Kind of Sad

Clare called Thursday night after John Danks’ latest start to say that Danks was trending on Twitter.  Because Danks is not Tom Brady or Stephen Curry, that’s not a good thing.  Basically, it means a lot of people are taking to the Twittersphere to express their extreme displeasure with Danks, and they’re doing it in rather direct fashion.  Think George Carlin and his seven certain words.

The White Sox lefty is 0-7 in his last seven starts over the last two seasons.  This year, he’s 0-4 with a 7.25 ERA.  I’ll give Danks credit; he’s not pretending everything is hunky-dory anymore.  “There are 24 guys in here that are setting the world on fire,” he said after his start—and loss—in Baltimore Thursday.  He even admitted “I got in the way of something special tonight.”  The Sox gave him a two-run lead in the first that turned into a 10-2 loss.  Danks gave up six of those runs, all earned.   

Danks would be right to blame all his problems on shoulder surgery he had in 2012; since then, his ERA has never been lower than 4.71.  He’s in the last year of his contract, and the Sox could simply release him, but that would mean team VP Kenny Williams made a mistake in signing him to that five-year, $65 million deal in 2011, and Kenny Williams doesn’t make mistakes.  But a 7.25 ERA may force Williams to act regardless.

The Twittersphere certainly hopes so.