Good News, Bad News

Always lead with the positive stuff, like Tristan Peters homering in five straight games, part of a fifteen-hit barrage that produced a 10-4 White Sox win over the Rangers last night. Oh, and the Sox tied their season high of seven games over the .500-mark. Now, for the bad news, and not just Munetaka Murakami’s continued woes at the plate (0-for-3 last night, resulting in a .219 BA). No, what’s really concerning is Sean Burke. He hasn’t been good his last three starts, giving up ten earned runs in 13.1 innings. It looked early on it would be Burke’s night, even after he walked two Texas batters in the top of the first inning. The 26-year old righthander picked off one baserunner while catcher Jake Rogers threw out the other trying to steal second base. The Sox even took a 2-0 lead in the second. Burke promptly gave it back in the third, on a walk and a homerun by Joc Pederson. The purported ace of the staff walked two more but managed to get out of the inning without any further damage. Then he walked the first two batters in the fourth. After eight walks in three-plus innings, it was, So long, Sean, hello, bullpen. Sean Newcomb was great, going three shutout innings, while Jonathan Cannon was Jonathan Cannon, giving up two runs in three innings. Newcomb is up to 75 innings on the season (the last 17.1 featuring not so much as an earned run) How long can he keep it up? And why is Cannon replacing an injured Huascar Brazoban instead of, yes, David Sandlin or Drew Thorpe? Cannon is 5-6 with a 5.18 ERA in Triple-A, not exactly numbers that give one confidence. As the saying goes, curious minds want to know.