That might change if Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee play well and stay healthy all year, and if Carlos Zambrano doesn't implode, and if Colvin plays like a Rookie of the Year candidate, and if Alfonso Soriano excells batting sixth, and if Silva pitches better than he has in years, and if Carlos Marmol chills out, but that's a lot of ifs.

Barring a worsening of my own health, I'll be taking in the Sox opener with The Commish tomorrow afternoon at The Cell. Let's hope it's not a repeat of 2007. I don't like the Mark Buehrle-Grady Sizemore match-up, but aside from that, the Sox seem well-poised to get off to a string start.

Sox on the wane

As the Sox stayed in the game last night against the Yankees, I was still feeling pretty good about their play-off chances. The debacles against Baltimore and K.C. recently had me down, but I reminded myself they had won consecutive series against the Yanks and the Angels at home, and still have 6 games left against Detroit, with the Tigers only four games ahead as of last night.

I think a lot of Sox fans have given up already, and the dire talk from Kenny Williams and the Great and Powerful Oz about how much this team has under-achieved hasn't helped sway their opinions. Shouldn't the Jake Peavy and Alex Rios deals have bolstered the belief that this particular team can still win the division?

Instead, everyone is happily embracing the idea of having Peavy and Rios under long-term contracts and kissing this season good-bye. Don't forget, this still looks more than anything like the team that won Game 163 last year.

The Sox went on to lose 5-2 last night, and more than one person has reminded me since that even if they do win their own crappy division, it's merely an invitation to get spanked by the Yanks in the ALDS the same way they got spanked by the Rays last year.

You got me there, but going into today's game the Sox are still ahead of the Yanks in their season series 3-2, and they won 3 of 4 at The Cell, so there's still reason to believe, isn't there?