Baseball often gets–Praised? Bemoaned? Slandered?–for its lack of predictability, but back-to-back games of Chris Sale and Jose Quintana facing fill-in rotation options for the A’s have gone about as predictably as could have been hoped. 1. Quintana himself was far from dominant, not that immolating his opponents is often his path to success. He needed […]
Tag: Chicago White Sox
White Sox 6, Athletics 2: This was how things were supposed to be
Having the 53-70 A’s roll in town is, typically, a good way for everything for operate like it was always supposed. Time was, just a Chris Sale start was enough to make the Sox look like a killer outlet, but holding back his best stuff as he sticks to a conservation plan that begun running […]
Athletics 9, White Sox 0: Uncompetitive
A lot of pitchers are bad, and a lot are reviled by their fans to the point where they feel there’s no chance for victory on nights they start, but James Shields has been the genuine article, having allowed six or more earned runs in half of his 14 starts with Chicago. However Friday, his […]
Omar Narvaez: Symbol of Hope?
While it has been a rough season in many respects, one particularly disappointing aspect of 2016 has been–through misfortune and persistent organizational weakness–the lack of young players to watch with hopeful optimism. After all, once it’s clear a team’s immediate playoff fortunes have been dashed, the most obvious pleasure in continuing to watch derives from […]
White Sox 4, Indians 5: Another game, another walkoff loss
A game that started off well enough ended in familiar fashion; a walkoff loss. The White Sox have now lost nine games via walkoff, tying them for most in all of baseball. 1. Carlos Rodon leaned on the double play ball to get him through his night, watching the defense behind him help out four times […]
Goodbye Is For The Best, Fulmer
As the calendar has rapidly approached the second half of August with September on the horizon, baseball has nearly reached the official checkpoint of every MLB season when teams make their “September callups”. The feeling is in the air, with folks already seeing Braves top prospect Dansby Swanson making his major league debut on Wednesday, and next White […]
White Sox 10, Indians 7: Eaton’s slam caps shocking five-run ninth
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that for all their frustrating flaws, the Sox aren’t much worse than an average team, and get to have fun nights too. This was a fun night! With Anthony Ranaudo filling in for a spot start against verified stud Carlos Carrasco, facing an Indians team that had defeated the Sox […]
What would a divided White Sox front office look like?
Tuesday afternoon David Kaplan unleashed a bombshell on his ESPN 1000 AM radio show that he did present like he intended it to be a bombshell: that a scout had told them there was discord between Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn about whether to execute a total teardown/rebuild. Which side each were reported to fall […]
Indians 3, White Sox 1: Well, Quintana did his job
Perhaps, with an off day to shake off the sting of Sunday’s last-second loss, the reader was able to drum up more optimism than the author for the White Sox matchup against Corey Kluber–a true AL Cy Young candidate–and the division-leading Indians, who had taken their last six contests against the South siders. From this […]
Rushing Burdi to the majors is fine
Last month, I had the pleasure of meeting Matt Cassidy of Future Sox in Chicago. Among many things, we discussed the seemingly imminent arrival to the majors of 2016 first-round draft pick Zack Burdi. Already tagged as a likely fast-riser provided he stayed in a relief role, Burdi was in the typically aggressive Sox system, […]