White Sox offense keeps banging in spite of losses

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There's a lot of excitement around Jose Abreu right now, as there should be. Seven home runs is a lot of home runs to hit in one's first month in major league baseball, and Abreu has a week left to work with. His two blasts in Detroit have all been fine examples of where all the money went--both were bombs over the 420-foot sign in Comerica Park's center field; a place where even in the day of every player having home run power, people simply do not hit the ball out of.

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Third time's the charm for Marcus Semien heroics

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Twice Marcus Semien has provided his White Sox teammates with a late-inning, dramatic go-ahead home runs, and twice he has been denied by uncooperative teammates coming out of the bullpen. Deferred but not denied, Semien gave it one more try Wednesday night.

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Giving a Brazilian a Try - Game Preview & Lineups 4/23

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The matchup can’t be any worse than Leesman v. Verlander now can it? Andre Rienzo’s got an inning’s worth of work this season for the White Sox, not much to go on, but his 13 innings in Charlotte are not encouraging. He’s allowed 15 hits and 7 walks in that time for an ERA of 4.85 that almost exactly matches his short-sample ERA in the big leagues last season of 4.82.

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Dayan and Sale on well-tread ground

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For some strange reason, I have had flexor strains on my mind recently. No idea as to why.

Chris Sale being injured has been a flashpoint of debate for those attempting to clear the thorny trail from irregular pitching motion to injury risk, and those that see the whole practice as a waste of time.

It's an uncertain line of analysis full or projection, and if I'm going to do that, I prefer to haphazardly compare Sale to other recent case of pitchers being given cautious DL stints for flexor strains. The results may be just as depressing, but at least the man will be treated like a normal human being.

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White Sox make a game out of glaring mismatch, die nobly

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Chris Sale's disheartening injury and uncertain future was already going to be more than enough to cast a pall over game. But paired with injuries to Adam Eaton, Conor Gillaspie and an emergency start for Charlie Leesman against Justin Verlander, it was hard to feel like the White Sox were doing much more than fulfilling their league requirement to attend and play the game.

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The Games Must Go On - Game Preview & Lineups 4/22

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While we continue to mourn and hold our collective breath after yesterday's news that Chris Sale will spend an undetermined amount of time on the disabled list, baseball games, unfortunately, must continue. And the White Sox will look to survive their first post-Sale start on Tuesday when Charlie Leesman takes the bump for the second of a four-game set against the Detroit Tigers.

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Chris Sale is going to the disabled list. Repent.

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Identifying a specific cause-and-effect for arm injuries is at best unfair and probably dishonest, since the proliferation of injuries only continues on without any steadfast predictors emerging, and if anyone has come even close to centering on what the right practice is, it's been the White Sox. But the "nothing to see here" claims are particularly hollow at the moment, even if they are comfortingly inspired. I would like to believe the brass, but there's no point in getting worked up if they have to change their story again.

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After review, seventh inning flurry gives Sox surprising victory

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Baseball pretends to reward consistency, when really it punishes humanity. It doesn't truly drape players for being better most of the time, but rather hinges winners and losers on a single moment of vulnerability over a long night. The White Sox spent most of the night under Anibal Sanchez's heel begging for mercy, but when they broke through in the seventh, it was a torrent--four hits, three doubles and three decisive, two replay reviews and three bizarre runs--to key a surprising 3-1 victory in their series opener in Detroit.

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Beating the Tigers Would Be Nice - Game Preview & Lineups 4/21

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We’ve watched these games with more promise than we have in over a year. We’ve watched the offense succeed, we’ve watched pieces of the pitching staff excel as others struggle, and we’ve watched a team that has not yet cashed it in for the season. But we watch while reminding ourselves that this team is not going to win any divisions. This team is supposed to be taking a step towards being a team that wins divisions. If for some reason this team does want to make a go of things, it would behoove them to win some games that simultaneously notch tallies in the Detroit Tigers’ loss column.

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Week in Review: Pitching & Moaning

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Two victories bookended the White Sox's first significant losing streak of the season in a week that further highlighted the team's pitching woes.

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One Game Will Have to Do - Game Preview & Lineups 4/20

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The only thing left to do now is to not get swept. Series win is out of the question and the White Sox are staring at a 5-game losing streak if they fail to pull one out in Texas. Erik Johnson has looked better with each trip out to the mound, his most recent being his best of the season in which he allowed a single run over 6.2 innings. It also represents the last time the Sox won a game.

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Not a whole lot is working, to be honest--Sox drop fourth straight

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After Felipe Paulino escorted himself from the rotation and onto the DL last night with 10-run implosion, the White Sox could have really used a stabilizing effort from trusted and committed starter Jose Quintana, and a return to form from the most exciting offense of the first two weeks of the season.

They got neither. And they lost. And Adam Eaton got hurt.

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Yesterday Never Happened - Game Preview & Lineups 4/19

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The players are certainly going to try to pretend like last night never happened as they take the field, and I’m going to do the same. You know, off the field. There are good things to look at here. Namely, Jose Quintana’s excellent beginning of the season and the prospects of it continuing. He’s walking batters a bit more than usual than other than that he’s been at or better than the rates from 2013 in the major categories, including the most important, run prevention.

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5th Starter Options And A New Reliever

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Felipe Paulino's performance last night, on the heels of his previous two starts, would normally be enough to get him immediately yanked from the rotation. The problem is, there isn't really any obvious choice to replace him. Most of the starters in AAA Charlotte have gotten off to a slow start. Andre Rienzo has been giving up hits and walks without striking anyone out. Charlie Leesman has a shiny ERA in three starts - a product of his absurdly lucky 93% strand rate - and although his profile doesn't often generate good peripheral stats, he's still walking too many hitters to be viable beyond an emergency spot start.  Eric Surkamp, brought in as insurance for just this sort of scenario, is getting absolutely annihilated by minor league hitters thus far. Dipping further down into AA, the options are either prospects whose development would be destroyed by calling them up - Chris Beck, Myles Jaye, and Scott Snodgress - or pitchers who simply cannot get major league hitters out. 

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Felipe Paulino destroyed, probably not in the rotation anymore

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Felipe Paulino's first three starts were bad enough to put him on notice. His fourth will probably put him on notice that he works in the bullpen now. if he's lucky. 

Paulino retired leadoff man Shin-Soo Choo to start the game...and that was about as long as he could keep the illusion of being a MLB starting pitcher going. Left in for as long as reasonably possible in what started to resemble an odd sort of punishment, Paulino was tagged by the Rangers for 10 runs on 13 hits in 3.2 innings, despite being recognizably dead in the early portions of the third. 

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Runs For Paulino - Game Preview & Lineups 4/18

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The White Sox have scored 7 or more runs in 5 different games already this year. They only managed 7 runs total in a 3-game series with the Red Sox. Once clearly on top of the league for offensive production, a lesson in small sample size comes by way of 3 offensively inept games, pushing the Sox down to a second place tie in wRC+ with the Anaheim Angels. They’re going to need an offense today when Felipe Paulino takes the mound.

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White Sox Draft Update

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In June, with the #3 selection the White Sox will have the highest first round draft pick they have had since taking Harold Baines #1 overall in 1977. They've fared pretty well with their three Top 5 selections since then, grabbing guys like Jack McDowell and Alex Fernandez - although taking Kurt Brown ahead of Barry Bonds was probably ill-advised.  So, seeing as they have had all of four Top 5 picks since the Carter administration, this is a bit of a special occasion. 

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Chris Sale Day goes as planned, then bullpen gets involved

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Ronald Belisario didn't even screw up that bad this time, honest.

Sure, he got tagged with the loss and got charged for two runs in 1.1 innings, but he really only allowed two (just two!) ringing base-hits in the ninth. It's not his fault that the second one scored the go-ahead run in the form of Mike Napoli, who reached when his nubber kicked off the heel of Marcus Semien's glove at third. 

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