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South Side Morning 5: Margin for Error — Fact or Fiction?

1. This past weekend introduced a new, luxurious aspect of life as an unlikely runaway first place team for the White Sox: piling up victories without playing well. Mat Latos was dinged up for the second-straight start on Friday, Chris Sale had his most erratic inning of the year to start Saturday night’s game while […]

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South Side Morning 5: Sox fifth starters are showing their fluidity

1. It’s hard not to feel for Erik Johnson at some point. He spent the last homestand kicking around the clubhouse waiting for an opportunity to pitch that eventually got handed to Miguel Gonzalez. He’s conquered the International League two times over and is now 26-years-old and his prospect shine is behind him, but the […]

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Red Sox 7, White Sox 3: Operator error

Thursday night, both Boston and Chicago started troubled young starters that they surely knew brought significant mess potential, and man, they certainly got what they bargained for. 1. Erik Johnson spent so much of the first three innings of Thursday night’s start cementing the sad realization that he doesn’t have the promising stuff that made […]

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White Sox 10, Blue Jays 1: Sale and offense cruise, and living is easy

Life with the White Sox as a juggernaut is still new and strange, but the adjustment gets easier day by day 1. When is the last time the White Sox offense made Chris Sale Day a side attraction? Facing familiar punching bag R.A. Dickey, the Sox slowly turned a leak into a flood, clinging to […]

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South Side Morning 5: Chris Sale finding new ways to astonish

1. Imagine being Chris Sale. Imagine thinking like Chris Sale, even. Imagine reaching the pinnacle of your profession, and deciding to reinvent yourself without being forced, or having it even be suggested. Imagine developing the most coveted skill in the sport — missing bats — to the point of complete supremacy over all your peers, and then set about […]

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South Side Morning 5: The Most Cautious of Optimism

1. After a turgid five-runs-in-four-games stretch for the offense, which plummeted them to the depths of the major league standings in total offense, the White Sox offense can hardly be redeemed by their top two sluggers knocking around mediocrity from Matt Shoemaker, but… Todd Frazier basically jumped on the type of mistake we have been […]

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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. […]

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White Sox 7, Indians 3: On Chris Sale Day, Avisail steals the spotlight

There was some symbolic evidence that Saturday was not meant for baseball to be played in Chicago. Grounds crews spent much of the morning hosing down the outfield to melt the standing snow, and stadium staff had less luck elsewhere. The effort to clear snow kept the gates closed until 35 minutes before the first […]

MLB: Cleveland Indians at Chicago White Sox

Indians 7, White Sox 1: Was this a good home opener? Snow way

John Danks‘ erraticism coupled with an offense as cold as the temperature in Chicago made for an unhappy home opener Friday as the White Sox fell 7-1 to the Indians. 1. Danks kept the ball around the plate for most of his five innings of work, finishing with six strikeouts and just one walk. But unfortunately, […]