Johnny on the Spot

I shudder to think where the White Sox would be without Johnny Cueto, claimed off the scrap heap by GM Rick Hahn in in April. The Sox are 5-6 in his starts, despite a 2.91 ERA over 68 innings. Cueto is both hard-luck and mild-tempered. Yesterday afternoon, the 36-year old pitched eight scoreless innings with a get-ball, throw-ball, no-two-pitches-alike approach. The Tigers didn’t have a chance, or they didn’t once Gavin Sheets hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the first. On Thursday, the Sox lost to the Tigers 2-1 in a game that took three hours to play. Yesterday, they won 8-0 in a game that lasted 2:35. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, if you bother to look for it.