Cha-Cha-Cha

It’s one step forward, one step back, for the .500 White Sox, who made the colossal mistake of starting Dallas Keuchel last night against Boston in the rubber match of the three-game series. Final score: Bad Sox 16, Sad Sox 7. Keuchel gave up six earned runs in a pitiful two innings of work, needing fifty-five pitches in the process. Throw in seven hits with two walks and you get a sense of how bad it was at Guaranteed Rate Whatever. But wait, there’s more. Keuchel thinks he’s still got a shot at staying in the rotation. Skeptics see a 2-5 record to go with a 7.88 ERA (talk about inflation) where the 34-year old lefthander sees…something eluding the rest of us. He was quoted on the team website saying, “If people want to write me off, that's OK. I've been written off before and I'm a competitor and I'm an athlete and we'll turn the tide. It's not the first time this has happened. It can turn right back into our favor." It’s a little weird how he switches between first-person singular and plural, no? The silver lining, if there was one, is Andrew Vaughn got to bat second, and he responded with a career-high five RBIs on the night, almost enough to keep his team in the game if not for Tony La Russa’s odd handling of pitchers. Reynaldo Lopez is as much a starter as a reliever; he could’ve gone more than two (scoreless, by the way) innings. And the league has caught up with Tanner Banks. Six earned runs in 1.2 innings along with a 5.03 ERA make that pretty clear. Then again, it’s not as if La Russa could use Joe Kelly two games in a row. After pitching two-thirds of an inning on Wednesday, Kelly landed on the IL with a hamstring injury. You have to wonder if Rick Hahn did his due diligence here. Sort of like with Yasmani Grandal (0-for-3 with his fifth passed ball) and Josh Harrison, who pitches about as well as he hits. Oh, well. Jake Burger got an RBI playing third in place of Yoan Moncada. Maybe we can beat the Cubs. God, please.