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 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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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: 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: 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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TCS Morning 10 is a work-in-progress

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What the hell got into John Danks? What got into the White Sox in general? How have the Astros been winning? Danks' shutout was very him; a combination of his best control, consistent contact but avoiding the huge, deflating bomb, and a definitively weird event that kept his tab empty. In another world, Jonathan Villar's triple-that-wasn't-quite-an-inside-the-park-home-run is a lineout to center that Adam Eaton reads correctly, but let he who has not allowed the speeding bullet over his outfielder's head cast the first stone.

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TCS Morning 10: A Smardj shall lead them

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With all his early struggles, it's hard to conceive of Jeff Samardzija being the model of relative stability in the White Sox rotation, since he comes off as someone just kinda crossfire flinging the ball in the general direction of the plate on his best days, but seven innings of one-run ball in Toronto Wednesday was his fourth start of the month where he went at least that deep into the game, and all of those outings were quality.

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Important stuff from another 8-1 loss to the Twins on the darkest timeline

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The Astros and the Royals are the American League's very best, the Twins are hitting with vigor and purpose again, and the Sox can't find anyone who can even slug .500, or catch line drives hit right at them, or string hits together off No. 6 quality starters from the Minnesota Twins. Or anything.

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The White Sox can go back to being dependent on home runs anytime now

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This is the offense that baseball purist White Sox fans long craved for. They put a bat on a ball (sixth-lowest strikeout rate in the AL is a great leap forward for them, and it's combined with the fourth-lowest walk rate) and they don't swing for the fences hardly at all (AL-worst 23 home runs). In fact, with a .109 ISO (worst in baseball, despite half the league having to put pitchers in their lineup) they make a point of never getting close.

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Is this what a turnaround looks like?

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Make sure it's strongly on the record that objective indicators for the Sox are still extremely bad. They have the worst run differential in the league, they dug themselves such a hole offensively that there's no point in looking at that figure for another month, and Samardzija is the only regular starter with an ERA under 5.00. They look more like a team that HAS to normalize than one that is in the process of doing so.

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Important stuff from--WHAT IN GOOD GRACIOUS HELL WAS THAT??!

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The White Sox, fresh off an 8-10 start against andadmittedly brutal early-season schedule, began a four-game series Thursday night against lowly Minnesota with their unquestioned ace--Chris Sale--raring and ready to go.

And they promptly got annihilated 12-2. 

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Important stuff from a 6-0 celebration of life at the expense of the Indians

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Life is good! Life is just! The universe has rewarded us for our sufferiiiiiiiiiiiing! Which is, um, to say, that a powerful performance from the White Sox that affirmed their ability to hang with the elites of the AL Central was due. Overdue? No, it's April 22nd. Nothing is overdue. And we're stretching it to call the Indians AL Central elite since this was essentially a tiebreaker game to determine who has been the biggest early-season disappointment among AL Central contenders.

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And a Happy Chris Sale Day was had by all — Important stuff from a series win

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That's more like it.

A day after breaking their season opening four-game skid, the White Sox welcomed Chris Sale back with open arms and he pitched them to a 6-2 win over the Minnesota Twins, the Sox's second in a row against the presumptive AL Central bottom feeders.

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