Posts tagged ‘Bullpen’

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.

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.