Fan Favorite

My favorite ballplayers are just as likely to be average as great.  For every Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko, I’ve rooted for the likes of Walt Williams and J.C. Martin.  Once they leave the White Sox, I still follow them in the box scores, which is why I now check on the Pirates to see how ex-Sox J.B. Shuck is doing.  Answer: Just sent down to the minors.

 

Speaking of Pittsburgh, the A’s visited over the weekend, with another one of my favorites, former Sox catcher Josh Phegley.  Talk about a night, Phelgley went four for five with two doubles, a homerun and eight RBIs, a franchise record for an A’s catcher. 

 

Coming up with the Sox, Phegley suffered from a condition known as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a serious blood disorder that necessitated the removal of his spleen; my sister Betty had something similar.  Phegley reminds me of her, which is one of the reasons I want him to have a nice, long career.

 

Phegley was traded to Oakland after the 2014 season as part of a package for Jeff Smardzija.  You just have to love the Sox front office (or not).  The A’s also received infielder Marcus Semien in the deal.  Semien has had his issues at shortstop, making as many as 35 errors in a season; he’s also hit as many as 27 homeruns in a season.  Right now, he’s hitting .295 with 4 homers, 18 RBIs and 21 runs scored.  Compare that to Tim Anderson at .339 with 6 homers, 20 RBIs and 21 runs scored.  Semien has 1 error in 132 chances versus 9 errors for Anderson in 129 chances.

 

It’s not so much that the White Sox can’t develop talent as not knowing what to do with it.  Phegley and Semien are both still with the A’s (along with the third player shipped to Oakland, pitcher Chris Bassitt).  What do we have to show for it?  As ever, addition through subtraction, Smardzija, not Phegley et al.      

Send in the Clowns

Tied game, top of the eighth, one out, single to left, Nicky Delmonico gets the ball in quickly to the minister of fun at short, who proceeds to throw it away trying to catch the runner rounding first base.  Jose Abreu, the rock upon which the 14-18 White Sox rest, retrieves the ball, only to throw it into left field.  The runner goes to third and eventually scores.  But, wait, there’s more.

 

The Red Sox eventually loaded the bases, which prompted the appearance of newly recalled reliever Caleb Frare, who promptly walked in a run on four pitches, the fourth hitting the back wall on the fly.  Exit Frare, enter Juan Minaya, also just recalled.  On his second offering, Minaya grooved one to Xander Bogaerts for a grand slam.  After the game, Frare was returned to the minors, to be joined by centerfielder Adam Engel.  So much for Engel tapping into his “posterior chain.”

 

This is all so pathetic it’s funny.  Send in the clowns.  No, wait….

Mad as Hell

Sorry, but a team on the upswing doesn’t follow two walk-off wins with two drubbings.  Friday’s 6-1 loss by the White Sox to Boston and a previously winless Chris Sale was bad enough, bad not nearly as bad as yesterday’s 15-2 humiliation.

 

How bad?  Consider this: White Sox starter Manny Banuelos gave up nine runs on ten hits in the third, all after two outs and nobody on.  Nothing I read or heard from manager Rick Renteria explained why he subjected Banuelos, his teammates or White Sox fans to this pummeling.  Renteria used infielder Jose Rondon to pitch an inning the night before with the Sox only five runs down.  Why not pick another position player to do it once your team is five, six, seven, eight…?

 

As for the rebuild, it sure looks shaky.  Tim Anderson, the self-proclaimed Jackie Robinson of fun, is hitting .115 over his last seven games and .233 over his last fifteen.  Yoan Moncada, who carries the burden of being one of the centerpieces in the Sale trade, is at .192 over his last seven and .254 over his last fifteen.  Carson Fulmer, a former first-round draft pick who was shifted from starting to relieving, has just walked himself back to the minors.  I see next to no leadership on the field or in the dugout.

 

All White Sox fans get is GM Rick Hahn telling them when they can and can’t expect the next wave of “talent” to arrive from the minors.  And how will they be coached once they get here, Rick? 

Wait, There's More

How is this humanly possible?  Five days after striking out 14 Tigers, White Sox starter Reynaldo Lopez looked clueless on the mound against the Red Sox, giving up six runs in five innings in a Bad Sox 6-1 win over the Good Sox.  Wait, there’s more.  Ex-Sox Chris Sale earned his first win of the year, going six shutout innings while striking out ten.  White Sox hitters, as is their wont, looked clueless in their approach to a tough pitcher.  Why doesn’t anyone go up to hitting coach Todd Steverson and ask what the plan was in facing Sale, if there was a plan?  Wait, there’s more.  

 

Lopez gave up a three-run homerun in the top of the first to Rafael Devers; how nice for a player’s first homer of the season to travel 439 feet to dead centerfield, this on a fastball down the middle.  Wait, there’s more, as in Michael Chavis taking a 79 mph slop pitch from Lopez in the sixth inning and depositing it 459 feet from the plate somewhere deep to left field.  Wait, there’s more.  A White Sox reliever walked in a run, again.

 

Wait, there’s more.  In discussing Carlos Rodon’s injury, White Sox GM Rick Hahn told the Tribune Friday, “To stem off the inevitable Dylan Cease question, no one is going to be promoted to Chicago simply because there’s a need in Chicago” unless that player is deemed ready to go.  What a load of crap.  Maybe someone should sit Hahn down and tell him the story of Wally Pipp and Lou Gehrig.  Injuries test organizations, and all the White Sox are good at is making excuses for not wanting to see what their top minor leaguers can do.

 

Rick, pitchers get only so many innings a year, to say nothing of a career.  Why spend a single inning more than necessary in the minors?  Dominating Triple-A is nice, but not the same as learning how to face a major-league team like the Red Sox.  And isn’t the best pitching coach in the world sitting in the White Sox, not the Charlotte Knights’, dugout?    

 

Oh, this rebuild stuff gets old.  I can’t wait if there’s more.

The Glass Half-full

So, I could talk about how Carlos Rodon of the White Sox has been placed on the IL after his 3.2-inning start on Wednesday, with Tommy John surgery a possibility.  And I could ask if manager Rick Renteria was made to talk about a Rodon’s alleged blister problem or he came up with that all on his own.  I could also provide, on request, the phone numbers of two people (you both know who you are) I talked to on Wednesday, telling them that from his body language Rodon either didn’t want to pitch or he was hurt.  But that’s all glass half-empty stuff.

 

No, I want to talk about last night’s game against the Red Sox at Guaranteed Rate Whatever.  The weather was absolutely miserable, temperature in the 40s with a steady mist.  As a rule, White Sox fans aren’t inclined to risk their health in such conditions.  If the visitors bring their fan base along, fine.  And Red Sox Nation looked to be out in force shivering at the old ballpark, let me tell you.

 

They were also loud and obnoxious in the way of creatures who live along the Atlantic Seaboard.  In particular was this guy—my father would call him a “clown,” but I would never do that—who was shouting and pumping a fist when Jose Abreu got thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the sixth inning.  Oh, and the old guy in the Red Sox jacket who kept checking his phone.  And the people who started chanting “New York sucks” around the eighth inning.

 

Too bad Nicky Delmonico hit a three-run walk-off of a homerun.  What a depressing drive back to the hotels it must’ve been for the Nation.  As they say in Beantown, Losahs!

I Can't Believe My Eyes. Then Again, I Can

Game two of the Orioles-White Sox doubleheader yesterday included two plays I’d never seen before.  In the bottom of the second with a runner on first, Sox right fielder Ryan Cordell struck out on what was ruled a wild pitch.  What O’s catcher Austin Wynns should’ve done after retrieving the ball was throw it to first.  Instead, Wynns threw to second, where no one happened to be.  The runner went to third and the Sox ended up scoring a run.  Two innings later, Jose Abreu hit a three-run single.  No, Abreu didn’t fall down on his way to second.  All the Sox baserunners hustled with two out while the Oriole defense was caught napping.

 

Too bad game one of the doubleheader featured something more familiar, Carlos Rodon in full struggle mode.  Staked to a four-run lead, Rodon couldn’t get out of the fourth inning and needed 89 pitches to go 3 and 2/3.  After the game, Sox manager Rick Renteria told the Tribune’s semi-beat writer that a “little blister develops on” one of the fingers on his pitching hand.  “Every single outing he has it,” added Renteria.

 

Really?  Just this year or throughout Rodon’s career?  However will super-agent Scott Boras get his client a humongous deal if the guy keeps getting blisters?   

Good News, Really

Good news, Bulls’ fans.  TV ratings are out for your NBA stalwarts, and guess what?  They’re down a whopping 24 percent, for the worst numbers in thirteen years.  Why, you may ask, is that good news?

 

Because it hurts ownership in the pocketbook, which is the only sure-fire way to usher in change; whether or not coach Jim Boylen should be the face of that change is a question for another day.  But fear not.  Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf feel the pinch, more so that attendance at the United Center has declined for the third year in a row, this according to yesterday’s Sun-Times.

 

One of the many reasons I hated building a publicly funded home for the White Sox is that it cushioned Reinsdorf senior from the consequences of bad decision-making, as did a sweetheart lease.  But the United Center cost Chicago taxpayers nothing, or as close to nothing as a major urban construction project in the nation’s third-largest city can get.  This is capitalism as it’s supposed to work, just like they teach it at the University of Chicago.

 

As a rule, rich people hate losing money.  So, either the Bulls start winning, which is how you make money in sports, or the owners sell.  Now, that’s what you call a win-win.