Posts tagged ‘AL Central’

How did they do that?

No, seriously, I want an explanation. How the f&*k did they just do that?

Three straight elimination games. Three different opponents. A clubhouse seemingly divided against itself with a manger who can’t even really be accused of running the asylum since he’s basically one of the inmates. A team that managed to cough up a 2.5 game lead with six to play. A team that couldn’t beat a pair of tomato can pitchers thrown out by the Cleveland Indians Friday and Saturday. A team without it’s best hitter, best third baseman, pitching a young lefthander on short rest for the first time in his career.

A team that’s going to the playoffs. Your 2008 AL Central Champions, against all the odds…

Bring on Tampa.

Let’s address Irrational Fear #1 right off the bat: everybody breathe. The sun is going to come up tomorrow.

As for the rest of the 2008 AL Central Race, let’s just say the shocking third-act twist has occurred and only if the writer’s are REALLY bold and decide to pen another will the suspense last.

Call me a liar if you must, but the worst I ever felt during this series was actually AFTER the Sox had gotten a 6-1 lead. I couldn’t help but surrender to those thoughts in the deep, dark, nagging corner of my brain that remember all the pain and heartache already inflicted on the Sox over the past seven years inside the Metrodome. I couldn’t put to bed the horrifying thought: “This is what Minnesota does. They lull things down, they spot you runs, but they just nibble and gnaw and scrap and don’t ever go away.” What happpened next? Well, you can read about it here if you like doing the sports equivalent of stabbing out your own eyes while simultaneously punching yourself in the nuts repeatedly.

I wish I could boil it down to something simple, something plain and quantifiable like, “The Twins just have an incredible lineup” or “The Sox have a horrible bullpen” and just leave it at that. But the Twins should’ve rolled in that type of circumstance; instead the combined score over the last two days was 10-8 as the Twins continued to race their way around the HHH basepaths (and got a couple of timely assists from second and third base umpire Alfonso Marquez). And if it were the kind of performance that came from nowhere, from a team clinging desperately to its playoff chances, I could live with that. But this happens routinely, always to the Sox and always at the Metrodome. Of the 8 games the Sox lost in that building this year, five were by two runs or less. Three times, including tonight, they blew leads of four runs or more. Bottom line: if it’s close against the Twins in their home park, pray for the worst, but expect the absolutely f&*kin’ disastrous.

Umpiring Sidenote: I do not subscribe to the theory that any officiating decision can single-handedly change the outcome of a ballgame, no matter how egregious or influential it might seem (Doug Eddings included). So don’t just cop-out and assume a different final outcome (no matter how badly you want to) had Marquez made the correct call on Wednesday and called Carlos Gomez out at second base on the pickoff throw, which is what he was - out. Picked off. Orlando Cabrera had the ball in his glove and his glove on Gomez’s back well ahead of Gomez making any sort of physical contact with the base. Gomez was out. Instead he was called safe, moved up on a walk and scored what went on to be the decisive third run on a ground ball to second. But even if he’s called out, who’s to say Mark Buehrle, suddenly feeling more secure after picking a runner out of scoring position, doesn’t serve up a meatball which Joe Mauer clubs for a three-run homer? So I don’t blame Marquez for the Sox being beaten on Wednesday (or on Thursday, when he called a Denard Span double fair despite the ball landing in foul territory, or when he rung up Nick Swisher for swinging when he quite clearly did not…that latter call was so bad even Twins announcer Bert Blyleven called bulls&*t on it.) Even umpiring that’s bad can’t unilateraly determine how the game plays out. That doesn’t change the fact that Marquez was wrong. Moving on…

The Sox only recourse now is to win the remaining games. They have to pretend Minnesota and it’s Chinese Water Torture offense don’t exist for the next four days. Everything has to be about beating Cleveland tonight, then again on Saturday, then on Sunday. Then, if necessary, 100% focus must turn to beating Detroit on Monday. And, should it come to pass, on Tuesday, they can allow Minnesota to exist again for a possible one-game playoff. If you had to gauge my feelings on the Sox making the postseason…what’s the polar opposite of optimism? Pessimism just doesn’t quite seem to do the trick.

Clayton Richard. Well, at least for tonight.

There was wild speculation who would be taking the mound tonight. There were a few murmurs about Aaron Poreda and his blazing fastball, but he is still in AA and has yet to master a secondary pitch. Lance Broadway was optioned to Charlotte for bullpen help in Oakland and could not be recalled until 10 days had passed. Ozzie decided Clayton would be the man, though he hardly gave him a ringing endorsement: “Richard. That’s it. Don’t ask me why. Richard,” Guillen said. “Richard’s the pitcher [Tuesday], and hopefully this time he does better.”

He had shown promise in previous starts, but was hit hard the second and third time through the order. Opposing batters were hitting .346 their second look and an astronomical .667 the third time. Clayton backed up that solid inning of work in Oakland, Sunday with a huge performance tonight. Matched up against a future CY Young candidate in Felix Hernandez, the rookie had his work cut out for him and he answered the bell. The Mariners put the heat on early with a single by Cairo after Ichiro reached on Clayton’s throwing error, but he worked his way out of trouble. Swisher picked up his young pitcher with a great on a hard grounder to first, stepping on the bag and fired home to beat Ichiro for a double play. He worked a 1-2-3 second and the offense would give him the only run he would need when Griffey hit a sac fly to score Thome, who led off the inning with a double. Richard was not spectacular, but he showed good life on his fastball on his way to six shutout innings and his first Major League win.

What does that mean for the 5th starter spot from here on out? Maybe nothing as the Sox have the next three Thursdays off that could allow Ozzie to skip this spot in the rotation in the upcoming weeks. Even if we have to use a five man rotation Broadway and Richard have not done anything recall the nightmare of the 5th starter of years passed. There will be no Arnie Munoz or Felix Diaz taking the ball and sending Sox fans running for cover. Lance Broadway battled his way to a win last time out and did not take his demotion to heart as he won in Charlotte tonight behind five strikeouts in 6.2 innings.

The Sox remain in first place and look like they may be playing their best baseball of the season. If not for a bullpen collapse in Oakland in the first game of the season, they would be riding an 8 game winning streak. They extend their high water mark to 19 games above five hundred and maintain their one game lead in the division. It is encouraging to see the offense keep hitting the ball hard coming home from Oakland avoid scoring droughts that plagued the lineup earlier this season following high scoring games. Swisher especially, who has homered in back to back nights.

As the Sox welcome in the Tampa Bay Rays this weekend, the Twins head out on a fourteen game road trip, with the first eleven on the west coast. The division could very well be decided in the next three weeks as for the first time all season, it seems like the offense and rotation are hot at the same time.

If you love scoreboard watching, wild swings in momentum, the essence of Jim McKay’s “thrill of victory and agony of defeat”, then we here in the AL Central say, “Have we got a division for you!”

In the trailer for what will hopefully be another solid Coen Brothers comedy, Burn After Reading, JK Simmons (Hollywood’s go-to “gruff yet clueless authority figure” actor) instructs his CIA charges: “We don’t really know what anyone is after…report back to me when it…I don’t know…when it makes sense.” That’s how I feel in attempting to recap all the various angles that were in play Tuesday night in two ballparks for two teams that seemed headed in completely opposite directions just 48 hours ago. Now they’re back on the parallel track which is probably going to take them all the way to Game 162 with the issue still in doubt.

One of the key themes for the Sox up to this point in 2008 has been a failure to seal the deal during close, back-and-forth games, the kind of tightly-contested games you have to win the lion’s share of in order to be a championship club. They’ve been miserable at doing so on the road, with three of their last six performances outside Chicago perfectly demonstrating how and why there should be no expectation of an easy cruise to the division title. Then there was the fracas that broke out in Sunday afternoon’s lost cause of a game versus Kansas City, a game where every member of the Sox seemed to retreat with the exception of Ozzie Guillen, who got served his inevitable (and not open to appeal) suspension for post-game honesty.

So that brings us to Tuesday night. On an impossibly muggy evening after two days of constant rain and lightning storms in the thick of summer, Sox starter Gavin Floyd didn’t have the comfort zone he took into his last start at Minnesota, walking Curtis Granderson and throwing a homer to Placido Polanco before recording an out. Down 2-1 in the fifth Floyd lost his control for good, and when the inning ended Detroit led 6-1. Little did we know that the “fun”, such as it was, hadn’t even really started at that point.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Northwest, Scott Baker was running into trouble in the form of Raul Ibanez, who has been to the Twins staff in the first two games of that Seattle series was Justin Morneau was to the Sox last week. At 6-1 Tigers and 4-2 Mariners, with Detroit having broken into an incredibly shaky bullpen by the fifth inning, you’re just hoping both scores hold so no ground is lost in the divisional race.

That’s when Paul Konerko steps up and finally demonstrates how to drill a pitch from Nate Robertson, who’s been nothing short of dreadful against every other team in the league but was on his way to a third-straight dominating effort against the Sox. 6-4. With the Mariners having stretched their lead to 6-3 and threating to add more in the sixth, thoughts dangle that perhaps there’s a game to be gained here, if only you can reach that Tiger pen.

Carlos Quentin built the case for hope a little more with a long fly that scraped past the outfield wall. 6-5. One inning later Alexei Ramirez absolutely ropes one into the Sox bullpen. Tie game, and with Minnesota trying to come back out west, both games have turned into a battle of wills that could have long-lasting ramifications. The innings begin to fade away, one after the other, as that same unreliable Sox bullpen is mounting what might be looked back on as their last stand. Octavio Dotel had a Joba Chamberlin moment in the 10th after striking out Ryan Raburn - and speaking of impressions, right around that same moment 2000 miles away, when Seattle nearly had the game busted wide open, Carlos Gomez pulled his best Torii Hunter impersonation to keep the game within reach. Sparked by the flash of leather, the Twins put four on the board in the top of the eighth for a 7-6 lead. At this point I’ve stopped trying to do some internal divisonal standings math and wondering what’s transpired that these two games began two hours apart yet are on track to finish at the exact same time?

By now the Sox bullpen is drawing the line in the sand and marching bravely toward their doom. Surely it must have occurred to them after the 7th or 8th consecutive scoreless inning, at which point we’re in the 13th on the Southside and Joe Nathan has come in for a five-out save with two on in StarbucksTown; it’s a sad truth that no cavalry will be coming over the hill to save them. Right?

Sure seemed like it when Polanco finally broke the dam against Matt Thornton, who was into his fourth inning of work, with another two-run blast just inside the foul pole for an 8-6 lead. Now here comes Joel Zumaya, who’s been anointed the third Tigers closer in as many weeks, to save the game, help Detroit claw back into the divisional race, and put an exclaimation point on the last three dismal weeks for the Sox.

At least it won’t come at great expense, I think, as I click over with MLB Gameday to see Jose Lopez touched Joe Nathan for double and the M’s are up 8-7. Maybe there’s a little magic left here.

Cabrera singles, Quentin shoots one down the line to put runners at 2nd & 3rd. A cue-ball shot from Jermine Dye rolls towards Edgar Renteria. A run’s gonna score, but there will be two out because Renteria makes this play in his sleep.

Only he doesn’t. It glances off his glove and it’s 8-7 with two-on, one-out. Zumaya overpowers Jim Thome and the last line of defense is Nick Swisher, a guy with many of the same holes in his swing that the aging Big Jim has.

At this point I’ve just sorta surrendered to the lunacy of it all and find myself like Gene Wilder while watching Augustus Gloop get sucked into the chocolate river: “The suspense is terrifying! I hope it lasts!” Which it will, because another quick check shows Justin Morneau is on base with Jason Kubel, already having hit two home runs tonight, due up.

2-1 count on Swisher. Then a high, arching drive into the deepest part of the field. Can The Ballpark Formerly Known as Comiskey hold it? And the whisper comes back, “No”. 10-8 victory.

But wait, there’s more! Putz now is working with the bases loaded and Mike Redmond at the dish while protecting the slimmest of margins. If this were a Sox game, you know Redmond would just do what he always does, swing like a Little Leaguer yet somehow make contact with the ball and send a little grenade into center that falls into the 18-inch zone where neither the second baseman, shortstop, or center fielder have a chance to catch it. But this is Seattle so he lines one to Ichiro to end the game.

Maybe in a few days or weeks both teams will look back on tonight and the outcomes of the respective see-saw affairs as one of “those” moments. But if the Sox drop four of the next five while the Twins take four of five, does it really amound to much? Who can know what’s going to happen day by day around here? All I can say with confidence is that literally everything about tonight’s game countered the notion that the Sox are too lacksaidaiscal to match the high-energy Twins in the race for this Theater of the Absurd known as the AL Central. That was the definition of fighting back out on the field tonight.

Anybody who’s ever watched a White Sox-Twins game in the HHH Metrodome knows what it means to stand on the side of the road as a horrific car crash you were able to predict 20 minutes beforehand unfolds in agonizing slow motion directly in front of you.

Too reactionary?

It’s one game on July 31, but it sure felt like a lot more. It always does when you’re playing the Twins and the type of lunatic scenarios like the one which unfolded in the 7th inning of tonight’s game help spark a meltdown that would make the China Syndrome seem like a minor slip-up. After a series like this you can’t do a whole lot other than just tip the cap and sigh that, no matter what the stakes or situation, the Twins don’t quit. That was evidenced when their manager threw a 100% undiluted hissy fit and got himself thrown from the game over a play in which no out was recorded, no runs were scored, and ultimately the batter in question reached first base anyway.

After stalling the Twins on Wednesday behind a sharp performance from Gavin Floyd and key power hitting from Carlos Quentin and Alexei Ramirez, the Sox were getting exactly what they needed from John Danks heading into the bottom of the 5th inning, and piecing together some timely hits for a 4-0 lead. You may recall that on Tuesday this exact same script was unfolding while left-hander Clayton Richard was on the hill. Thursday’s performance had an identical ending.

The key sequence in tonight’s game came in the bottom half of the 7th inning, with an incorrect “swing” call on Denard Span’s bunt attempt as he was hit by an inside pitch. The misjudgment was all it took to set off the raging mound of fury that is Ron Gardenhire. After futile efforts to plead his case gave way to an incoherent ramble of profanities, he punctuated the performance by tossing his cap in disgust; by this point the Twins faithful were sufficiently motivated to litter their blessed little FieldTurf with caps and balls, triggering Ozzie Guillen’s more primal instincts as his instantly recalled his team to the dugout and got into more than one verbal spat with fans hanging just over the first-base line. Ordinarily I would just sit back and wait for order to be restored in a situation like this. “Both teams are letting off a lot of steam but things will settle back in,” I’d tell myself. Not against the Twins. Not now, and not the seemingly 72 other times in the last five years when s&*t like this has routinely happened to presage a Twin comeback in a game the Sox absolutely had to win. I muttered to nobody in particular, “Minnesota’s gonna score at least 3 runs this inning.”

They scored 4.

The Sox closed back within 7-6 on a Jermaine Dye homer before the weakest links of what is now undeniably a fading bullpen allowed three more runs (aided in no small part by the fact that Nick Swisher cannot play first base. You want to know ultimately why I oppose benching Paul Konerko? The reason was on display tonight with Swish’s attempt to show “range” on the right side of the infield. Does he think he gets extra points for falling down on his rear end after failing to catch the ball?).

It was gonna take a real whopper in tonight’s game to turn the news that the Sox acquired Ken Griffey, Jr. into an afterthought, but (as they always do) the Twins and their voodoo-powered ballpark didn’t disappoint. The Sox can do two things for this point on: dwell on two blown leads in three nights against the Twins, or turn their attention to beating the Royals. I’d love to be able to say confidently what might happen next, but at this point I think everybody knows what a pointless declaration that would be.

Fair warning to all baseball pundits, regardless of team allegiance: he who attempts to declare that he has the AL Central “figured out” does so at his own peril.

Monday’s crucial series opener between the Twins and White Sox, who stood just 2.5 games apart in the standings, did confirm a few things that have long been status quo for anybody who follows the White Sox:

A) The Sox do not play well in domes.
B) The Sox really, really, really don’t play well in the MetroDome.

The 2008 AL Central race has, up to this point, been a complete blueprint for what life will one day look like through the looking glass (or inside the Matrix, take your metaphorical pick). Up is down. Black is white. The guy who’s been on a roll for two straight months and has 9 years of big league experience and a World Series ring gets taken deep by a rookie with a name that would make a good alias for a minor member of Batman’s Rogues Gallery. It’s what happens after everybody has it figured out that counts.

As mentioned in Monday’s episode of the podcast, it wasn’t until after I saw how much the pitching matchup for Monday’s game would “supposedly” favor the Sox that I began to get that gnawing, abysmal feeling in the pit of my stomach that surfaces every time the Sox play a critical game in Minnesota. Coming into this game, Mark Buehrle had been 6-2 with a 1.99 ERA in his last 10 starts. For his career against the Twins he was a stellar 21-11 (his most wins against opponent) and has been one of the few successful Sox pitchers in Minneapolis (10-5 career mark). Opposing him was Kevin Slowey, his dominant run of late June a fading memory as he allowed 15 runs in his last 14 innings to go with a finger injury that pushed back another start. Oh, and did we mention he was 0-2 with a 12.38 ERA against the Sox in two starts this season?

So naturally Buehrle got tagged for a pair of two-run homers by Justin Morneau and Denard Span, two left-handed hitters (lefties had only 3 HR against Mark all season) while Slowey threw a complete game shutout. You decide what it means. All I know is it gives me a lot of comfort seeing as how the deck is now “supposedly” stacked in Minnesota’s favor tomorrow with Glen Perkins matched against Clayton Richard, who’ll be making his second major-league start.

Same teams, same city, same stakes. Different ballpark? All the difference.

All the City Series managed to confirm beyond reproach was the one thing already widely assumed: both Chicago teams are fantastic in their home parks, but something gets lost in translation when they go on the road. How else do you explain Jose Contreras, with the 9-run meltdown at Wrigley, come back six days later and go into the 7th inning against the same lineup in an equally (if not more) hitter-friendly ballpark? Conversely, Ryan Dempster was pounded for 8 runs (7 in one inning) five days after making the Sox look silly…while the Sox bullpen which couldn’t close a screen door last weekend looked like an even better version of the crew that helped win a World Series in 2005. I guess if there is some destiny at work to get the Sox and Cubs into a Crosstown World Series…we better pray the American League wins the All-Star Game.

I said last Friday that I liked the attitude, the sense of urgency coming from the Sox clubhouse after the win at Dodger Stadium on Thursday. They knew what they were coming home to, not just three games that mean infinitely more in the stands than on the field, but three games at home that they needed to have while two teams charging hard in the division kept getting hotter. Nothing changed as the Twins took two of three from the Brewers and and the Tigers swept the Rockies to climb over .500. That’s the true importance of this weekend; sweeping the Cubs was awesome, but picking up a game on the Twins and keeping the Tigers at bay was far more significant in relation to the big picture.

Said big picture really kicks in now, as the Sox welcome supposed divisional heavyweight Cleveland to Comiskey with an opportunity to bury them in the standings, before matchups with Oakland, Kansas City, and Texas to close out the first half. Sweeping an excellent Cubs team that looks like the class of the National League was a nice acheivement, but it will only matter if the Sox take the renewed momentum and start cleaning up where it counts. In 2005, Ozzie told the team “Don’t be happy just to be in the playoffs - win to stay in.” Now would be a good time to say, “Don’t be happy just to be in first place”.

The 2008 White Sox are turning into a team caught in a constant paradox. Some recent surges with the bat have propelled thier offensive numbers out of the depths, while outstanding pitching numbers have begun to level off. Both developments should not come as a huge shock considering how hitter-friendly the home ballpark is when summer time rolls around.

At 42-35 with a lead that’s been sliced down to a half-game by the blazin’-hot Minnesota Twins, the Sox have a lot to be proud of at this point while keeping in mind how much work still lies in front of them. On the plus side of the ledger:

This bullpen was supposed to be a disaster, and it isn’t. It was hard for opposing GMs to contain their laughter when they saw the high-dollar contracts awarded to Scott Linebrink and Octavio Dotel. While not perfect (and each with a pair of walk-off homers against them in the past three weeks) the two have combined to be a dramatic upgrade which has, alongside a revived Matt Thornton and an improving Nick Masset & Boone Logan, provided Bobby Jenks an actual supporting cast in the late innings. While losing 4 games via ninth-inning walk-off since May 30th isn’t exactly something to write home about, a dependable bullpen is the biggest reason the Sox haven’t faded into the pack of the AL Central.

John Danks and Gavin Floyd weren’t supposed to be ready. Danks was supposed to have already hit his ceiling, Floyd was a washed-up product of the hype machine who never got close. While still too early to start campaigning for Cy Young Awards, the alleged weaklings of the rotation have thrown some of the best starts all season for the Pale Hose. Danks in particular has been stellar in the wake of shoddy run support (2 runs or fewer scored on his behalf in 10 starts thru June 25th). The rotation was supposed to be unable to get off the ground after Mark Buehrle. Right now it leads the AL in quality starts.

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room…

The offense isn’t building any consistency…except perhaps to be consistent in their inconsistency. The same corps of hitters that raped and pillaged Kansas City and Minnesota to open June at home got muzzled by the Rockies in their home park and handcuffed by the Cubs on what was a very hitter-friendly weekend at a hitter-friendly field. They can light up a good Twins’ staff just as easily as a household name like Eric Stults can throw a complete game shutout at them.

Going into the season I was counting on three things - that the Sox would have a better offense, simply by virtue of believing the whole team can’t slump for 162 games twice - right? -, that the Sox should have a better bullpen based strictly on the numbers, and that the Sox could have a decent rotation if Danks and Floyd pitched above expectations. So far my expectations have been far surpassed on latter two. On the first, many of the exact same problems that torpedoed the team time after time in 2007 are still popping up, disguised by power-ball explosions that boost up the team offensive rankings - again, after the dismal performance of ‘07 anything looks great by comparison. But this remains a lineup filled with holes despite being third in the AL in runs scored.

Everything evens out over a long, grinding baseball season. You can’t expect dominant pitching every night, just like you shouldn’t expect having a dormant offense every night. But the great teams are the ones that strike the balance early and keep building on that through the season. Right now, even with their status as a pleasant surprise and an undeniably entertaining team to watch, the Sox continue fluxing back and forth between “good” and “mediocre” so much that it makes you very uneasy about the foundation on which they’re built.

Ozzie Guillen is a loud-mouth, obnoxious, unfiltered, untamed testament to the idea that some things are better left unsaid. We know this, and more hilariously, so does he. And he doesn’t care.

And it seems like every time he explodes, his team follows the lead.

Since Ozzie’s much-discussed “throwing under the bus” of his team, his coaches, his owner, his pet dog, his third-grade teacher, apple pies, small children, and all things that are righteous and wholesome (wait, he stopped after his coaches? Could’ve fooled me the way certain columnists at the Sun-Times grandiosely overhyped the story) his team has not lost, wrapping up a perfect 7-0 homestand with a comeback victory over the Minnesota Twins to earn the sweep and stretch their division lead to 6.5 games with a solid 37-26 mark.

Ozzie’s moment of rampaging truth last Sunday wasn’t intended as a damnation of his player’s or his coaches ability, as many portrayed it. It was just the opposite, his own bleep-infested way of reminding his organization, “Look at us. We’re playing like crap and still lead our division. Congrats on floating above .500 while scoring 2 runs per game guys. You wanna do that, sure we can win 83 games, take what’s turned out to be a weak division before getting swept in the postseason. But we have the potential to do SO MUCH MORE.”

See, if he’d said it like that, nobody would’ve minded. But he’s Ozzie, and Ozzie knows just one speed: full-throttle, unrestrained, unrehearsed, all -BLEEPING- day. The fact that he mostly comes out speaking the simple -BLEEPING- truth eludes most of the talking heads at ESPN as well as their designated henchman at the Sun-Times.

But enough about Ozzie. The Sox just hung 50+ runs in 7 games to announce that they, just like their manager, were getting sick and tired of their own play. Now an important second phase begins, with Detroit, Pittsburgh, Colorado, the LA Dodgers, & Cleveland pieced around the six Crosstown games before the end of the month. Just six of the next 19 games are against teams over .500 - time to really create some separation in this division and let others debate how good/bad/overrated/undervalued it was.

Oh, and one other thing…

Send this man to the All-Star Game.

Here we are at Memorial Day weekend, and the Cubs and Sox are both in first place. ESPN’s latest Power Rankings elevated the Cubs to the top spot and the Pale Hose to fourth on the heels of their eight-game winning streak that pushed them 3.5 games ahead of the Twins in the AL Central.

Before we got too giddy with the idea of both Chicago teams in the playoffs, let alone the possibility of a Red Line World Series, remember there’s four full months of baseball left to play. The expected giants of the AL Central are stuck in sleep-mode, and while there haven’t been a ton of signs that they’ll be able to wake up and run away from the pack like all predicted they would, I certainly wouldn’t discount the possibility. Right now, the Sox even at 26-22 should be, like Kenny Williams, looking back at a handful of games they’ve already squandered that could’ve really put the pressure on their divisional opponents heading into the summer.

Since Ozzie Guillen’s drastic changes to the lineup - AJ Pierzynski and Carlos Quentin rising to 2 & 3, Thome and Konerko dropping to 5 & 6, along with increased playing time for Alexei Ramirez and sliding Nick Swisher to the eighth spot, the Sox have gone 8-2. More importantly, they have gotten a quality start in 10 of the last 11 games. Joining Mark Buehrle in the “If it weren’t for bad luck, he’d have none at all” category is John Danks, who has had a total of 8 runs scored on his behalf in his four losses (and hasn’t gotten much more support in his wins, even when including the 13-run outburst in San Francisco last Sunday when most of the offense came after he left the game). Bottom line: Sox pitchers are the real deal. Sox offense? I’ll get back to you.

On the heels of the eight-game streak that stretched between the West Coast trip and a home sweep of the floundering Cleveland Indians, the Sox bats have been put back in the deep freezer against Joe Saunder and Jered Weaver of the Angels. It was a disturbing return to the early-May trend of atrocious hitting and starting pitchers turning into their own worst enemy at the most inopportune moment - the Angels scored in only one inning against Gavin Floyd on Friday, and the second and third runs came via two walks, a single, and consecutive hit batsmen. They scored in just one inning against Danks on Saturday. Five runs in 18 innings and the Sox couldn’t win either game.

Of course, before running for the nearest ledge, it’s helpful to remember this Sox team has already outplayed the expectations and people have been saying since mid-April that their pitching staff would come back to earth. They can’t say that now. Meanwhile, the offense that should’ve made some strides by plugging in Cabrera & Swisher has looked to the young Carlos Quentin to carry the load. As we move into summer, the Sox have playoff-caliber pitching. To justify the dreams of an all-Chitown October, they still need to complete the quest for consistent offense.