Bad teams wear black

The Sox, at 5-10 after last night's perfect game-revenge blowout by the Rays, are apparently off to their worse start since 1997. Things haven't been going great, but I didn't think the Sox were doing any worse than they might have done in previous Aprils. I guess we have had it pretty good.

I still like the look of this team, and the balance of the Sox line-up, though it seems like they are missing Jermaine Dye's bat more than anyone thought and Carlos Quentin might be pressing too much trying to make up for the power outage. The starting rotation has not lived up to its billing, but I'm betting we will be singing a different tune about that but this time next month.

Gettig back to last night's game, it was Mark Buehrle's first outing against the Rays since his perfect game against them last July. He was good early, but the Rays rae in 2008 form alread, and the huge chip on their shoulder from last year's perfect game helped them to a 12-0 knockout.

Panic time? Not yet.

Re-visiting Buehrle's perfect game

Mark Buehrle's perfect game last Thursday seemed to come and go with very quick Buehrle-like efficiency, and one of my Sox fan friends has already been on me for not talking it up enough. At this point, I'm more upset about the Sox losing 3 of 4 in Detroit to go back to the happy place where I was last week, but my favorite stat of all the stats and facts thrown around in the last several days was that Buehrle only spent 32 minutes of game-time on the mound during the "PG."

That's just wild, and it's not like who threw 70 pitches. He threw 116 pitches in 32 minutes. This probably isn't always the case with every opponent, but the game-pace Buehrle sets often seems to get hitters off balance.

There also has been a lot of talk in the last week about Buehrle's chance for the Hall of Fame. He certainly has a great shot at 300 wins for his career (133 now), but has also strongly hinted he might quit after 2011. A Cy Young Award this year would definitely help his case, and he's definitely in the running for it right now, but even two more very strong seasons (near 20 wins, which he has never accomplished) after this one, would leave him well short of 200 wins. being a World Series Champion helps, too, but short of 200 wins, I think he would probably need another no-hitter, a couple Cy Youngs or another World Series under his belt.

And, if he does that, we're not letting him walk away. I would let him fly in from Missouri for his starts if it made a difference, though you also have to figure a good guy like Buehrle would never go for that star treatment.

Perfection!

Need I say more?