TCS Morning 10: At least the White Sox employ a killer

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This was not a good nor sharp weekend of White Sox baseball. Defensive and baserunning blunders marked two ugly losses to the Cubs and served as a stark counterbalance to how they out-executed a superior team in Wrigley last month. Avisail Garcia just keeps running into outs until someone takes him up on it, routine throws to first are somehow still an adventure even with Conor Gillaspie off the team and no starting pitchers seem particularly invested in backing up their catcher...but White Sox  still employ Chris Sale.

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TCS Morning 10: Another hanging breaking ball to Avisail Garcia

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I had become concerned that some sort of moratorium on throwing Avisail Garcia hanging breaking balls, it was simply a matter of waiting until the 13th inning where he could loop a curve into a preposterously wide open left-center gap and score Jose Abreu from first. Abreu's sprint was the sort where you wouldn't be surprised if he took the day off Thursday if the Sox didn't already have it off anyway.

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TCS Morning 10: Rookies can occasionally be good

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Carlos Rodon came into Tuesday having put together two sharp outings since the beginning of June, and was stacking up a performance record that would justify getting yanked from the rotation if the Sox were still deep in the race. For what it's worth, Rodon had been using the hot-hitting Geovany Soto as his personal catcher. Tuesday he switched to the revered platework of Tyler Flowers and the correlation with an incredibly sharp demolition of the Angels lineup is hard to miss. Blessed with a slider that is completely overwhelming when he's ahead of the count, Rodon was just far enough on the right side of the border between just enough command to dominate with pure stuff, and being a complete mess.

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TCS Morning 10: White Sox troubles were golfed into the left field bleachers for a night

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Chris Sale wasn't at his peak wrath of God best Monday night, but that's such a lofty placement that it's an unfair comparison. He leaned on improved, but still far from steady fastball command while touching the upper 90's with regularity, and an all-purpose changeup that worked as his finishing option as his slider remained slurvy all night. After some early difficulties dragged out by a 13-pitch war with Mike Trout, he got brutally efficient and breezed through six innings at under 80 pitches before some hanging slurves lent themselves to a two-run double by Johnny Giavotella.

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TCS Afternoon 10: At least being this bad doesn't matter anymore

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The White Sox got predictably kicked around by the Royals in Kansas City this week. Three one-run losses later, they're 3-10 vs. the division leaders on the season, and have yet to win in Kauffman Stadium in 2015. They're now 2-7 since the non-waiver trade deadline expired, as the absurdly great pitching that propped up their hot streak has fizzled to the point of allowing seven runs per game.  Jeff Samardzija in particular, ended his 10-game streak of seven innings or more, and has barely cover more than nine frames in his last two outings with a 15.43 ERA.

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State of the Offense: Reasons for Optimism and Despair

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Since the All Star Break the White Sox offense has had its best stretch of the year. The pitching has taken a step back from unsustainable greatness, so despite a 7-game win streak in there, the team as a whole hasn’t made any progress.  They were 41-46 at the time of the All Star Game, and they are 51-57 now.  But, now 108 games in, we can take another look at where the offense is viable and where it is still irretrievably broken.

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TCS Afternoon 10: It's an off-day for all of us

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Since my despair over Avisail Garcia crested, he's both homered and walked twice in as many games, driven in five, and walked off an otherwise sad and ugly game against the Rays. Both his home runs have been on hanging breaking balls, and he still has to convince the league he can cover the inside fastball, and the level of fear he is generating leaguewide is currently "Managers will load the bases by intentionally walking both Jose Abreu and Melky Cabrera just to get to him."

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TCS Morning 10: No, no, no, no this time the Sox are really done

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Ok, they're done this time, right? The Sox are five games under .500 in August, with an awful -71 run differential, fresh off an 11-3 thrashing at home to the Rays, who now own a sizable lead on them in the Wild Card race, despite being fringe contenders at best themselves. The Sox hopes are done. This is what happens when your wrath of God winning streak only zips you into the very back of the pack. 

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TCS Morning 10: Life itself is a doomed attempt to leap over the catcher

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Death is Curt Casali at home plate with the ball. Absurdly well-prepared for our arrival, unavoidable. Alexei's leap, are our efforts to endure, survive, even transcend the irresistible forces of our way out. Alexei's leap is life itself. It's noble, but ultimately doomed, and perhaps how doomed it was from the start adds to its nobility.

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TCS Morning 10: Losing can now be the validation of inaction!

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If the Sox win: They're turning it around!

If they lose: Thank goodness they didn't buy at the deadline! They're dreadful!

This weekend has provided a lot of validation for the Sox staying out of the bidding for Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton and the like, as the starting pitching that propped up their torrid sprint back into the Wild Card field mostly took the weekend off against the Yankee offense, unfrozen 2010 John Danks aside.

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The White Sox were neither buyers nor sellers, and that's OK

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The trade deadline passed and the White Sox did … nothing.

Unless you’re one to get worked up over the acquisition of a minor league infielder, all the rumors that have been bantered about over the past several weeks resulted in nothing. 

And you know what? That’s OK.

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TCS Morning 10: Trade deadline gets intense as White Sox keep winning

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I suppose the important element of the past 24 hours as far as a White Sox blog is concerned, is that for the third night in a row the White Sox stepped on the field at Fenway Park, and instantly overwhelmed the Red Sox. They battered their pitching relentlessly, trashed their bullpen for the next night (Rick Porcello left in the third), and improbably climbed another game closer to the Wild Card slot.

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TCS Trade Deadline roundtable

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We’re just a few days away from the non-waiver trade deadline, and the White Sox have yet to make any significant moves (unless you count Conor, sorry James), nor have they tipped their hand on whether they will be sellers or not. Yesterday’s report that they would wait until after the current series against the Red Sox to determine their trade deadline fate has us all anxiously waiting to see if something, anything, is done between now and Friday.

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TCS Morning 10: Winning makes future murkier

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Make that 36 runs over five wins to start this road trip. It's been said about past iterations, but the ruin of the Sox did not come due to their inability or unwillingness to slay the bums of the league. Just as they revitalized themselves in May with a six-game win streak largely on the backs of the Brewers and the A's, they have launched a five-game streak off the backs of the sloppy Indians and now a hapless Red Sox team. The Sox offense has it struggles, but let it be known, after this 10-8 slugfest, the Sox can score runs against teams that are hopeless at run prevention.

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TCS Morning 10: The mighty warclub of Carlos Sanchez

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First of all, get these Cleveland clowns up out of here. In a four-game sweep of their division rivals, the White Sox got a long look at their spiritual twins. The Indians came into the year with a brawny rotation that prompted many--including most all of the TCS staff--to pick them to win the AL Central, only for them to be undermined by awful defense and abandoned by several black holes on offense. Just like the Sox, higher early ERAs than expected for big-time starters Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar offered some optimism for a recovery, but this team looks like it's on the express train to nowhere, or stranded in the lost city of Brohio, or whatever expression you want to deploy for a 75-win season.

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Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition or the White Sox Offense

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Coming out of the All Star Break, the White Sox went 1-5 against the Royals and Cardinals, while averaging three runs a game on offense. As they stared at 42-50 with a -81 run differential on the season, there wasn’t much reason for optimism as they started a 4-game set in Cleveland against the likes of Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar.

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TCS Morning 10: These were the Salad Days

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Can we talk about Jose Abreu again? It's bad, and it's painful, and there's clearly something wrong, and he's being relentlessly jammed by anyone and everyone. But worse yet, even holding out for him to run into one--which seems like the only benefit to forcing out a clearly slumping and ailing star--is misguided, because his hand isn't healthy enough to stay through anything.

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