Awakenings
/Blue Jays vs. Rangers was a real damn game. One of a recent many.
Read MoreA hateful guide to the ALDS
/Frankly, I'm a little exhausted.
Back in my day, the dread and despair of a full baseball season being brutally snuffed out as quickly as possible built up over the course of at least a work week. My dinner prep Wednesday night consisted of reheating taco meat in the microwave and dropping it in tortillas and the Pirates whole season was still screwed before I started eating.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Say, those WERE a lot of Rodon strikeouts
/Carlos Rodon split the plate with the first fastball he threw to Delino DeShields, and after getting taken into the gap for a leadoff double, he looked lost missing badly with fastballs and walking Shin-Soo Choo.
And then just like Chris Sale the night before, Rodon snapped into place. Or it's better said, his slider took control of the game. The only run he allowed all night came that same inning, when he completely overwhelmed Prince Fielder, only for that brilliant hitter to poke an off balance seeing-eye single through on him. No one else fared better. Rodon's slider filleted everyone, overwhelming a lefty-centered lineup, covering up his walks, putting away hitters who fell behind, enticing swings from hitters who were ahead and had to know the slider was coming. He recorded 10 of his first 15 outs via strikeout, and braved six outstanding innings with two pitches, and really only one pitch worth worrying about.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: A Chris Sale Day was had
/Apparently it was Chris Sale Day for the offense too.
Nick Ramirez is a middling MLB talent and early-season ERA has been overhyped and long overdue for being dragged in the mud, but who would have thought it would be the White Sox attack, or Carlos Sanchez?
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: Back to feeling awful about Samardzija, Sox again
/It would have been nice to realize while it was happening that May was Samardzija's hot stretch of command. Instead, I didn't realize until his last two starts that he was beginning to look as advertised, and now he's pounding the zone with mistakes on the upper half again and getting pounded in return. Samardzija was annihilated for nine runs on 12 hits in five-plus innings in Tuesday night's 15-2 demolition in Arlington, but probably could have taken the game into the seventh if they wanted to stretch his pitch count. He was so efficient at pounding the zone with pitches to drive, floating every cutter and slider over the center of the plate, that he still was on 95 pitches despite facing 28 batters on the night.
Read MoreTCS Morning 10: On to Texas
/The cruelest mockery: The Rangers will mark the arrival of the White Sox in Texas by calling up the type of fearsome, high-ceiling, top-10 offensive prospect that the Sox have been unable to generate in over a decade. Joey Gallo will reportedly be called up to the big club on Tuesday, straight from Double-A.
Read MoreImportant stuff from a 3-1 beating at the hands of Adam Rosales
/As far as fatal flaws ago, at least Chris Sale being unable to retire Adam Rosales, or the White Sox as a franchise's inability to retire Adam Rosales, at least it's full of fun and whimsy. Rosales pulled into the MLB lead for most career home runs off Sale with three after bombing an opposite-field two-run shot to right in the second, and gave himself five home runs off the Sox total for his career with a seventh inning solo shot off Daniel Webb.
Read MoreImportant stuff from Tuesday's 16-0 slobberknocking at the hands of another last place team
/This one's not going up on the Danks' family mantle, not with the room that needs to be cleared for Jordan Danks' Charlotte Knights All-Time Hits Leader plaque. Danks had held off a night of nonexistent command, wayward 89 mph fastballs and hanging changeups for a longer stretch than we thought him capable of in this post-surgery life, but ohhhhhhh did he pay the piper Tuesday night. He might have paid ahead for the next couple weeks if we're lucky.
Read MoreImportant stuff from tonight's episode of the Tyler Flowers Show, a 5-3 win over Texas
/Apparently quieting compiling monster stats on an unworldly hot streak wasn't enough for Flowers to fully launch the narrative of switching to glasses--FROM CONTACTS HE ALREADY WORE--unlocking some offensive monster, he had to go and beat the Texas Rangers all by himself. The Rangers are a pretty sad major league product these days, but still, one man. Flowers got a two-run third inning started with a one-out triple that bounced on the edge of the right field wall, slammed out a game-tying home run to lead off the fifth, threw out Jim Adduci trying to steal second to end the sixth, and poked the go-ahead two-run single in the bottom half of the inning, saving a scoring opportunity the Sox looked primed to blow after Gordon Beckham and Alejandro struck out.
Read MoreWeek in Review: Pitching & Moaning
/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.
Read MoreOne Game Will Have to Do - Game Preview & Lineups 4/20
/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.
Read MoreYesterday Never Happened - Game Preview & Lineups 4/19
/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.
Read MoreFelipe Paulino destroyed, probably not in the rotation anymore
/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.
Read MoreRuns For Paulino - Game Preview & Lineups 4/18
/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.
Read More