1:54

It all depends on when you join up.  For Clare, the White Sox mean hitting, as in Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko and Carlos Lee and Maglio Ordoñez and A.J.  Pierzynski and Jermaine Dye and….For me, growing up in the shadow of the Go-Go White Sox, it was Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox and Gary Peters and Juan Pizarro and….It all depends.

Maybe the 24,593 fans who showed up for last night’s matchup between Chris Sale and Mark Buehrle were more my kind than Clare’s.  Either way, they saw a glorious pitching duel between two lefties who hate wasting time between pitches.  Despite giving up a combined 17 baserunners, Sale and Buehrle finished their business in 1 hour and 54 minutes.  Why can’t it always be that way?

Sale was going for a major-league record of nine straight starts with 10 or more strikeouts, but he fell four short.  The Blue Jays had a plan—swing early and swing hard—that produced two solo shots and a lot of quick outs.  For once, it was the other team getting killed by bad defense; all the runs against Buehrle were unearned, much unlike the two ovations he received; those were earned from his 12 seasons on the South Side.  The fast outs turned into a 108-pitch complete game for Sale.

Buehrle will be a free agent at the end of the season.  Would he be too old to bring back at age 37?  I hope not.