No one can command a thing

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As someone who once knocked the sunglasses off the face of their junior high crush with a football by airmailing my best friend (the tallest kid in the eighth grade) by nearly 20 yards, I cannot in good conscious impugn anyone for a misfired throw in even the lowest-intensity situations. However, if the Sox want to snap out of their open to the season that's seen them cough up 16 runs and four homers to the no-hit, small ball Royals in their no-hit, small ball ballpark, they might want to stop hanging meat over the heart of the plate.

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These Damn Royals - Important stuff from Wednesday's 7-5 loss

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The Royals are a pain in the White Sox's ass. If it weren't official before, I'm making it official after Wednesday's 7-5 defeat that saw beanballs, gopherballs, and a myriad of other weird stuff.

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Your Ultimate 2015 White Sox Spring Training Primer

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Spring Training is finally here. What this means is we can all get excited about the sight of actual major league baseball players on an actual baseball field, and then cry over the realization that we're still six weeks away from meaningful games being played.

Still, the season of optimism is upon us, so let's take a look at some of the important things to monitor during the White Sox's time in Arizona.

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Important stuff from Saturday's 4-3 win over the Astros

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Surely back-to-back nights of the bullpen clinging to one-run leads over multiple innings to prop up average or worse contributions from the offense will be prominently featured in the best-seller "How an Awful Bullpen Derailed the 2014 White Sox Juggernaut."

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The White Sox are not a bullpen away from being contenders

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I'm firmly of the belief that Hawk Harrelson is mostly harmless, probably helpful and informative more often than not. The misinformation and confusing tangents are distracting and certainly coming at a higher percentage than most, but what's the point of taking time out to cover his every offense when everyone else is already offering theirs?

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The Catbird Speaks - 6.30.14: It's an intervention!

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James Fegan, Nick Schaefer and Collin Whitchurch sat down for a Sunday night gabfest on the White Sox. Our slated topics of conversation were Carlos Rodon's negotiations, the ever-changing bullpen, the fifth starter conundrum, trade deadline goals and target, and what to do about the corner outfield slots. See how close we stuck to the agenda!

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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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White Sox get just enough of everything to take second straight over Royals

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Pitching, hitting and defense—the White Sox did just enough of all three to beat the Royals 7-6 for their second-straight victory over their divisional foes.

Offensively, the top of the order consistently got on base, as Gordon Beckham and Conor Gillaspie collected a combined six hits and scored four runs.  Each of them scored on Adam Dunn’s three-run home run in the eighth inning, which extended the White Sox lead at the time to 7-2.

Andre Rienzo had a quality start, allowing only two earned runs on five hits in six innings.  Rienzo also struck out eight, while walking just two Royals hitters.  The outing brought Rienzo’s season ERA down to 4.00 and raised his record to an unblemished 4-0.

Young phenom Yordano Ventura pitched for the Royals and the four earned runs he gave up over six innings matches his season-high.  Ventura allowed seven hits, while only striking three White Sox hitters.

“Fresh” off a two-inning appearance last night, Zach Putnam pitched out of a jam in the eighth inning to help preserve a two-run lead going into the ninth inning.

Putnam was helped out on a spectacular defensive play from Alexei Ramirez, who robbed Norichika Aoki of an RBI single.  Ramirez threw out Aoki from his knees on a ground ball in the hole.

The dramatic anticipation of who would be the White Sox closer after Matt Lindstrom was placed on the 15-day disabled list lasted only one night as Ronald Belisario struck out Lorenzo Cain with the tying run on second base to preserve the one-run victory.

The White Sox go for the sweep tomorrow and a chance to return to breakeven on the season when Jose Quintana opposes Jeremy Guthrie at 7:10 PM.

Dumpster Diving for Starting Pitchers

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James did a great job breaking down the bleak situation the White Sox find themselves in his week in review post yesterday. The picture James paints of the White Sox starting pitching options is pretty grim, and even more troubling is that it is true. The White Sox traded away Hector Santiago, and were relying heavily on the risky trio of John Danks, Erik Johnson, and Felipe Paulino. Unfortunately, Erik Johnson's velocity is gone and they don't know where it went, Paulino was unplayable, and now John Danks is doing his best to push his ERA above 6.00. To make matters worse, half of the two starting pitchers the White Sox have who ARE good, Chris Sale, has been out for over a month now. What now?

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Sox roll past Diamondbacks with huge 4th inning

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As it turns out, all the White Sox needed to break out of their offensive "slump" was a visit from old friend Brandon McCarthy and the worst-record-in-baseball Arizona Diamondbacks as the White Sox used a big fourth inning to cruise to a 9-3 victory Friday night at U.S. Cellular Field.

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Viciedo Saves White Sox From Misery

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For 26 innings, the White Sox had nary a hope of victory against the Cleveland Indians. Staring down a series sweep and fifth consecutive loss thanks, in part, to a dominant performance by Corey Kluber, Dayan Viciedo came to the rescue, blasting a three-run homer off of John Axford in the ninth inning to give the White Sox a 4-3 victory on Sunday.

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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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White Sox make a game out of glaring mismatch, die nobly

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Chris Sale's disheartening injury and uncertain future was already going to be more than enough to cast a pall over game. But paired with injuries to Adam Eaton, Conor Gillaspie and an emergency start for Charlie Leesman against Justin Verlander, it was hard to feel like the White Sox were doing much more than fulfilling their league requirement to attend and play the game.

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5th Starter Options And A New Reliever

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Felipe Paulino's performance last night, on the heels of his previous two starts, would normally be enough to get him immediately yanked from the rotation. The problem is, there isn't really any obvious choice to replace him. Most of the starters in AAA Charlotte have gotten off to a slow start. Andre Rienzo has been giving up hits and walks without striking anyone out. Charlie Leesman has a shiny ERA in three starts - a product of his absurdly lucky 93% strand rate - and although his profile doesn't often generate good peripheral stats, he's still walking too many hitters to be viable beyond an emergency spot start.  Eric Surkamp, brought in as insurance for just this sort of scenario, is getting absolutely annihilated by minor league hitters thus far. Dipping further down into AA, the options are either prospects whose development would be destroyed by calling them up - Chris Beck, Myles Jaye, and Scott Snodgress - or pitchers who simply cannot get major league hitters out. 

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