Comeback kid

Andruw Jones is not the same player who hit two homers in his first World Series appearance back in 1996 as a 19-year-old. He's been through a lot of ups and downs--and we're just talking about his weight--and turned 33 yesterday.

But, Jones continued what is looking more and more like the start of a comeback year by celebrating his birthday in a similar fashion to that long-ago WS appearance: Two homeruns, including the walk-off game-winner in a much-needed 7-6 win for the White Sox over Seattle.

Paul Konerko and Carlos Quentin also broke out of mid-April swoons with homers of their own, and Gavin Floyd toughened up after a difficult start to keep the Sox ahead for much of this game. However, Floyd was done in by J.J. Putz, who relieved him with the bases loaded and promptly gave up a grand slam. The bats showed some late-inning life for once, though, and tied the game to set up Jones' bottom-ninth heroics.

Jones right now looks like a slightly younger version of Jermaine Dye. It's early, so who knows how long the comeback will last, but it's clear one of the team's least risky off-season moves is paying off.

Ups and downs up north

Went to Wrigley today for this first time this season, and will have a post on that tomorrow...

For now, a look at the White Sox, still in Toronto (Still?), where a brilliant extra-inning win was followed by almost being no-hit, which was followed by John Danks and a crushing offensive effort shutting down the Blue Jays 11-1, which was followed tonight by, you guessed it, a 7-3 loss.

Will the real Chicago White Sox please stand up?

The 11-1 victory further showcased Andruw Jones, who had three hits and his third homerun of the year and is looking like a more frequent starter than anyone expected. Carlos Quentin also kept up his hot streak with a grand slam. The line-up delivered 15 hits overall. Danks didn't give up a hit until the fifth inning.

But, the bats took the night off tonight. It was nice that Donny Lucy got his first career homer, and Alexei "formerly the Cuban Missile" Ramirez hit his first homerun amid what has been another lackluster start for him. But, Jones, Quentin and Paul Konerko were hitless.

Splitting a four-game series in Toronto isn't a bad thing, but the next time the Sox have an 11-1 drubbing or an 8-7 extra-innings comeback, they need to bottle it.

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.

Jonesing for a comeback

Which Andruw Jones did the White Sox sign? The one that hit 51 homers one year and has won 10 gold gloves, or the fat, immature over-paid disappointment of the last few years? Jones reported to spring training early and a few pounds lighter, so maybe we can get more hopeful that his bid for a comeback with the Sox is for real.

At the very least, the Sox need him to do deliver some right-handed punch as part of a two-headed (or at times perhaps three-headed) DH. If they can get a slick fielder with some rediscovered endurance, all the better, since questions surround outfielders Alex Rios and Carlos Quentin.

If everything goes right, maybe Jones could be the same sort of extremely pleasant surprise Carlos Quentin was two years ago, when the Sox weren't expecting much but instead got 36 homers.

The Sox are shaping up

I have been neglecting the White Sox lately, not even finding time during the busy holiday season to comment on the Juan Pierre trade. It's partly because I'm not as worried about the Sox. I was hoping they would land a key free agent or two, and they have disappointed to some degree by passing on big names and settling for the nostalgia signings of Omar Vizquel and Andruw Jones. However, I feel like the Sox, unlike the Cubs, are at least addressing their top need areas in one way or another.

Here's who they added:

Juan Pierre, LF: The 2010 team will be faster with a proven lead-off hitter. Nothing against the resurgent Scott Podsednik, but Pierre is faster. He's also a better lead-off man and hitter overall, and a better glove, though he may have one of the worst outfield arms in MLB history (Someone needs to tell The Missile to run further out into left-field for cut-off throws). Honestly, I wish the Cubs never got rid of Pierre, who started very slowly with them in 2006, but eventually led the National League in hits that year. He's definitely not Chone Figgins or Bobby Abreu, but is an upgrade over Pods and more of an everyday option that Dewayne Wise.

Omar Vizquel, SS: One of the all-time greats, the Venezuelan shortstop should be a good fit with his Venezuelan, one-time SS manager. Despite his age, he's a proven competitor who provides an obvious defensive upgrade in the infield.

Andruw Jones, OF: A laughable, but low-risk acquisition. If the Sox have 45 losses at the All-Star break, this signing over other free agent outfielder options will haunt them, but if Jones hits 20 HRs as a back-up or DH and makes a few good plays in the field, this signing will look like a big win. Still, would have been nice to land Hideki Matsui...

Mark Teahen, IF: Some decent power, fielding and overall positional flexibility. The trade, in exchange for Josh Fields and Chris Getz, allows Gordon Beckham to move to 2nd base, so it is actually an upgrade at 2nd over Getz, as well as an upgrade over any other option the Sox would have had at 3rd once they committed to move Beckham to 2nd.

J.J. Putz, RP: The Commish, a rapid Sox fan, has hated Putz for reasons stemming from where he drafted him in our fantasy baseball league in 2008, when Putz began a run of injuries and poor performance. But, Putz (allegedly pronounced like "puts." and not "putts" or, well, "putz") is a former star closer, and a nice choice as a set-up man and potential back-up option for the shaky Bobby Jenks. He could hardly have more problems than he has had the last two years, which I realize is not a great endorsement, but on the whole a bullpen led by Jenks and Putz looks like a pretty good way to follow a starting five that will be the best asset of the 2010 Sox.

So, in my estimation, the modestly-modified Sox have done better than the do-little Cubs this off-season so far. The Sox may be done making moves, and the Cubs are possibly barely started, but there's good reason to believe the Sox will field a better team in 2010 than they did in 2009, while the Cubs, despite cutting dead weight like Kevin Gregg and cancerous growth Milton Bradley, will have to truck in some January fireworks if they hope to have the same said of them.

Besides, the Sox are just looser and more fun, as this recent story about their fantasy football league highlights. A.J. Pierzynski alone has more loosey-gooseyness, to coin a possibly non-existent phrase, than the entire jittery Cubs organization.