TCS Morning 10: Can we interest you in a certified pre-owned Samardzija?

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When discussing Jeff Samardzija's future with the Sox at the beginning of the season, we had to consider three scenarios: the Sox would be able to extend him and he would be the right-handed power arm in the middle of the starting rotation for years to come, or they would have to satisfy themselves with focusing on this year's playoff chase and try to get a compensation pick or see if a qualifying offer could drive his price down.

Or, there was the distant possibility that the season would be a total bust and they would have to try to sadly flip him back out for diminishing returns as a half-season rental.

Welcome to Door No. 3!

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TCS Morning 10: Adam Eaton's irresistible power

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Just for novelty's sake, playing a long, sloppy game where the offense bails everyone out is a lot more fun than it has a right to be. Adam Eaton's surprisingly annihilated (okay, just 398-feet, but this is not a large dude) walk-off bomb ended a 7-6 slugfest the featured 16 Sox hits, and broke their 24-game streak of home games with four runs or less.

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TCS Morning 10: Jose Quintana deserves better

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"Jose Quintana deserves so much better" is an annoying trope that the Sox can't help but keep fulfilling. It smacks of reverence for the win stat, but Quintana is a competitor--it might be one of his strongest traits--who strives to win the game for his team, and clubbing him over the head with negative reinforcement constantly is increasingly gruesome to watch. 

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TCS Afternoon 10: Scintillating baseball

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What a rapturous night of pitching and baseball. The Chris Sale vs. Mark Buehrle matchup lived up to hype in the most brisk and watchable way, with the former matching the latter penchant for quick innings and soft contact. The momentary horror that the Blue Jays aggressive approach would (and it did) spell doom for Chris Sale's double-digit strikeout streak was ameliorated by sharply played competitive sprint the Sox engaged the Blue Jays in while a very feisty crowd of just under 25,000 watched.

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TCS Morning 10: All you have to do is pitch your face off

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It would be hard to cut down the optimism and good feelings of a four-game winning streak launched against two set in stone competitors like the Baltimore Orioles and the best in baseball St. Louis Cardinals, but the White Sox really took a crack at it Sunday in getting blown out 8-1 by the O's. 

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TCS Morning 10: Jose Quintana is better than the stupid rain, J2 is coming

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Of all the getaway day games that are scheduled at unwatchable hours on Wednesday afternoons, this is the primetime matchup that had to pursued, and with the Sox not scheduled to return to St. Louis anytime soon and already planning a loaded second half of makeup dates, MLB was willing to sweat out something like, oh, a start delayed by two hours, two early stints that barely made it through entire half innings before new delays kicked off, and ending time well after midnight local time.

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TCS Morning 10: Chris Sale is the only player on the team

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Let it not be said that the White Sox offense will not pick up their pitching staff if they hold the third-best offense in the NL to one run over 11 innings, including a historic performance from their starter. I don't know whether to be thrilled or bemused by a 2-1, 11-inning win in Cardtown. It's a victory over a great team via some phenomenal pitching dominance, but sprinkled in with enough ineptitude to make it clear how much of a struggle it will be to replicate this.

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TCS Morning 10: We coulda had a good weekend

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We shouldn't be talking about this.  I certainly don't try to shoehorn Robin Ventura into everything. Hindsight sniping at a manager who's job and motivations are mostly invisible is not fun or compelling writing. Melky is alive again, Adam Eaton is a star, the Sox offense touched up David Price with Jose Abreu hitting out of the No. 2 hole and were all about to take two out of three from the Tigers in convincing fashion.

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TCS Morning 10: The White Sox did not have a parade Thursday

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 It's cliche, but the NBA and NHL season wrapping really has thrown the full attention of the Chicago sports media engine toward why the Cubs offseason promise has borne fruit and the White Sox are an even bigger disaster than previously remembered.  And oh, wow, just as more attention comes to the Sox, they're on a seven-game skid and hurtling out of even the faintest notion of playoff contention at breathtaking speed. 

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TCS Morning 10: Slightly more professional losses

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Wednesday night, the White Sox went down three runs to the streaking Pirates in the first seven minutes of the game, stretched their scoreless streak to 30 innings, and Robin Ventura got himself ejected in the fourth inning arguing against the ruling that Melky Cabrera staggered over so much after striking out against Jeff Locke that he interfered with Francisco Cervelli trying to throw out Adam Eaton at second. 

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TCS Morning 10: How many canings can you take before they define you?

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It's remarkable how effortlessly the White Sox pivoted from their first home sweep of the season, and possibly the most encouraging stretches of play of the year, and right into the losing streak that might finally huck this cursed season into the dungeon permanently. They're now stuck in a four-game skid, six games under .500, the proud owners once more of the worst run differential in the AL, and have three more games against the red-hot Pirates team that just thunderkicked them 11-0 Monday night, then three against the Rangers, whose main weakness is pitching and, well...

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TCS Afternoon 5: Chris Sale breaks things

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Small sample size and all that, but I don't know if you've heard anything about Chris Sale's last five starts...they've been pretty good. He has a 1.45 ERA, with 61 strikeouts over 37.1 innings. Opponents have hit .152/.206/.250 against him, while striking out 43.3% of the time. Major league hitters have been twice as likely to strike out as reach base against Sale for the better part of the last month. 

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TCS Morning 10: Dingers will save you

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Jose Quintana may long for the days of the supposed "dingers or nothing" White Sox offenses, since even that would provide more support than he's grown used to this season. His no-decision last week against the Tigers in an eventual 4-3 win was the first time he had received more than a single run of support in four starts. 

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TCS Morning 10: Sox look pretty good when the other team doesn't score

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It was another good night for the 'Hit one big dinger and make it stand up' approach. Thanks to more yeoman work from Carlos Rodon, and Jose Abreu bursting through to subvert an otherwise dominant outing from Astros ace Dallas Keuchel, the Sox pried out a small lead and clung to it even as their defense and relief corps tried to implode in the ninth for a 4-2 victory, sealing the first season series win over the Astros since 2006.

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