Important stuff from a fairly easy 9-5 victory in Twinland

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Poor Kevin Correia. He's carved out what's now a 12-year MLB career of soft-tossing, throwing strikes, being below-average but reliably present. And yet, whenever he's off his game, anyone watching wonders how he's still in the league. Correia and all observers knew he was up a creek when he hung a curve that Jose Abreu blasted to Duluth for three runs, and since that happened in the first inning, Correia spent his whole night making unsuccessful attempts at damage control, unaided by his defense. In Correia's defense, he only accounted for 10 of the Sox 17 hits on the night, two of their three home runs--and not the one to Tyler Flowers!--and if the bullpen had just shut out the Sox after his four innings, they would have needed to use Jake Petricka.

Box Score

  • It had been eight games since Jose Abreu last homered. Eight interminable games! He's on pace for only 47 home runs now. He's now hitting .292, while still leading the league in slugging. I'm not serious about the home runs thing, but I also kind of am. Jose Abreu would be a cooler franchise leader for single-season home run total than Albert Belle.
  • Every White Sox player who made a plate appearance reached base. Even Gordon Beckham. Tyler Flowers went bananas after Correia left the game, clocking his sixth home run off the second deck in the seventh and crushing a double to the left-center wall in the ninth, which probably leaves U.S. Cellular Field.
  • At the risk of being called a deranged Dayan Viciedo hater, he might have put together the most frustrating four-hit games in recent memory. He lurched outside of the strike and flailed at a slider to poke a ducksnort into short right for an RBI single, in an at-bat where he whiffed on a pitch as many as three feet outside earlier. He leaned into the left-hand batter's box again for his double to the wall, that again, would have left U.S. Cellular. It was really a phenomenal display of plate coverage and power that he even did this, but only lends further discouragement to the idea that he'll ever deploy these powers judiciously. He could go his whole career failing to be Vladimir Guerrero and never figuring out how to be Dayan Viciedo.
  • John Danks managed to finish with a somewhat dissatisfying outing, despite cruising through an economical first five innings. He got singled to death in the fifth--as someone who can't miss bats is always at risk of--and gave up a massive Oswaldo Arcia home run in the seventh. In terms of stuff and control, this was actually one of his more promising outings (5K, 0 BB), as his changeup had good fade all night. He's looking particularly hairy and sweaty recently. It must be July.
  • After hitting his first home run in the month of July and adding a hit and a walk, Ramirez is now 7-18 with two walks and a .556 slugging percentage in his last four games. It's not much but it's some sign of him arresting his slide after his hot start. The way Ramirez connected Friday night, it's clear a lot of his power shortage is due to a contact-oriented approach. His left-field shot hit off the same second deck face Tyler Flowers' ball did.
  • 25-year-old left-hander and 2010 sixth-round pick Logan Darnell will make his first career start Saturday night vs. Chris Sale.

 

Team Record: 50-54

Next game is Saturday at 6:10pm CT on WGN at Minnesota

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