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The best pitching staff in the American League figured to have at least one All-Star right? How about the best hitting catcher not named Joe Mauer? Or the guy with more home runs than Manny Ramirez, Vlad Guerrero, Magglio Ordonez, and JD Drew? Or the hot-shot rookie immigrant who’s hit .358 since June 1? Surely one of them merits consideration for the All-Star team, right?

Well, no. AJ Pierzynski, Alexei Ramirez, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Matt Thornton, Bobby Jenks, and the rest of the White Sox all joined with the Final Vote runner-up Jermaine Dye in finalizing thier plans for a four-day vacation next week. Carlos Quention and Joe Crede will represent the Sox in the Farewell to Arms at Yankee Stadium.

While it would’ve been a great source of pride to place two or three more deserving Sox players on what is (in theory) supposed to be a squad of 2008’s best players, it’s not the worst thing in the world to let a surprising team take four full days to rest and recharge before what is certain to be a bare-knuckle brawl in the AL Central during the second half. As play wrapped up after tonight’s 4-1 loss to Kansas City, (where the Sox continued to prove that down is up in 2008 - after consecutive stinkers from Jose “I’m Distracted by My Mancrush on Pablo Ozuna” Contreras and Javy “Did I Really Strike Out 10 Guys in My Last Start” Vazquez, two games the Sox managed to win via late-inning comeback, Mark Buerhle takes a shutout into the 8th inning and LOSES) the Sox are now 53-38, 2.5 up on Minnesota and 7 ahead of the Detroit Tigers with 71 games left to play. After a recent run which has featured up-and-down performances from the starters and a small but significant dip in the bullpen, let’s just get the Pale Hose through this last series in Arlington before a well-deserved break. They’ve already beaten down one set of expecations, now it’s time to rest up and get ready to take down another - the expectation that they can’t possibly keep this up through the end of the year.

Make Mr. Capone proud, Chicago. JD’s looking to make his third All-Star team and join Q and Crede at The Stadium.

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.

I don’t really want to spend one minute longer thinking or writing about the past weekend. The end result is what matters, as it always does. A loss is one loss and a win is one win no matter when it occurs or who it comes against. It just feels like a lot more when the team involved with the Sox is the Cubs, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (usually, it’s just a plain stupid thing).

However, despite the fact that only one set of fans left the weekend happy, there was one tidbit that caught my eye in the evening media roundup that I’m sure would leave fans of all stripes amused:

Best media moment: A Sun-Times columnist asking security staffers Saturday to safeguard him from one of his colleagues, who asked for a conversation. Request denied.

So, Northside, Southside, Westside, Black, Blue, ARam or JD, there’s one thing any true Chicagoan would agree on, this incident serving as live, indisputable proof:

Jay Mariotti’s a big-honking doofus.

What’s the matter Jay, you afraid Rick Telander’s gonna poke you with his pen?

Hey, everybody else is doing it! Want proof? Click here & here to get the expert analysis before moving on.

Now, I will fully cop before things even start to being biased. The one thing I stipulate is that I tried to gauge all performances and pick the team in what I call an “immediate context” - as in, if MLB declared that Chicago had to pick one baseball team to play a game tomorrow, a game Chicago had to win in order to continue its existence as a city, who would I want on it? As such, current (like, say, the last two weeks) performances trumped fond memories of Opening Day. So, without further ado, the humble picks of Soxcast for who mans each position on a Chicago Dream Team…

Catcher: AJ Pierzynski, White Sox. Probably the overall toughest call; Geovany Soto is in the middle of a fine campaign and so is the Polish Wonder. How then to break the tie? If we need just one guy to throw out a runner late, we’d probably be making a defensive switch for Soto. But as it is, AJ’s left-handed swing has produced a .308 average and .442 slugging percentage along with the veteran savvy needed to handle a pitching staff everybody had written off before the season started. Soto may very well be on his way to fame as the next great power-hitting catcher, but for this exact moment our vote is with AJ.

First Base: Derrek Lee, Cubs. He kind of wins by default now, doesn’t he? Even if Paul Konerko hadn’t been on the DL, it wasn’t much of a contest. Neither player got off to the start they desired, but Lee has rallied himself while Paulie has battled injury and hard luck throughout the year. Here’s hoping PK gets it back on track after he returns.

Second Base: Alexei Ramirez, White Sox. So many candidates - Ramirez, Juan Uribe, Ronny Cedeno, Mark Fontenot, Mark DeRosa, Pablo Ozuna…wait, not Pablo. But remember, we’re picking the Dream Team that would go out and represent Chicago tomorrow, and we’d be foolish not to pick a guy who’s batting .390 in the month of June to go with some fine (though still rough) glove work. DeRosa’s our first man off the bench if needed.

Shortstop: Ryan Theriot, Cubs. Theriot has the bat, Orlando Cabrera the glove. And yet, there can only be one. Tie goes to the younger in this instance, but given another two weeks Cabrera would probably unseat the Cajun; OC’s average has risen every month, rising from .216 (April) to .265 (May) to .370 so far in June, why’ll Theriot has slipped a little each week from his .340 hot streak in the first month.

Third Base: Joe Crede, White Sox. I take it back. This was the toughest call. Ramirez has a better average, Crede better power stats, and they both have a sub-.950 fielding percentage (Crede the more egregious violater right now with 13 errors.) This is one position where I think my Sox bias is fully coloring my choice, but remember I’m picking the team as if it was one that I were betting the farm on to win a game tomorrow - and if you watched the 2005 playoffs you know how clutch with the bat and the glove Crede can be when it’s all on the line.

Outfield: LF - Carlos Quentin, Sox; CF - Reed Johnson, Cubs, RF - Jermaine Dye, Sox. Quentin wins in left by default with Soriano on the DL, otherwise he’d have been the fourth man. Nick Swisher’s got all his “gamer” bravado and Brian Anderson finally stopped pouting and started playing, but Johnson has them both solidly beat straight up. And in right, it was again the most recent performance that tipped the scales - JD is hitting .292 with 5 HR in June, while the big import prize Kosuke Fukudome has struggled with a .241 clip and is now fluxing thru the Cubs’ lineup.

Starting Pitcher: Many solid candidates, but there can only be one. Remember, I want this guy ready with his ‘A’ game for tomorrow. It probably would’ve been Zambrano, but that MRI throws a wrench into it. Vazquez has concerned me in his more recent starts, and the youngsters Gallagher, Floyd, and Danks have exceeded expectations in their respective roles. Buehrle has been stellar in 6 of his last 8 outings, but he will always be prone to a big inning. So, the pick is…wait for it…Ryan Dempster. I’m shocked too. But Dempster’s been as solid as anybody in the NL and doing it while often waiting for runs to come in behind him. In an emergency stand-by role I’d have (in order) Buehrle, Jose Contreras, & Zambrano pending the test results.

Closer: Bobby Jenks, White Sox. Yeah, I know, we’re all supposed to give Kerry Wood extra credit for doing something nobody counted on him to do - make it two whole days without a freak gasoline fighting injury (Zoolander reference, for those who don’t follow). But Jenks’ has been every bit as dependable in closing 16 of 19 opportunities alongside a 1.91 ERA. If we’re putting together a whole bullpen, I definitely want them both (save for strikeouts, the numbers are almost identical for each man) but my own biased fan opinion tells me to put the ball in Bobby’s hand needing three outs for a championship - because he’s been there before.

In sport, as in life, about the only sure thing is that there is no sure thing. Just because you have an All-World lineup and then add in two more All-World players doesn’t mean you’ll score 1200 runs the following season. Conversely, just because your fourth and fifth starters entered the year with a combined career record of 14-23 doesn’t mean they can’t both be among the league leaders in ERA. It’s a crazy, mixed up world, and sometimes you just take a cue from Mike Sciocsia and instead of saying “I have no idea”, just say, “That’s baseball.”

In baseball, no two teams are alike, nor are they as different as the records might indicate. Granted there are times (plenty of them, really) when it’s quite simple to point out the disparity - the difference between a 90-win team and a 72-win team is obvious. One of them is good and the other one sucks, end of discussion. Other times it’s less clear - take the difference between say, a 94-win team and an 86-win team. It might be an overachieving group in the former or a band of underacheivers in the latter. Whatever the rationale proves out to be, once we start talking about a week’s worth of games or less in the standings, we’re talking about two teams with comparable skills. The team with 94 wins racked up that number because they closed out the games they were supposed to. The latter has a lot of talent but usually is sitting right on the outside of the playoff picture because they didn’t take care of opportunities to nail down wins they should’ve taken over the course of the season. The latter team is the type with an opportunity of a six-game stretch against the worst pitching staff in the National League and the second-worst in the American League, and goes 1-5.

How can you explain the fact the Sox looked to be rolling in late May only to thud atrociously in Tampa, then come home and hang 61 runs in 7 games, and then - facing off against two of the five worst staffs in the game - averaged just 2 runs per contest while dropping 5 of 6? The freakishly on/off nature of the bats can’t be as simple and easy to get rid of as a shrug of the shoulders and a coolly said, “That’s baseball.” Or can it?

The hard truth right now is, despite that brilliant outburst to open the month of June, the Sox remain in search of an identity right now on offense, which only seems to reinforce how much they depend on a) the home run and b) favorable home park conditions in order to achieve any type of consistency. As we move forward into the summer months, the White Sox staff (great as it’s been) is going to have to pitch in the band box known as US Cellular a whole bunch too, so it would be nice if they could get back that comfort zone the hitters provided a week ago. Otherwise, the Sox will have a nice pile of games like the ones they just played to reflect on at the end of the season while saying, “That was the difference.”

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.

We are a little over a third of the way through the season and while the White Sox may be in first place with a record of 30-26, something is clearly missing. That would be an offense. Despite phenomenal pitching, rivaling any staff in the majors, the Sox struggled through a four game set in Tampa. After another quality start fell by the way side, Ozzie blew up about the offense. Guillen is not happy about the veterans’ bats continuing to slump and urged Kenny to “fix it” by Tuesday or he will make drastic changes to the lineup.

It is hard to argue with Ozzie here as the Sox have scored less than 3 runs a game since the eight game winning streak. One of the unique things about the game of the baseball is the ups and downs from series to series. The Sox went on the winning streak and fans were ready to print playoff tickets and a week later some are on the ledge. Obviously any Sox fan in March would gladly have taken our position in the standings heading into June, but the homerun or nothing offense is raising cause for concern. This has been going on for a year and a half and at some point the offensive struggles are more than just a slump. Sluggers Jim Thome, Paul Konerko and Nick Swisher are all hitting under .215 and the team has yet to show the ability to manufacture runs.

In fact, Ozzie’s club is now 3-15 in games where they fail to hit the long ball. A far cry from the team that went wire to wire in 2005 who relied on the homerun, but could score by running, bunting men over and timely hitting. The Sox left twenty six men on base in the three consecutive losses to the Rays and could not get a sacrifice bunt down or the two out hit when they needed it. What has become increasingly frustrating is when the Sox put the first two men on base and promptly strand them. The sox are dead last in the AL with runners in scoring position and two outs, hitting an anemic .177. You cannot continue to squander great pitching performances from Javy Vazquez and company and hope to remain in the race in September.

It is not all doom and gloom for the offense, however, the Rays rotation has been best home era in the AL and some credit should be given to the emerging young team in first place in the East. Orlando Cabrera is showing signs of the player Jon Garland was traded for, hitting .291 the last 13 games and raised his batting average to .241 after starting off ice cold to begin the season. Then of course, there is Thee Carlos Quentin who is quickly becoming a superstar and is looking like a Kenny Williams heist. Quentin has carried the Sox offense, trailing only Josh Hamilton in homeruns and runs batted in.

The question is will the middle of the order around Quentin and Dye start to produce? We don’t know the answer to that, but if they do, this team is going to do some serious damage. Maybe some much needed home cooking is in order as the Sox play 17 games at US Cellular in June, including the next seven starting with Kansas City Tuesday. It is time for the Sox bats to start producing and give these starters some much needed help.

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.