Wasted

Gavin Sheets had himself a career night in Cleveland, with two doubles and a homerun good for five RBIs. Of course, the White Sox blew a five-run lead and lost 7-6 in ten innings. The honeymoon is over for new GM Chris Getz, if he ever had one and if he ever deserved one. When he took the job last August, Getz signaled he would drink the White Sox Kool-Aid, which holds that pitching is a necessary evil that you don’t want to pay for when you can avoid it, and don’t want to when you can’t. I wonder how many times Getz caught himself burping last night. His ”big” acquisition of Erick Fedde--$15 million over two years—doesn’t look so great, or didn’t last night. The 31-year old righthander has a 0-0 record and 4.30 ERA in three starts totaling 14.2 innings. Fedde was lights-out pitching in Korea last year. Whatever could be the difference? Out in San Diego, ex-Sox starter Dylan Cease had the Cubs eating out of his hands in a Padres’ 10-2 win. Cease gave up two runs over six innings, Fedde five over five, all the runs scoring on three homers. None of the runs against Cease were earned, four of the runs against Fedde were. Since I’m mentioning ex-Sox players, Jake Burger hit a three-run homer to power the Marlins to a 5-2 win over the Yankees. Burger has fifteen RBIs on the season, the Sox have scored 29 runs so far this season. Isn’t that interesting? Back to Getz. His decision to bring back Bryan Shaw hasn’t out worked too well, either. Shaw took a one-run lead into the bottom of the tenth. Five batters later, the Guardians had themselves a walk-off win while Shaw was stuck with the loss to complement his 9.00 ERA. Darkest before the dawn? I can only hope.