Despite the complete roster overhaul over the last year, the White Sox are pretty definitively ahead of two of their rivals both entering 2018 and in terms of future projections. The Tigers tanked the second half of the season, and the Royals’ magic ending culminated in the likely departures of Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain, and Mike Moustakas, all three of whom remain free agents.

The Indians remain the divisional front runners, even after downgrading at first base from Carlos Santana to Yonder Alonso (and maybe a platoon partner?), while the Twins have yet to parlay their surprising playoff appearance in 2017 into any meaningful offseason gains, and are simultaneously dealing with whatever fallout comes from the accusations against one of their presumed building blocks.

This is simplifying things a bit, so let’s go in reverse of the teams I just mentioned.

The Tigers are set up to be bad for a while. Miguel Cabrera (still owed $184M(!) over the next six(!) years is the last vestige of their most recent contention cycle, and even if he returns to even 50 percent of his MVP form (he’ll be 35 at the start of the season), he’s surrounded by a lot of bad and a farm system that’s going to take a lot more than the 2018 No. 1 pick to restock. The returns for Justin Verlander, J.D. Martinez, and Ian Kinsler may have been underwhelming to some, but it was a necessary step and at least a start in building depth to a system that ranked among the five worst in baseball a year ago.

The Royals are kind of in limbo until we learn the fate of the aforementioned three free agents. Kansas City isn’t expected to retain any of their services, which makes sense considering they were even worse than their 80-82 record a year ago indicated. Like Detroit, their farm system is in need of an overhaul. But hey, they got a ring out of it, right?

The Indians are likely still in fine shape even with the departure of Santana, and are the kings of the division for the foreseeable future. Their entire core is locked up for at least the next two seasons, and the fact that none of them are under the age of 30 with the exception of the 25-year-old Jose Ramirez and 24-year-old Francisco Lindor, they will obviously be very well motivated to do everything in their power to snap the longest World Series drought in the league before the likes of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Andrew Miller, and Edwin Encarnacion begin showing noticeable decline.

The Twins are the wild card (no pun intended) of the bunch and the toughest team to project both for 2018 and beyond. In Sano, Byron Buxton, and Jose Berrios, they have three talented former top prospects about to enter their presumed primes who have also shown obvious flaws in their game. Their pitching staff is currently Berrios, 35-year-old Ervin Santana, and, uh … Adalberto Mejia? The reason Minnesota is hard to predict, of course, is that they’re the team with the most obvious places to upgrade, including that rotation. The Twins’ front office has shown a willingness to spend money AT TIMES, and with Yu Darvish, Jake Arrieta, and a number of pitchers and position players still hanging out in free agency looking for whatever the hell they’re looking for, the opportunity to upgrade is there. If they’re able to spend wisely and their youngsters take a step forward, the Twins could be dangerous, but the IF in that sentence is a big one.

It’s easy to nitpick teams in the middle of a slow and still incomplete offseason, of course. And none of this is to say the White Sox are the team best set up for sustained success when they look to contend again. If projecting the future were as simple as looking at farm system rankings, you’d see major publications correctly predicting World Series champions four years from now. OK, bad example. But while many things need to go right for the White Sox to fully transform from middle-of-the-road purgatory to rebuilders to hopefully one day contenders, their main competitors are traipsing differently-shaped but tricky paths themselves.

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Shields’ final line — 5.1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, 5 K — is a pretty reasonable microcosm of what can be expected out of him this year. The five strikeouts, all of the swinging variety, showed his stuff is still good enough to miss bats from time to time. Per Gameday, he generated 13 swinging strikes in total on the afternoon, five of which came in the first inning when he struck out the side.

His command is still a mess, as evidenced by the five walks, and only 58 of his 106 pitches went for strikes. The one run he allowed came on a 90 mph two-seamer he left up in the zone that Tyler Collins took out to center, but other than that, when he missed his spot it was mostly out of the zone. Bad control is usually going to result in one of two things: walks or a lot of hard contract. The majority of 2016 saw the latter result and Thursday saw the former. The one run allowed was thanks to a combination of his swing-and-miss stuff and the Tigers’ inability to take advantage when he missed.

Still, it was a welcomed opening salvo from the much maligned veteran.

2. With apologies to Geovany Soto, the most noteworthy offensive performance of the day belonged to Matt Davidson, who finished 2-for-3 with a walk, triple, and mammoth three-run homer to cap a four-run fourth inning that officially put the game out of reach.

Davidson’s power was something to marvel, but it was his patience in his first two plate appearances that was perhaps the most shocking. In his first at-bat, he went ahead 3-0 before ripping a 3-1 triple on a 90 mph fastball that grabbed too much of the plate. And in his second trip to the plate, he walked on five pitches. The dinger was on the first pitch of his at-bat against Anibal Sanchez, a hanging slider he drilled deep into the left field seats.

We’ll be shouting about small sample size disclaimers for some time yet, but if Davidson can prove to be someone who can turn mistake pitches into dust, even that would be a welcomed development. And if he shows the patience to wait on those mistakes, it’ll go a long way toward him getting consistent at-bats.

3. There is relevant information to gather from the rest of the White Sox 11-run afternoon. Tyler Saladino followed up his 2-for-4 Tuesday with a two more walks on Thursday, despite failing to record a base hit.

Saladino’s placement atop the lineup is a little obscure — he’s never been an on-base specialist during his major league career to date — but the White Sox sans Adam Eaton don’t have an obvious leadoff candidate on the roster, and through two games he’s already only 10 walks shy of his 2016, when he walked 13 times in 319 plate appearances.

The obvious hero of the afternoon, however, was Soto, who went yard twice and walked once in four plate appearances, driving in four of the White Sox 11 runs. The expectations for Soto this season are minimal — provide Omar Narvaez some rest and don’t kill the Sox defensively nor offensively when he takes the field — so whatever he provides whenever he takes the field is something the White Sox can take as a bonus.

Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu, and Avisal Garcia each had two hits. Anderson did strike out twice, and five strikeouts in 10 plate appearances in pretty par for the course based on last season, but his reputation as someone who can hit the ball hard when he makes contact remains.

4. Thursday was not without its non-game related news, as the White Sox announced prior to the game that Jake Petricka was placed on the 10-day disabled list with a strained lat muscle and Tommy Kahnle took his place on the roster.

Petricka made his first appearance of the season on Tuesday after missing the majority of 2016 because of another injury, and the hope was that he’d join Zach Putnam, Nate Jones, and David Robertson as stalwarts in the White Sox bullpen this season. His injury is a bummer from that perspective, but hopefully Kahnle can show he has something worth keeping in the interim. He threw a scoreless inning, allowing one hit and striking out two in Thursday’s victory.

5. MLB.com came out with its list of the most stacked minor league rosters on Thursday and listed the White Sox Triple-A affiliate, the Charlotte Knights, No. 1. It’s easy to see why, considering their Opening Day roster consists of the likes of Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Carson Fulmer, and Zach Burdi, but the Knights did back up the hype — at least offensively — with an opening night, extra inning victory.

I’d be lying if I told you I watched the game, although the stacked roster does make the $25 for MiLB.tv seem worth it, but while Lopez struggled in allowing four runs, two earned, in three innings of work, he did strike out five, and Yoan Moncada’s debut, 3-for-6 with two runs scores, and Zack Burdi’s three strikeouts in 1.2 innings pitched, were a welcomed sign.

You’ll drive yourself crazy if you live and die based on the success of these prospects at the minor-league level all season, but seeing their growth throughout the season will be worth watching, undoubtedly.

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Given the White Sox’ new priorities, the future holds much more interest than the present, and to that end, the White Sox may be positioned very nicely. With just two trades, the farm system has leapt into the top third in the majors, with still more pieces to sell. So, instead, perhaps it makes sense to make some forecasts about what the AL Central might look like when the White Sox are actually good again. First up, the Detroit Tigers.

The Tigers are suffering from the after effects of wringing every last drop of contention out of their aging core for a long, long time. Grabbing Michael Fulmer for the tail end of Yoenis Cespedes in a down year was a neat trick, and Justin Verlander has corrected course after looking like he might crater two years ago. But Victor Martinez and J.D. Martinez are rapidly approaching 40 and free agency, respectively, and unfortunately for Detroit they can’t DH them both. And while historically the Tigers would paper over their lack of any prospects at all with a fire hose of cash, they had already decided to scale back on spending even before the recent death of owner Mike Ilitch.

So now they are left with the money they have already spent and the very old roster they have already assembled, and a still-empty farm.  Their top prospect was in high school last year and projects as a mid-rotation starter, and the system gets less and less inspiring from there.  Even if the White Sox execute a very speedy rebuild and try to contend again by 2018 or 2019, it’s hard to see what the Tigers will have on hand to stand in their way.  Miguel Cabrera will be 35 or 36-years-old by that time, and even solid younger players like Jose Iglesias will be free agents by that time.

Indeed, the way for the Tigers to inject talent back into the ranks would be to trade away players like Verlander, but frankly, the star players they have are all owed so much money that they are unlikely to fetch the returns that Chris Sale or Adam Eaton did.

It would appear that Detroit will be able to muster up one or possibly two more years of making a run at it with this present group, but they are clearly on the wane, and the White Sox have a big head start on the next upswing.

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Preseason projections are the perfect meal to fill that void, as they provide our first glimpse into how the 2017 is expected, at least by one model, to play out.

In regards to the AL Central and, particularly, the White Sox, this season’s projections were not expected to be, nor were they revelatory. The Indians will be good and the rest of the division will be a muddled mess of mediocrity.

You can split hairs between the Twins, Tigers, White Sox, and Royals if you want, but it’s no secret that, more than any other division in the American League, there’s a clear line of separation between the favorite and the rest.

What’s particularly interesting about the White Sox win total is that it immediately leads to a few different lines of thought:

1. The White Sox aren’t done tearing things down yet. With a bonafide front-end starter in Jose Quintana still in the mix, as well as useful veterans like Todd Frazier, Melky Cabrera, Brett Lawrie, Miguel Gonzalez, David Robertson, and Nate Jones, they can get a whole helluva lot worse between now and the end of the season (they’re only projected to win two fewer games this season than last), something PECOTA obviously can’t predict.
2. The White Sox aren’t much worse off than a lot of other teams. It’s easy to view the White Sox through a microscope. You can easily pick out the team’s flaws, whether it’s the outfielders, catcher, or backend of the rotation, because you follow the team on a daily basis. But the rest of the division has different flaws of varying degrees, whether it be Detroit’s aging core and stars-and-scrubs approach, Minnesota’s youth and train wreck of a pitching staff, or Kansas City’s, well, PECOTA and the Royals have a history. You can nit pick between the four teams, questioning which team’s flaws are more glaring or more detrimental, but it seems clear that from, 1-through-25, there’s not a whole lot separating these teams.
3. The White Sox really screwed up. It’s been shouted from the rooftops in this little corner of the internet over and over again, our face is red and our eyes are bugging out of our heads. But the White Sox flat-out blew it by not successfully building around the cheap, talented core they had the last couple of seasons. It will be fun to follow and dream on the prospects the White Sox have and will acquire over the next few years, but given the division’s dearth of contenders, there wasn’t too much standing in their way on the path to contention.

PECOTA has been within 2-3 wins of projecting the White Sox win total in each of the last three seasons, but the main difference between those seasons and 2017 is that there’s no expectation of them half-assing an attempt at contention this time around. So while these projections are beneficial in setting expectations in most cases, the expectation here for the White Sox is that it’s likely to get a whole lot worse before long.

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@JRFegan is this the first series the Sox have won against KC, Detroit or Cleveland this year?

— Neal Hamer (@nealhamer) September 7, 2016

Ha, the first all year, that’s absur–ooooooohhhhh my goodness. They had one previously–one!–in mid-June, also against Detroit, and also at U.S. Cellular Field. It’s practically a house of horrors for them (they’re 5-5 this season)!

1. Down 4-3 due to a particularly rough day for starter Jose Quintana, the Sox faced reliever Shane Greene, followed by Justin Wilson in the eighth, and pretty much detonated on both of them. Greene at least achieved the feat of recording an out. Jose Abreu led off the inning with his third single of the day, and came around to score when Justin Morneau followed him by banging a double to right-center to tie the game. After a Todd Frazier groundout, Avisail Garcia, in a singular moment that surely redeemed all his prior struggles, grounded a 95 mph fastball back up the middle to push across pinch-runner J.B. Shuck and give the Sox a 4-3 lead they would only build upon.

2. That moment sort of decided the game on its own, but Wilson came on and issued a walk to Omar Narvaez (naturally), and successive RBI singles through the left side of the infield to Tyler Saladino and Adam Eaton to put the game out of the reach. Bringing on Mark Lowe seemed to serve as a surrender, but he wound up closing out the inning with no further damage, even if he needed Abreu to lineout to center with the bases juiced to do it.

3. The Sox only know one way to operate with a lead, so David Robertson, less than 18 hours removed from his shaky save Tuesday night, came on for his fourth appearance in as many nights, and immediately walked J.D. Martinez and allowed a single to Justin Upton to draw all the comfort away from a three-run lead. But Robertson now has been doing this along enough to establish a method, and for the second-straight night he cut through the bottom of the Tigers’ order, and whiffed an overwhelmed, pinch-hitting Tyler Collins to end the game.

4. Upton scooping a curve and blasting a three-run bomb out to left in the second inning initially put the Sox in a 3-1 hole, and was the primary black mark on Quintana’s second-straight rough start. He recovered to retire 11 in a row afterward, but was chased from the seventh inning by the unlikely trio of James McCann, Casey McGehee and Jose Iglesias, the latter of which also scooped a curve down-and-in and ripped it into the left field corner to put the Tigers back ahead.

5. Embattled former All-Star Anibal Sanchez started for the Tigers, and while he was very far from dominant, allowing 10 baserunners in five innings, Brad Ausmus had to be happy to be able to pull him from a matchup with Quintana and go to the bullpen with a tie game. Melky Cabrera smacking an RBI double to left-center initially put the Sox up in the first inning, but it was Upton getting a bad read on a Cabrera bloop that hurt Sanchez in the third. Saladino scored as Upton drifted back for a duck snort that would instead drop in front of him, and the gaffe allowed Eaton to scoot to third, from where he would score on an Abreu sacrifice fly.

Team Record: 67-72

Next game is Friday vs. Kansas City at 7:10pm CT on CSN

Lead Image Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski // USA Today Sports Images

Tuesday night, Gonzalez resumed his hot streak.

1. Against a generally fearsome Tigers lineup, Gonzalez spun a smooth 6.1 scoreless innings, showing as much rising life on his fastball and perfect location to make his mediocre stuff play up. After a perfect first entirely of groundball outs, Gonzalez whiffed Victor Martinez and J.D. Martinez with fastballs out of the zone in the second, and when a hit batter and a single created a mini-jam in the third, Cameron Maybin bailed him out by taking off on a weak Jose Iglesias flare to right, and was easily doubled off by an Avisail Garcia throw to first. When back-to-back singles led off the fourth, Gonzalez mowed through J.D. Martinez and Justin Upton, the latter of which on a gorgeous, diving slider. Despite being pulled at a meager 91 pitches, he still handed over just eight outs for a taxed Sox bullpen to track down.

2. The first two of which were not easy. Dan Jennings was brought in with one out after Gonzalez gave up two singles in the seventh and promptly walked Jarrod Saltalamacchia to load the bases. Never one to respect to typical platoon splits in the first place, Jennings came right at rookie JaCoby Jones and blew him away with heat after falling behind 2-0. Jennings gave way to Nate Jones, who completely overwhelmed Maybin to end the threat.

3. Tigers lefty starter Matt Boyd‘s 2.64 second half ERA might have been the pitching story to watch coming into the game if not for Gonzalez’s return, and his effort Tuesday night might have been the story if not for how well Gonzalez’s return went. Boyd struck out six over seven solid innings, but took the loss because he hung a curve that Jose Abreu hit to The Loop in the second inning for his 23rd home run of the year, and allowed an alternate future White Sox tandem of Jason Coats (double to left), and Omar Narvaez (drilled RBI single to center) do a number on him in the fifth. Narvaez (.340/.462/.396) is not going to BABIP .400 forever, but he’s walked 12 times to just eight strikeouts, and that’s a trait that might help him cover up a total lack of power.

4. David Robertson was obligated to add some drama to the night in ninth, and came within inches of allowing a leadoff home run to J.D. Martinez to left. Martinez settled instead for barely outrunning a insane near-highlight reel play from Tim Anderson for an infield single, and a truly improbable walk to Erick Aybar brought the go-ahead run to the plate. Robertson found it in him to whiff Upton, force a Saltalamacchia pop-up, and vaporized pinch-hitter Tyler Collins to end the night.

5. Anderson struck out twice in a return to the leadoff spot as Adam Eaton got a rare night off, but he also singled, walked, stole a base, and flashed plus range to his right and plus arm strength at short. The Sox are OK at that position for a while, it seems.

Team Record: 66-72

Next game is Wednesday vs. Detroit at 1:10pm CT on WGN

Lead Image Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski // USA Today Sports Images

1. The game started with bang. On the third pitch of the first at bat, Cameron Maybin hit a long fly ball off Chris Sale to left field. Human goldmine Melky Cabrera managed to somehow rob Maybin of his home run, further proving that robbing dingers is more art than honestly earned defensive skill. Miguel Cabrera would render this moot two batters later by stroking a thief-proof ball out to right. It looked like the ball would be jumping the rest of the day and both teams would be in for a slugfest. but much like April’s hot start showed: looks can be deceiving.

2. Miggy would go yard off Sale again in the top of the third, but that would be all Detroit could manage against Chicago’s ace. Sale strengthened as the game went on, pitching eight innings with eight strikeouts and no walks allowed. Unfortunately for Sale, he pitches in front of the punchless and anemic White Sox offense.

3. It’s hard to fault the Sox for struggling against a somehow resurgent Justin Verlander. Hall of Fame pitchers aren’t supposed to be easy matchups and it’s mildly funny watching his old catcher Alex Avila be responsible for half the runs scored off him with a solo shot in the bottom of the seventh that tied the game at 2-2. Avisail Garcia was able to follow up with a single and it looked like the Sox may have finally gotten to Verlander. But Robin Ventura called for a sacrifice despite Verlander clearly losing his handle, and Tyler Saladino promptly popped a bunt up to James McCann. Adam Eaton struck out on some dubious pitches to make two outs, all but assuring no rally was waiting. Tim Anderson managed to fist a single out to right, putting runners on first and third before Cabrera struck out, ending the last threat the Sox would manage.

4. The story gets predictable from here. Sale can only pitch so many innings without having his arm detach itself and fall to the ground in a spastic heap, so onto the bullpen. Nate Jones and David Robertson both looked sharp, striking out a combined four hitters over two innings while allowing no runners. But much like Sale, they can only carry so much weight. Eventually Robin had to play reliever roulette and summoned Chris Beck to the mound for the slaughter.

5. I don’t dislike Beck as a person. I don’t know him. He might be a good guy. He might be not so good. He might be that in between like the rest of us. But I do know he’s not a good enough pitcher to get away with facing the middle of the Tigers lineup unscathed. After allowing a leadoff single to Jose Iglesias, Beck managed to get Cabrera to ground into a double play. His next 10 pitches to the Martinezes (Victor and then J.D.) resulted in easy walks, bringing Justin Upton to the plate. Upton had been pitched inside a good deal all day and took an errant pitch off his foot earlier. He returned the Sox kindness by taking an inside pitch the other way and giving the Tigers a three-run lead that the Sox had no chance of overcoming.

A small rally in the bottom half of the inning against Francisco Rodriguez drew a run, but ended when Saladino took a borderline called strike three while representing the tying run.

Team Record: 65-72

Next game is Tuesday vs. Detroit at 7:10pm CT on CSN

Lead Image Credit: Matt Marton // USA Today Sports Images

His slider floated through the zone, his fastball velocity hovered around 92 mph, which is fine if he’s locating and playing it off his other devastating off-speed pitches, but he was missing by a foot. His changeup, the pitch he’s been mystifyingly holding back for much of the season for reasons that he’s kept nestled under his black Sox cap, flowed freely, but it was largely a biteless meatball, and accounted for five of the eight hits Sale allowed Wednesday.

With two on and two outs, with a run in already in the fifth inning, Sale–who led the AL in WHIP coming in, for whatever it’s worth–had allowed six hits, walked three and was facing the bane of his existence, Victor Martinez.

Which is naturally, in a thoroughly baseball moment, when Sale’s hard slider that dives into right-handers, showed up to the ballpark and erased Martinez with ease. That set off a streak of seven in a row retired, with Sale striking out the side in the seventh, getting Martinez again in the eighth, only to have J.D. Martinez flick a slider at the knees from the outside corner to left field to ultimately tie the game at 2-2 and leave the day in the fate of his unreliable teammates.

This would be the second-straight start where Sale seemingly revved up down the stretch. Against Seattle, after falling down 3-0 last weekend, he retired the last 16 batters he faced and struck out 10. This falls in line with a larger revving up effort, where Sale is putting together the sort of strong second half finish that has eluded him for his career. He has a 2.52 ERA since the break, has allowed just two home runs in 60.2 innings after being plagued by the long ball in the first half, and opposing hitters have seen their OPS against him drop 85 points since the All-Star Game.

Revved up Chris Sale is an undeniable force, and is inevitably the more fun part of the conversation, but not the part of the approach that is inscrutable. Buying into his conservation plan means seeing his punchless openings to games, and seeing some of the dead stretches of the season as some sort of measured effort, or at least a physical limitation to what he can do.

If Sale did anything in the earlygoing Wednesday that looked intentional, he kept the ball down. It was alarming to watch Tigers hitters track his breaking stuff the way they tracked Anthony Ranaudo and Matt Albers earlier in the week, but it was all at the bottom of the zone, which led to three double plays in the first four innings.

Pitchers, especially all-time great ones, exude a sense of control and intention behind their actions and results, that we would probably never bother extending to others. Ranaudo certainly wouldn’t engender confidence for sneaking through four scoreless where he didn’t strike anyone out and got by on double plays, but all season we have been tempted to try to see something in Sale lowering his performance in the traditional way we measure dominance; some sort of indication that he knows how to prevent runs in a way that defies our presumption.

Simply put, we don’t know. He has results on his side, he has a track record where he could announce that he’s going to throw with his feet and take it seriously. But most of his bad moments just look like bad command and flat breaking stuff, and pitching to contact against the Tigers lineup feels nothing short of insane.

When people ask the tortured question of what’s worth watching about the White Sox these days, beyond watching Tim Anderson develop, seeing if Jose Quintana can keep getting better, finding out the rhyme and reason to what the hell Sale is doing is No. 1. I’m not there yet, I don’t even know if I’m getting closer, but I’m watching.

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1. The Sox offense did that wonderful thing where they squander the hell out of scoring opportunities, managing to leave 15 runners on base, including getting two runners on with one out in the first inning without managing to score a run. This would be repeated in the top of the fifth, with two runners reaching base with no outs before Jose Abreu grounded into a double play and Todd Frazier grounded out to spoil the threat.

2. The good news is that the Sox did not seem to be entirely confused by Matt Boyd’s weak offerings, they just came up slightly short like they have all season. The top of the fourth had a nice moment with the bases somehow managing to get loaded with two outs and Saladino knocking a two-run single to center to score Justin Morneau and Avisail Garcia to give the Sox a 2-1 lead.

3. This was crucial as despite the end results, Shields looked like 2016 James Shields throughout the game. He threw more off-speed stuff than usual, but it feels like late-career John Danks at this point where you’re just waiting for the killer to jump out of the closet and mercifully murder the quintagonist. Shields heroically managed to limit the damage to just two runs after Justin Upton’s home run in the bottom of the sixth, with six strikeouts to just three walks. It was something close to impressive, but the bullpen made sure it just didn’t matter.

4. Saladino hit a home run to deep left-center in the top of the seventh to put the Sox back on top and it was a fun moment that may have reminded you that everything isn’t completely terrible. Saladino has developed into a pretty useful utility infielder who won’t cost the Sox anything and has positive value, especially on a team that refuses to actually spend money on anything important.

5. But the bullpen. Dan Jennings, Tommy Kahnle and Chris Beck all pitched one-third of an inning and did not ruin everything, despite being well known members of the Ruiners Club. No, tonight that honor went to Nate Jones. Jones was ineffectively wild, walking J.D. Martinez on six pitches with none of the balls being anywhere close to the zone. He recovered initially by striking out Upton on three straight fastballs before grooving a pitch down the middle to Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Salty deposited it into the right-center stands and that was that. The Sox went down 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth, falling to 63-67.

Next Game: 6:10 p.m. Tuesday against the Tigers on CSN-Chicago.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Now he’s neither; Zimmerman’s first start in over a month after returning from a neck strain injury saw him roughed up, record zero strikeouts while allowing all six of the Sox runs on the day, and was followed with an MRI to examine the cause of his reported lat tightness.

1. Zimmerman started out the Thursday getaway day affair with no semblance of control. He nailed Tim Anderson on the hand (X-rays were negative) to start the game, walked Jose Abreu to load the bases, and was lucky to escape the first with only a Justin Morneau sacrifice fly against him.

He followed up in the second, by simply flashing no stuff. Avisail Garcia led off and continued his home run barrage by taking a 90 mph fastball out on a moonshot to dead center field that put the Sox back up 2-1. After following that up by allowing a single to backup backstop Omar Narvaez and walking Tyler Saladino, Zimmerman allowed Melky Cabrera to put the Sox up 3-1 by punching a high 0-2 fastball up the middle for an RBI single, and Adam Eaton got it barely deep enough to allow Saladino to slide under Jarrod Saltalamacchia‘s tag to score on a sac fly. Abreu ripping another flat 90 mph fastball out to left for his first home run since June 23 finally signalled that things were unfixable.

2. Despite their huge offseason signing leaving after recording five outs and allowing six runs, the traditionally maligned Tigers bullpen strung togethers 7.1 scoreless innings and just six baserunners between Alex Wilson, Kyle Ryan and Mark Lowe. That’s a strange thing to have happen during a near-rout.

3. Jose Quintana certainly wasn’t overwhelming or dominant as he tried to defend his No. 1 position on the White Sox starting staff ERA leaderboard. He led off the game by allowing a solo shot to Ian Kinsler, struck out just three over 7.1 innings while his wipeout curve remained mostly absent, and was chased in the eighth by another solo shot to Miguel Cabrera. Between that, he pumped strikes, cruised by on weak contact, and probably could’ve steamed into the ninth if he had any of his secondaries working.

4. Fully rested thanks to all the losing, Nate Jones and David Robertson worked in tandem, combining for 13 pitches to nail down the final five outs and sent the Sox home with their first road win in Detroit since, uh, forever.

5. Robin Ventura moved Eaton down to the No. 3 spot to try to spark the offense, and promptly got Eaton, Abreu and Morneau to go 5-12, HR, 2 2B, BB. So, he’ll either stick with this arrangement well past the end of its effectiveness or just never use it again.

After going 1-for-3 with a walk, Narvaez remains at .412/.500/.500 hitters through four games.

Team Record: 52-56

Next game is at 7:10pm CT vs. Baltimore on CSN

Lead Image Credit: Rick Osentoski // USA Today Sports Images