Good and Bad

The bad first, another blah pitching performance from rookie Shane Smith, 4.1 innings and five earned runs in a 6-4 White Sox loss to the Rockies. Smith coughed up a two-run lead in the fifth, after which Sox bats pretty much reverted to (non-existent) form. Also bad, Miguel Vargas going 0-for-3 to push his BA down to .221. Smith—whose ERA climbed to 4.20—and Vargas: I wonder. Now, the good, starting with Colson Montgomery, who went 2-for-3 with an RBI. Like I said, it was smart to call up Montgomery to face the worst pitching staff in all of baseball. It gets real tonight, though, when the first-place Blue Jays come to town. Fingers crossed. All of which leads us to Mike Vasil, who pitched three innings of two-hit, scoreless relief. Vasil has pitched 59 innings in 24 games, three of them starts. He has a 1.69 ERA pitching 48 innings in relief. Talk about old school. Five of his nine recorded outs came from contact. Again, how old school. I’d be tempted to compliment GM Chris Getz and manager New-Mickey Venable here if not for one thing (OK, if not for a number of things)—the way they’re handling first base. Getz and Venable act as if Ryan Noda is the answer, his 3-for-34 and one RBI be damned. So, if Noda is better than Tim Elko, why did Venable pinch hit for him in the ninth inning yesterday, with rookie Kyle Teel, no less? I mean, Noda had the lefty-righty advantage over Rockies’ closer Seth Halvorsen. Maybe because Noda had struck out twice already? Venable obviously didn’t think he’d collect his second walk of the day. In which case, why play him?