1. Is this a good time to appreciate what Carlos Rodon has been able to accomplish already in his young career? He was promoted into a major league starting rotation less than a year after he was drafted, and recorded his first double-digit strikeout game in his fifth career start. He entered Monday night’s game with […]
Author: James Fegan
Chris Sale’s latest wizardry
The list of rewatchable Chris Sale moments is long and actively seeking new submissions. Just his return to Tampa this past weekend conjured memories of his Memorial Day coming out party in 2012, where he struck out 15 Rays batters over seven innings in an explosion of pure stuff. Friday night’s shutout at Tropicana Field […]
Rays 3, White Sox 2: Bats stay cold in the Florida sun
To be fair to the White Sox, and their extremely cold bats, which were responsible for ending a five-game winning streak with a discouraging dull thud in Tampa, they were not in the Florida sun like the headline claims; they were flailing helplessly inside a hidden den on the bay that never looks fully lit. […]
White Sox 1, Rays 0: Chris Sale knows what he’s doing
Early into his start Friday night in Tampa it was to hard to pin down exactly what on Earth Chris Sale was doing. turns out the Rays were feeling the same way. 1. Sitting in the low-90s and daring the Rays’ hitters to jump out across dish and try to drive fastballs on the outer edge, […]
South Side Morning 5: White Sox achieving advanced levels of bumslaying
1. The Twins were supposed to be carried by their offense. With a full year of Miguel Sano and his monstrous power, solid-average to plus veterans Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe and even old friend Eduardo Escobar, and the growth a slew of promising youngsters including Byron Buxton and Max Kepler, the Twins were supposed to hit enough to at least […]
South Side Morning/Afternoon 5: White Sox starting pitching is not bad
1. Carlos Rodon not only has 10-straight quality starts after six shutout innings Wednesday night, he has 10-straight starts with two runs or less allowed. He has a 1.60 ERA over this stretch. Somewhere along the line he switched from becoming a raw talent to the White Sox starter providing the steadiest run prevention and […]
White Sox 3, Twins 0: Federal ban on Twins victories held up on appeal
We don’t know everything the manager knows. It’s a reminder we always have to give ourselves whenever we feel too certain that we have caught the professionals in an egregious error. 1. But what datapoint could be much more certain than Jerry Sands being a career .198/.283/.283 hitter vs. right-handed pitching. It’s clear as day. […]
South Side Morning 5: Best first week of the decade
1. The White Sox took three games out of four from an Oakland club that looks like a very good bet to finish last in the AL West, split a pair of alternating pitching mismatches between a team they–optimistically–will be stride for stride with all year, and took a single game from the consensus favorite […]
White Sox 4, Twins 1: The Twins have still not won a game
Starting with Oakland, continuing with their own, and now stretching to Minnesota, the White Sox have ruined every home opener they have laid eyes on. A sleepy, tight, but solid enough 4-1 pitching clinic against the severely snakebit Twins now has the Sox on their best start to a season since they went 5-2 to […]
Matt Albers is becoming a thing
Maybe you noticed Matt Albers this weekend. Maybe it was Saturday afternoon when he blazed a 96 mph fastball on the inside black to freeze Carlos Santana and end an eighth inning jam, or when he was screaming epithets as he stalked off the mound in the eighth, throwing his gum and then high-fiving his entire dugout, even though […]