Accentuate the Positive, or Not

With Dylan Cease, the problem is never reaching 100 pitches in a start; he’s done that in seven of his fifteen starts this season and thrown 91-99 pitches in another six. What matters is what inning those pitches get him to. Yesterday afternoon, Cease threw seven full innings on 101 pitches, which is impressive in itself. Throw in the fact that he also struck out thirteen Baltimore batters, and it’s even more impressive. Keep in mind that Cease yielded all of one run along the way. Gavin Sheets’ short demotion seems to be paying off. He had two hits Saturday and another two yesterday, including a two-run homerun that put the White Sox ahead. Seby Zavala, who looks like an entirely different hitter from a year ago, added an RBI single, and the Sox took a 4-1 lead into the ninth inning. In Strat-O-Matic baseball, players know to put their best defensive team out there for the ninth inning, or else. It was a near-disastrous case of “or else” for the Sox in the ninth with Jose Abreu making errors on consecutive plays to start the inning. Bases loaded, nobody out. A tip of the cap to Kendall Graveman for keeping his cool and earning the save in a 4-3 win. Maybe a corner has been turned, maybe not. Either way, it sure would be nice if someone would teach Tony La Russa how to play Strat-O-Matic. He might actually learn something.