The MLB playoffs are the best time of the year, because every story of dominance and triumph, every celebrating fanbase, is humbled. Emphatically and publicly in emotionally traumatizing fashion, their dreams are crushed, and they must once again revert to the cautious cynicism and doubt that guides the day-to-day existence of fandom, and we can all watch as their return from their deluded perch.
Read MoreIt 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.
Read MoreA White Sox starter racking up 10 or more whiffs in four-straight games was an absurd notion before this strikeout-crazed era hit the sport, and it was an absurd notion before this franchise employed someone as good as Chris Sale.
Read MoreWhat 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.
Read MoreNot to be even momentarily outshined in the rotation by Jeff Samardzija, Chris Sale overcame a dreadful history against the Baltimore Orioles (who came in the game hitting .352/.436/.614 off Sale for his career) for his finest outing of the year, striking out 12 O's over 7.2 shutout innings. His now 3.66 ERA is only barely better than average (108 ERA+) which reiterates what we addressed with Samardzija yesterday: even if the putrid White Sox offense is possibly an overwhelming yoke for this team to bear, they should start getting more of their fair share of extremely low-difficulty games handed to them by the top-half of their rotation.
Read MoreHeading into the 2015 regular season, it seems that most every American League team fancies themselves as a contender. As I’ve talked about earlier, this center-heavy distribution of talent should have interesting implications on the playoff race. This post is not about that. This post is me being a mean person who sees the flaws in everything. This post is about how every team in the American League will finish below .500, mathematical impossibilities be damned*.
Read MoreThe wise and just ESPN Sweetspot Guru David Schoenfield is going through his pre-Spring rankings of every MLB team and the White Sox have come up...a bit earlier than I would have hoped. David ranks them 23rd in baseball, predicts a 77-85 mark and cites concerns about the back-half of the starting rotation, problems spots in the infield, and does not appear to be a Tyler Flowers’ Glasses Truther. The Sox are behind the Tigers--whom he acknowledges could be division favorites again--the Royals, the Rays, and his surprise team: the Houston Astros.
Read MoreEven as someone who takes sardonic glee in seeing super-protected, nine-figure (at the least) organizations with elastic profits getting the occasional bit egg on the face, I am going to go out on a limb and say it's just wrong to steal proprietary data from a major league franchise. The Astros having their Ground Control system hacked is maybe the 97th most immoral act I read about on Monday, and maybe it's proprietary data about a silly game, but it's their proprietary data and they paid for it. Imagine that if instead of proprietary data, it was donuts, and imagine that instead of being the Astros' donuts, they were your donuts that were stolen. Yeah, not so funny now, you sad, donut-less schlub.
Read MoreIt's getting steadily harder to imagine how the next contending White Sox team will include meaningful contributions from John Danks or Alejandro De Aza, who both struggled to make it respectable in an ugly 8-2 loss to moribund Houston.
Read MoreThe Sox only have so much resistance they can offer. Both middle-of-the-order offensive cornerstones are hurt, Sunday starter John Danks' rotation status would probably be getting judged start-by-start if he weren't sporting John Danks' credentials and career history and signed to John Danks' contract, Adrian Nieto is catching because Danks is the only pitcher he can catch, and the acting cleanup hitter has a sub-.700 OPS for the month. Injuries and backup plans are part of the game. And they are a very big part of the White Sox game.
Read MoreLike last year, the White Sox only do one thing consistently well, but it's hitting, so everyone's pretty happy about it. Saturday's game was mostly defined by Hector Noesi getting roasted in the first inning and the Sox never making it all the way back out of his hole, but the unsteadiness of the Astros pitching staff kept them in shouting range throughout a 6-5 loss.
Early, it looked as if the Sox had finally happened upon their first true Hector Noesi start. A start that immediately revealed the foolishness of giving starting opportunities to a repeatedly failed pitcher, and ended in a four-hour long blowout that sapped everyone of the will to live or keep the failed pitcher on the roster.
Noesi allowed the first four batters of the game to reach, and gave up a line-drive home run to the fourth guy, Jason Castro. It wasn't a grand slam, but that's still the formula for giving up four runs. He allowed two more baserunners in the inning before escaping, and still provided no more insight into why he's so consistently hittable with lively mid-90's stuff.
Yet he mysteriously stabilized to complete five more innings with only a Dexter Fowler solo bomb on his tab, then even more mysteriously was left in to start the seventh, where he gave up a leadoff single that later scored, aided by Scott Downs skipping pickoff throw through Adam Dunn's legs. Noesi finished with six strikeouts to three walks, but two of those free passes came in the first inning. So he was good, when he wasn't dreadful. Aren't we all.
Houston starter Jared Cosart was one of the top prospects in baseball when he was in the lower minors because he possessed nutty stuff and it was assumed his control would settle down. It never did, and it really started hampering how much hitters were fooled by his nutty stuff. He walked three batters in the second inning alone, and threw a wild pitch, as the Sox scored two runs with a Dayan Viciedo single as their only hit.
After using two sac flies in the second inning, the Sox manufactured again as Beckham scored on a leadoff double in the third with groundouts from Conor Gillaspe and Jose Abreu pushing him along.
But the big knock eluded the Sox all afternoon and evening. They stranded runners on second in the fourth and fifth, and after getting the rare positive baserunning play from Alejandro De Aza (stole second after a leadoff single in the sixth), Josh Fields (no, not that Josh Fields) struck out Tyler Flowers and Moises Sierra, and got the otherwise brawnyBeckham to tap out to second to ruin it.
The only rally came off a truly terrible-looking and recently-acquired Kyle Farnsworth, who coughed up two runs behind two more walks, a booming double to the gap from Alexei Ramirez, and a two-out hot-shot grounder from Beckham that just squirted by Marwin Gonzalez at short. But even here, a rippling liner to the right field corner from De Aza teased the Sox. Newly-arrived George Springer flagged the ball down and limited what was nearly a game-tying homer to a sacrifice fly. Gillaspie was left in with a two-out chance to tie the game in a dreadful matchup with LOOGY Darin Downs, and couldn't transcend it.
Houston trotting out Chad Qualls as a closer induced giggles, but neither Paul Konerko, Adam Dunn nor Dayan Viciedo could do much with the veteran mediocre reliever. Konerko was playing after Abreu left the game with a bad ankle. Remember when he was supposed to take a day off for that?
Team Record: 21-23
Next game is Friday night in Houston at 3:10pm CT on WGN
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One way to check to see how a season went is to see how much playing time went to backup plans. It's a good proxy for injuries and washouts. Then you can look at just how good those backup plans are. The 2005 White Sox only needed ten starts from someone not in their opening day starting five. All ten of those starts went to Brandon McCarthy, a top prospect who pitched to an ERA+ of 112. That pitching staff worked out pretty well. By contrast, the 2013 White Sox had to give Dylan Axelrod ~128 innings.
Read MoreBut, as often the case, being a lot, lot better for a small stretch of time will do. Facing a 2-0 deficit in the sixth, the Sox fell back on their winning strategy from Wednesday: they lucked into a couple guys getting on base, then had a large man hit a massive three-run homer. Early Astros investments in their bullpen were hard to locate as the Sox poured on three more in what turned into an easy 7-2 victory.
Read MoreLast season a matchup between the White Sox and the Astros was a warning sign for baseball fans not hailing from the greater Chicago and Houston areas to steer clear. Two terrible teams that were on their way to earning two of the top 3 draft positions in the upcoming draft. This year the look isn’t so bad. The White Sox show consistent signs of life and Jose Abreu is a thing, even on a day we were all prepped to be without him. The Astros are still struggling but are performing admirably considering their financial output and the often questionable leadership of Bo Porter.
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