TCS Morning 10: What was that?
/What was that? What on earth was that? What in blue damn blazes was that?!!
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: The man said "REDDICKDUDNMOO"
/Covering the developments of John Danks' stuff doesn't feel like the most purposeful beat in the world. He tools around with different things. Some days his changeup flashes dominant, the rest of the time it is merely good and over-relied upon. One time he had his old velocity back. Then it went away again. Through it all, he is kinda bad, but remarkably healthy! This is like blogging about Sisyphus. "He showed really good knee bend and drive today." "Today he just whacked the boulder with the stick." "Today he just sat and wept." "The boulder is still at the bottom of the hill."
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Rodon is brilliant, the Sox are not
/The White Sox lost 2-1 in Los Angeles Monday night because they put nine guys on base all night, hit one extra-base hit, hit into a double play, went 0-6 with runners in scoring position, and only scored because Johnny Giavotella is so bad at second that Ned Yost was probably right to play Chris Getz over him all those years. You never remember the command-change lefties your team crushes, but Andrew Heaney snaking his way around damage twice in a week tends to stick with you.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: At least the White Sox employ a killer
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Another hanging breaking ball to Avisail Garcia
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Rookies can occasionally be good
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: White Sox troubles were golfed into the left field bleachers for a night
/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.
Read MoreTCS Afternoon 10: At least being this bad doesn't matter anymore
/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.
Read MoreTCS Afternoon 10: It's an off-day for all of us
/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."
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: No, no, no, no this time the Sox are really done
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Life itself is a doomed attempt to leap over the catcher
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Losing can now be the validation of inaction!
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Winining streak dies as ambitions swell
/In sum, Thursday was not a good day for the White Sox, but it takes a lot of context to understand why. Let's recap!
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Trade deadline gets intense as White Sox keep winning
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Winning makes future murkier
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: The mighty warclub of Carlos Sanchez
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: These were the Salad Days
/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.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Openly bad
/Despite all indications all-season long that the Sox are one of the least likely teams to sustain a great, redeeming second-half run (they can't score!), many looked for this now departed four-game series with the Royals for a telling assessment of their worth as a franchise.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Sure, there's enough going for us to do this
/Uh, where is Chris Sale? He last started on Saturday, so regular rest would have meant starting on Thursday, he didn't pitch in that All-Star Game--not sure if we mentioned that--but he's not on the announced slate of pitchers for the Kansas City series thus far.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: A good end to a bad half
/Now that we've had an extra day to be lazy and not write...
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