This man is just like the playoffs, no White Sox! GM Kenny Williams wasn’t shy about going out there and spending his bosses money. Picking up ace starter Jake Peavy, has yet to pitch for the Pale Hose, in exchange for lefthanded pitchers Clayton Richard & Aaron Poreda and righties Dexter Carter & Adam Russell. Then Williams spent more money on a waiver claim from the Toronto Blue Jays, outfielder Alex Rios.
But then a funny thing happened on the way to the playoffs, we started losing, and it snowballed out of control. After the first portion of a tough roadtrip, in which the Sox lost six of seven to Boston & New York, I’m declaring the season OVER! Especially seeing Chicago now takes its sorry act on the road to their own personal place of horrors, the Metrodome. I know the experts are saying, we need to sweep in order to have a chance, I know better.
We have not played well for a variety of reasons, surely there have been some good times, the highlight being Mark Buehrle’s Perfecto. But things have gone South in a hurry, and not in a Southside kind of a good way. All season long we never had a 4th or 5th starter we could depend on, tough to win conceding 40% of your games. Alexei Ramirez has not looked good at SS, he was very good at secondbase, why did we move him? Carlos Quentin is still not healthy, somehow he’ll always manage to be hurt, face the facts. A.J. Pierzynski couldn’t throw me out attempting to steal, he doesn’t have an arm, and has driven in only 37 runs, while hitting .313, that’s tough to do, maybe not with the slowsters batting ahead of him. We talked about improving team speed, but didn’t. Why can’t our pitchers hold on baserunners and why can’t our hitters bunt? We’d really be introuble, like we’re not now, if we didn’t hit home runs. Mark Buehrle, Paul Konerko, & Jermaine Dye have all stopped contributing, what’s it going to be like when Jermaine isn’t playing for us next year? No different from this year, he stopped playing some time ago. Batting Jim Thome, who walks, ahead of Paul Konerko, who hits into doubleplays, not a good idea. Our fundamentals are terrible, whose fault is that, Jay Mariotti’s? The bullpen has gone up in flames like a California wildfire. Brent Lillibridge is a minor leaguer. We went into the season without a leadoff hitter, luckily we plucked Scott Podsednik off the garbage pile, where would we be without him? Also Gordon Beckham has done well at thirdbase, despite the fact he never played it in the minors or in the Arizona Fall League, at least not on a regular basis, and why not? Did we really believe as Hawk kept spouting, that Josh Fields reminded him of Harmon Killebrew, maybe when he swung & missed. We could blame it on Rios for not providing the spark we really needed when we got him or we could simply look into the mirror and see we just aren’t that good.
If this team makes any kind of rebound in Sept. I am going to be pissed, mostly because they still would fall short some way some how, so I don’t even want my time wasted. I hope KW can retool this team to compete next season, bring on the Hawks and Bears.
There are number of reasons that we are not winning and that in itself is the main reason. I haveto agree with the assessment of Ramirez. He was more than adequate at second but merely average at short. Beckham, a shortstop, is learning to play third. He has done pretty well but if he’s a shortstop why don’t we play him there? I believe it is easier to find a guy to man third than the two middle positions. It’s not like we need Getz bat or Nix in the lineup.
Now on to the outfield. We have Jermaine in right. he is better defensively than we give him credit for but he will never be mistaken with Clemente. He has also been hitting under .200 in August I believe. Scotty Pods has come to the rescue, and out of nowhere, more times with the bat than the glove. Quentin, as stated in the original post, seems to be perrenially hurting. I, myself, am not sure if last year may have just been a caeer year. I hope not. Kotsay, who was an aleged “cancer” in Boston, has brought nothing and he cost the best defensive OF we have had in a long time. I still maintain that if Anderson had been given the opportunity to play without every at bat being treated as a tryout, he would have eventually figured it out. The only time this happened was in August of ’07 when he platyed fairly regularly and went 21 for 70 – .300. Wise can just stay on the DL as far as I’m concerned. As for Rios, he may pan out eventually but for the second straight season, when we needed middle relief, KW went out and got an OF we did not need or seem to be using a great deal.
Lastly on offense, while Jim Thome may be a “good ol’ boy” in the clubhouse and at the plate, his want for HR is overshadowed by his propensity to strike out And since he can’t/won’t play the field, he clogs up the rotation. Only being able to DH, he leaves Konerko, AJ, and/or the 4th OF on the bench when they could take a day off and still be the DH.
The pitching staff has just three starters after the deadline moves and depending on Contreras and Garcia at 4 and 5 is just a wish. Guys like them need a solid defense behind them, and we have anything but that. In fact, when discussing who might be the best defensive players at each position, even league wide, no WSox name would even enter the conversation.
So there you have it. Sporadic hitting, little speed, a slightly above average pen, three starters and a limited defense with guys out of position and this is what you get. If you made the AL into one 14 team circuit, we would be a second division club. There is farther to go than most realize. We have, all season been clinging to the hope that we could steal the division and then get hot in the playoffs. Admit it, you know that it’s true, but it is not happening.
now you just need to find a picture of a barren female bear. :-P