The Carlos Rodon Inevitability

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Eric Surkamp was demoted Sunday night after a month and a half of dreadful performances. His being optioned is ostensibly to clear the way for recovered bullpen regular Matt Lindstrom, but giving the boot to the relief corps' only left-hander always has its own special level of rebuke. Robin Ventura's words were not very complimentary, which is appropriate but somewhat disappointing, because I wanted to see if The King of Magnanimity could come up with a kind word about someone with an ERA that matched the name of a national convenience store chain

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Rain robs Sox of Sale but they win anyway

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White Sox fans expecting a healthy dose of Chris Sale in his second start back from injury saw their dreams cut short on Tuesday night as more than two hours of rain delays forced the ace out after just three innings.

But Scott Carroll, of all people, came to the rescue, scattering five hits over the next three innings and the offense did just enough in a 2-1 win over the Indians in a game that lasted until well after midnight.

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Guthrie Stands Between Sox and Sweep - Game Preview & Lineups 5/21

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Notorious White Sox nemesis Jeremy Guthrie is the last hurdle between the White Sox and A) a sweep of the Royals, and B) getting back to .500 after sitting between one and three games below during each of the last 11 days when the two teams meet in Wednesday's series finale at Kaufmann Stadium at 7:05 p.m.

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Week In Review: Regressing to the Mean

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The end of April and beginning of May were none too kind to the White Sox. After climbing a game above .500 and taking 3-of-4 from the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday, the White Sox promptly dropped four straight to division rivals Detroit and Cleveland before ending their week with a bang, thanks to Dayan Viciedo.

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Looking Back at the Month of Abreu and Beyond

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With the month of Abreu — sorry, the month of April — officially in the books, James Fegan, Collin Whitchurch, Nick Schaefer, Matt Adams and Rob Flot sat down and discussed what we've seen out of the White Sox so far. Among the topics we broached were Jose Abreu, the pitching staff, Adam Dunn, Alexei Ramirez, trades and attendance. Feel free to join in on the conversation in the comments below.

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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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Save Us, Chris Sale - Game Preview & Lineups 4/17

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A day after the atrocity that is the White Sox bullpen used up every last pitch in its arsenal in a 6-4, 14-inning loss to the Red Sox, Chris Sale takes the mound in hopes of avoiding the shenanigans that led to that embarrassing conclusion.

Leury Garcia is starting at second base and will likely be unavailable in relief for tonight's 7:10 rubber match against Jon Lester and the Boston Red Sox, but one can rightly assume Daniel Webb, fresh off of a gutsy, 59-pitch performance as the only actual arm left in the bullpen, won't be.

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Pull up a chair for Frank Francisco

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It sure would be fun if minor league teams were acting on their own accord and signing wayward former closers with sordid pasts to fill out their roster, without any approval from the big club. But this is actually an addition of relief depth by the White Sox, who have apparently met the "only if things go right to hell" criteria for when they would decide to sign Frank Francisco.

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Week In Review: What We've Learned After 13 Games

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Alexei Ramirez punctuated an up-and-down second week of the season for the White Sox with his two-run, walk-off home run on Sunday against the Cleveland Indians. The victory gave the White Sox a 4-3 record for the week and raised their record against the American League Central to 6-4 at this very early point in the season, and the 3-1 series win over the Indians helped them exorcise some of the demons that haunted them after going 2-17 against the Tribe a year ago.

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Sox blow lead, drop series, lose Garcia

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Developing their young talent and building up their relievers for trades, and maybe win some more games than last year, were some of the White Sox biggest priorities this season (in that order). On Wednesday, Avisail Garcia got hurt, their bullpen was annihilated once more for six runs in the eighth, and they dropped the game and series to a surely not very good Colorado team. To the White Sox credit, the 10-4 loss felt more like an unplanned fall down the stairs than a true blowout.

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Week In Review: The Good, The Bad & The Uncertain

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After a week of games one thing is certain — there are still 156 games to play.

Yes, it's a long season. But let's take a look at some of the more noteworthy bits and pieces we saw after six games of White Sox baseball.

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The State of the Bullpen - Three Games In

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We saw the bullpen strain pretty hard to get through Wednesday and Thursday - although I suppose allowing five runs in three innings in the Thursday loss doesn't necessarily count as "getting through." Part of the problem is that Felipe Paulino only managed 5.1 innings on Wednesday. They were good innings, but between Ventura playing cutesy lefty-righty matchups, Nate Jones' struggles, and Scott Downs walking Mauer and then being pulled, two relievers were used to get zero outs, and there were only six innings in the books at that point. 

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Ventura's troubling bullpen tinkering

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Sometimes, MLB managing looks as simple as holding one's ground as the opposing team burps and derps itself into the ground. By this measure, Wednesday night was an unqualified success for Robin Ventura and Co. They put their players in position to benefit if the opposition threw the ball to random locations, and Ron Gardenhire's Twins threw the ball to random locations.

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