From Dan Hayes:

“When you look at the top end of our roster, arguably we could measure up against anybody. The middle and bottom part of the roster is where we’ve had some issues and certainly from a depth standpoint in being able to fill when something goes awry from a health or performance issue in Chicago.

…

It’s a matter of taking this premium core and being able to fill in around them both at the big league level as well as from a depth standpoint. How much does that cost?”

To parrot Nick Schaefer, the White Sox have done the hard part as well as anyone, but find themselves unable to polish off the easy stuff of building a team. If cost and a lack of prospect resources is holding them back from completing a contending roster, the Cubs rebuild may not be the best comparison, since it’s unlikely that the spending is going to open up in the same way once the theoretical new core becomes productive.

Something more recognizable might be the Astros, who have still yet to eclipse a $100 million payroll since Jeff Luhnow took over as general manager in 2011. Despite seemingly experiencing a breakthrough in 2015, they grew conservative after Colby Rasmus surprisingly accepting a qualifying offer, Dallas Keuchel‘s large arbitration figure, and the final years of Carlos Gomez and Scott Feldman‘s contract spiked their Opening Day payroll to $96 million; their highest since 2009. That figure came even after shedding Chris Carter‘s salary to the Brewers and staying extremely quiet in free agency save for an unsuccessful buy-low bid with Doug Fister. The 2016 team was not without promise, including near MVP-caliber work from Jose Altuve, but the Astros ultimately stagnated.

Now, they’re doing this:

#Astros will pursue Miguel Cabrera or Edwin Encarnacion. Payroll increase is coming. They have only two players signed beyond 2017. @MLB

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 9, 2016

As Morosi alludes to, the Astros have essentially waited out their budget opening up. Now that they have only $38 million committed before arbitration, they can continue to chug forward, which they already started to do mid-season when they brought in Yulieski Gurriel from Cuba.

There are dueling reactions here, between appreciation for the deftness at which the Astros have stripped nearly everything from their roster but functional core pieces (they just shipped out reliever Pat Neshek to get rid of $6 million), but also shock. The Astros, the team what underwent possibly the most brutal rebuild of the past decade, the team that reduced its opening day payroll to $26 million in 2013 and struck the deepest nadirs of unwatchability while they purged everything of value from the major league roster, still basically had to punt away a year of contention to stay under budget. And Sportrac only had them at 24th in payroll last year.

The Astros are shaping up to be good in 2017, and with a dearth of free agent pitching available, the Sox could really making a killing if they follow the Astros’ scorched earth model, but the restrictions are…restrictive. Even the most heartless rebuilds produce limited windows if there is not room to be aggressive spenders at some point in the contending cycle. While everyone can get excited for the prospect hugging portion of the rebuild, how the team will work when everyone is ready is the question. Aggressive pre-arb extensions for players like Tim Anderson, or Carlos Rodon if he would ever agree to one, might be necessary to keep everyone who actually does stay affordable.

Lead Image Credit: Thomas Shea // USA Today Sports Images

None of this is necessarily inaccurate. And yet, this sample size of one team, the Cubs, seems to have persuaded many that a hard rebuild is not only the best course of action, it is the only reasonable course of action. Part of the beauty of baseball is that there is no one right way to do things. The Rangers and Giants have consistently reloaded over the years, watching their cores on offense and defense morph significantly without any prolonged dips in success. The 2005 White Sox were somehow remembered as a small ball team even though they hit 200 home runs. The Royals went to back-to-back World Series, winning one, despite having pretty terrible starting pitching. The Baltimore Orioles have been ignoring what everyone says they should do and have made the playoffs three of the last five years.  One Red Sox team won a World Series with a personality of being loose goofballs and another got a bunch of guys fired because they were perceived as loose goofballs. There is no one right way. Someone should write a book about this…

Here’s one problem with using the Cubs as an argument in favor of a hard rebuild: money. Yes, the Cubs traded off everything they could and stockpiled through the draft and Latin America and did so in impressive fashion. And then when they realized they were close to competing they spent a ton of money. For even as skillfully as they loaded up on bats, they were struggling to generate arms from within. So they signed Jon Lester for  six years and $155 million–more than twice the size of the biggest White Sox contract in history–and when they realized they didn’t have anybody on hand to fill out the back of their rotation in a competitive year, they spent another $52 million on John Lackey and Jason Hammel. They also signed Ben Zobrist, Dexter Fowler, and Jason Heyward this offseason as well.*

*It is also worth noting that they signed substantial free agents for second base, corner outfield, and center field despite having multiple well-regarded prospects pretty much ready at all three positions. Worth remembering for when someone tells you the White Sox should try to save $5 million by DFA-ing Brett Lawrie because Tyler Saladino had a good year.**

**Another argument made for the case to DFA Lawrie crowd is that he is brittle, yet Saladino ended the year unavailable because of a herniated disc in his back that affected his right side. 

The lesson here is not that you need to do a hard rebuild every time you hit a playoff drought. The reason to do a hard reset is to generate a cost-controlled, cheap, good core.  You clear salaries that won’t be helpful to you by the time you’re good again, and while being bad accumulate high draft picks. Once that core is in place you spend money to bolster the weaknesses remaining on your roster. That is literally what the Cubs did. The White Sox already have Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Jose Abreu, Adam Eaton, Tim Anderson, and Carlos Rodon under contract for 2017 for a combined total of $36 million.  That group combined for 25.6 WARP and there is reason to believe they will collectively improve on that mark next year. There are not many teams in the playoffs with that sort of cost-effectiveness at the heart of their roster.

This piece is entitled “The Perils of a Rebuild.” The Cubs are perilous only in the sense that even though they are an example of a successful rebuild, their rebuild still required a lot of spending. An inability or unwillingness to spend has been one of the major impediments to the White Sox succeeding with this group, and there is no reason to believe that they will be more willing to spend in the future relative to the league than they are now.  Before you disagree, realize that the White Sox gave 1,487 PAs to Dioner Navarro, J.B. Shuck, Avisail Garcia, Jimmy Rollins, Carlos Sanchez, Jerry Sands, Leury Garcia, and Jason Coats this year. Avisail had an OPS+ of 91 while primarily playing DH. The rest all had an OPS+ between 52 and 77.  The 77 is Coats. The 52 is Shuck, who was the primary center fielder on the team. That’s more PAs than Eaton and Abreu got combined. For the umpteenth time in the Kenny Williams-Rick Hahn Era, the White Sox have been absolutely throttled by the Gibraltar-sized anchor that is the back half of their roster, while other teams thrive by successfully acquiring stopgaps, spending enough to cover their holes in a meaningful way, and generating talent from within their organization.

But, regardless of how you feel about the current state of the White Sox, I also ask you to consider the Houston Astros. Like the White Sox, for years they refused to accept that a rebuild was probably a good idea, winning between 73 and 86 games from 2006-2010.  Then, in a pretty dramatic volte face, they tanked harder than anybody could remember, losing 100+ games three years in a row. They emerged out of that in 2014 with some really interesting pieces, winning 70, with Jose Altuve and George Springer looking like particularly promising players to build around–indeed, so much so that Sports Illustrated declared them the 2017 World Series champions in advance.  In 2015, they arrived, making SI’s bold proclamation look prescient, winning 86 games and making the Wild Card game, which they won. Carlos Correa seemed to be emblematic of the value of a rebuild, as the No. 1 overall pick burst onto the scene to win a Rookie of the Year Award, and Lance McCullers–another prize of having the surplus draft pool money that comes with having the No. 1 pick–chipped in 125 quality innings in the rotation.

Granted, in hindsight, many of the other key players on that ’15 Astros team had hardly anything to do with a rebuild.  Their  No. 1 and No. 2 starters were Dallas Keuchel, a 7th round pick in 2009, and Collin McHugh who was added off waivers.

Still–hey, here they were–in the winter of 2015-16, coming off of a successful season built on young, cheap stars acquired in their rebuild, went the narrative. And after all, after all those years collecting revenue sharing while they ran out payrolls as low as $29 million in 2013, surely they had socked away lots of money to spend to supplement this Team On The Rise.

But they didn’t. Despite the plethora of free agents this winter, they came away with Doug Fister and that’s about it. Then they won 84 games and missed the playoffs.

The Astros could very well still spend money this winter, although there is less quality to spend it on, and even if they don’t, they could still come back next year and make Sports Illustrated’s prediction come true (or at least make the playoffs again). They did also score Alex Bregman as part of their tanking, which looks promising.

But shouldn’t this team have more than they do after that scorched earth, agonizing three years where the only noteworthy things they did were lose hundreds of games and do stuff like this? What if this is the ceiling of this Astros team if the front office doesn’t spend more money? Should the response be that this Correa-Altuve-Springer core is not good enough, like the pro-rebuild fans say of the White Sox’ current group?

I disagree. I think the most important things you can do are evaluate players well and spend money effectively when it is appropriate.  The Astros let J.D. Martinez, Robbie Grossman, and Jonathan Villar go for free, and drafted Mark Appel over Kris Bryant. They didn’t sign any meaningful free agents to shore up the weaknesses on the roster. So even though they’ve done some things right, it’s now looking very possible that their evaluation is not good enough to make up for their thriftiness.

So yes–if you are selective about the lessons you learn from the Cubs, you can pound your fist on the table and demand that the White Sox sell off everything because you’re sick of the status quo. But I would caution those who believe the path of the hard rebuild is the path to guaranteed success.  Sometimes the path of the hard rebuild is just being really bad and then winding up not much better off on the other end. Sometimes ownership just pockets all those savings instead of re-investing them in the team when it’s good again. Sometimes the problem is that your front office makes too many mistakes and ownership won’t provide the money to make up for it.

You rebuild to acquire cheap superstars.  You don’t do it when you already have them.

Lead Image Credit: Patrick Gorski // USA Today Sports Images

4.5 games out of the playoffs seems reasonably in range, but a look at the standings that lingers for, maybe, eight more seconds, shows the White Sox are well behind a Cleveland Indians team generally regarded as superior (especially by PECOTA), behind every AL Central contender, and possessing awful head-to-head marks against each of them. They are closer to a Wild Card spot, but faith in that path requires hope that they can catch the Red Sox or the Blue Jays, two teams 11 games over .500 with vastly superior run differentials, and the budgets to secure meaningful upgrades over the next two weeks. Immediately behind them are the Houston Astros, who have mostly erased an awful start to the season, where they endured a rough first half from reigning Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel, and will soon unleash Alex Bregman upon the world.

The Sox would need to significantly outplay all these teams, not to mention the Tigers and Royals, who are still filling up space in that path too.

Famously, the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays went from below .500 at the break to winning the AL East by leveraging their prospect depth for huge sea change trade acquisitions. The White Sox, who have basically just ceded two of their lineup slots to replacement players for a month while they waited for the great potential of 35-year-old Justin Morneau‘s return from elbow surgery, and 29-year-old Austin Jackson returning from knee surgery, and will probably need their No. 1 prospect (Tim Anderson) and No. 2 prospect (Carson Fulmer) for immediate 25-man roster help, don’t figure to have the same kind of major play up their sleeve.

As such, they look a lot like a seller, but they aren’t really positioned to do that in any casual way. Teams could use Todd Frazier, or Melky Cabrera, or Brett Lawrie, or if he actually hits before the waiver deadline rolls around, Morneau. But the lack of depth in the Sox system would just necessitate reloading their lineup with veterans next year to take the place of most anyone they moved. With Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton and Jose Abreu all in their late-20s, they have run out of years to have this core run in place while they build a team around them, and in the case of Abreu, who has delivered over a half-season of being a completely ordinary hitter with a physical frame that was never going to age well, they may have just ran out of time for him to be a core piece altogether.

So, again, what is this Sox team? A total teardown of even the franchise core is unprecedented, and the current front office would probably have to wonder if they would be kept around to execute it. The 2015 Texas Rangers route, where they keep adding to their team for next year (and maybe the division leader completely collapses) is an option that is easier to envision. But either path would take a clarity and assertion that’s been missing from the Sox the last two years, as they have made impressive short-term moves, but stopped glaringly short of filling out a complete roster to contend.

By next season, the Sox will have likely moved on from the idea of entrusting Avisail Garcia to hit like a right fielder, let alone a DH. They will probably not leave their center field slot to a career fourth outfielder, like they have for the last month, and likely will have addressed in some way the big points that have put this current team at the back of the contending field with long odds (13.6 percent, to be specific) to overtake it. But until they stop being caught unprepared when their fringey prospects or aging veterans flop in a starting role, or are willing to expand their budget to absorb big contracts in trade or free agency, or do something as craven but purposeful as a hard rebuild, it will be hard to understand what they are doing.

Staring at the possibility of an eight-straight playoff-free season, with a middling, average age roster, and a mediocre farm system, doesn’t speak to any kind of direction. No one can be the best every year, or dominate in free agency, the draft and the international market all at the same time, but the time has longed passed for the Sox to find a direction to lean in, especially since ‘win in 2016′ didn’t even get their full effort.

Lead Image Credit: Caylor Arnold // USA Today Sports Images

1. Jose Quintana got off to a rough start, allowing a solo shot to George Springer in the first Astros at bat of the game.  Fortunately, he would only allow three baserunners after that, over the course of seven brilliant innings. Quintana was efficient and induced a lot of weak contact in the air–although as the game progressed there were a few deep drives to center and right, but they hung up for J.B. Shuck and Adam Eaton to corral.

Quintana got his first win since May 8th.

2. The offense looked quite competent collectively, tallying nine hits and drawing four walks on the day, even in the face of solid work from Collin McHugh. McHugh was missing bats and his curveball looked particularly effective. But between working walks and spoiling pitches, the White Sox drove him out of the game shy of six innings. Tim Anderson crushed a double off the top of the wall in right field, and may have had a triple but for Shuck having to hold up in front of him.

It wasn’t a mistake on Shuck’s part, because Springer nearly caught Anderson’s blast anyway (and briefly appeared to injure himself in the process).

Anderson had his at-bats where he looked overmatched–Luke Gregerson threw him three nasty sliders that he clearly couldn’t handle–but he also absolutely scalded another two hits today.

3. Drama cropped up somewhat surprisingly late in the game, as Jose Abreu took a 94 mph fastball off of the tricep on an 0-1 count.  Leading off the top of the 7th, Quintana quickly got two outs before throwing twice way inside to Evan Gattis.  Gattis took exception and the home plate umpire immediately issued a warning to both dugouts.

An instant later, Houston manager A.J. Hinch charged out onto the field and was ejected before he could get within ten feet of Ryan Blakney. To add injury to insult, Quintana would then rally from down 3-0 to strike out Gattis and end the inning.

As I was actually in attendance today I was able to hear the Astros fans booing–and hissing. Like, the way crowds would hiss at mustache-twirling villains in 1920s vaudeville acts.

Nate Jones was absolutely dominant, striking out the first two batters he faced on six pitches as part of a clean 1-2-3 eighth, and although Robertson allowed the tying run to come to the plate in the hulking form of A.J. Reed, he gave the rookie nothing to hit and maintained a scoreless ninth.

5. J.B. Shuck and Avisail Garcia–brothers in tragedy–continue to trade leads in OPS.  After today’s game, Garcia has a .001 edge over Shuck with a .661 mark, but if they’re going to be equals at the plate, Shuck is clearly the more valuable player as he can actually play serviceable defense in the majors.

Even so, the White Sox managed to take two out of three from a quality Astros team without arguably their best hitter. Now only two games out of the Wild Card, the White Sox have six games against the Yankees and Braves before the All-Star Break to keep making up ground.

Team Record: 42-40

Next game is Monday vs. New York at 1:10pm CT

Lead Image Credit: Troy Taormina // USA Today Sports Images

Things looked pretty bleak for Sale through the first three innings. After allowing a solo homer to Jose Altuve in the first, he was touched for three in the third thanks for a rally started by the bottom of Houston’s order and a little small ball.

Danny Worth led off the inning with a walk, Jake Marisnick tried to sacrifice him to second and wound up with a bunt single, and after George Springer’s long flyout advanced Worth to third, he scored on a safety squeeze bunt by Marwin Gonzalez. Back-to-back singles by Altuve and Carlos Correa followed and Sale and the Sox trailed 4-2.

Thankfully for the Sox, Doug Fister couldn’t find the strike zone all afternoon and, thanks almost entirely to Dioner Navarro (that’s designated hitter Dioner Navarro to you), and J.B. Shuck (that’s Home Run Hitter J.B. Shuck) he wasn’t long for the game.

Navarro drove home the first two runs of the game on a triple that maybe, possibly would’ve definitely been a triple anyway had Springer not bobbled the ball that was driven out to right-center field, scoring Todd Frazier and Alex Avila. After Shuck hit his third home run of the season to pull the Sox within a run, Navarro came up again in the fifth, this time with the bases loaded and two outs against a laboring Fister, and drove a two-run single to left field to give the Sox the lead for good and end Fister’s day.

The White Sox margin of victory could’ve been even more comfortable if not for a couple of baserunning gaffes. Navarro was thrown out at home after the aforementioned triple when he was off on contact on a ground ball to third base by Shuck. Adam Eaton found a way to get thrown out at both third base AND home plate in the same game. He slipped while rounding third base on a single by Brett Lawrie in the third inning, tried to score anyway, and was thrown out easily, and then tried to take third base on a ball in the dirt in the fifth only to be gunned down. That’s three TOOTBLANs in five innings for the White Sox, if you’re scoring at home.

After reliever Michael Feliz basically shut down the Sox for three innings following Fister’s departure, saving Houston’s bullpen a lot of extra work, the Sox gave Sale some rare insurance. Avisail Garcia’s two-out single in the eighth was the only baserunner allowed by Feliz (he struck out seven), but after he was lifted for Tony Sipp, Shuck drove home Garcia with an RBI triple and Tim Anderson followed with an RBI double to complete the White Sox scoring for the afternoon. Every member of the starting lineup recorded a base hit on Saturday except Avila, who walked twice.

As is life with the White Sox, the end did not come without drama. Sale’s afternoon ended after the first two hitters of the eighth inning reached — a single by Springer and two-base error by Frazier off the bat of Gonzalez, but Nate Jones came in and limited the damage, allowing a sacrifice fly to Altuve before retiring Correa and Gomez. Sale’s final line was 7 IP, 4 ER, BB, 9 K.

David Robertson earned the save but not before making things interesting by allowing a two-out home run to A.J. Reed.

The White Sox have played exactly half of their 2016 schedule now and stand a game above .500. They’ll go for the series victory at 1:10 p.m. Sunday when Jose Quintana takes on Collin McHugh.

Team record: 41-40

Lead Image Credit: Kim Klement // USA Today Sports Images

So, naturally, Friday night in Houston, Gonzalez managed to last seven innings, allowed just three runs (two earned) and he still came away a loser as the offense faltered in a 5-0 defeat.

Gonzalez was sharp, for the most part, getting ahead in the count and locating both his fastball and slider well. He was sharp through six frames, with the only run he allowed to that point coming on one of the weakest hit balls of the night. After plunking George Springer and walking Luis Valbuena to start the fourth inning, he got the speedy Jose Altuve to ground into a 1-6-3 double play on a broken-bat smash up the middle. But with Springer at third, Carlos Correa hit another broken bat shot, this time a goofy-looking flare that dropped in front of Tim Anderson at short to give Houston a 1-0 lead.

The other two runs, were, well, not weak. With one out in the seventh Carlos Gomez unloaded on a 1-2 fastball for a two-run shot, as if the offense wasn’t going to already have trouble digging out of the one-run deficit.

Gonzalez completed seven innings for the first time all season, finishing with a line of 7 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4 K.

The effort proved fruitless, however. The Sox squandered a number of opportunities early against Mike Fiers. They had runners on second and third with two outs in the second inning when Tyler Saladino flied out to center to end the threat. In the fourth, Jose Abreu led off with a double down the left field line, only to see the BABIP Gods strike down Todd Frazier, Brett Lawrie and Garcia to strand him at second. A Saladino leadoff walk in the fifth and a two-out double by Lawrie in the sixth also went for naught, and now I’ve rattled off basically every baserunner the White Sox had on the evening at this point.

Fiers finished with six shutout innings, two walks and four strikeouts, and the combination of Ken Giles, Luke Gregerson and Chris Devenski finished off the Sox with three scoreless frames.

Despite Gonzalez’s solid effort coming in a loss, the bullpen was not particularly taxed, an important note for the injury-hampered and overworked unit. Only Chris Beck saw action in relief, and he gave up the final two tallies of the evening on an RBI double by Luis Valbuena and RBI single by Colby Rasmus. With Chris Sale and Jose Quintana set to go the next two days, more rest is hopefully on the horizon.

Team Record: 40-40

Next game is at 3:10 p.m. CT Saturday at Houston on CSN

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

Since the second Wild Card was brought into play in 2012, the team to win the fewest games and make the playoffs was the 2015 Houston Astros, who won 86 games. Currently, PECOTA projects the White Sox to go 54-50 the rest of the season and end up with 83 wins on the year. That 54-50 record is good enough for a .519 winning percentage.

If we pretend for a second that 86 wins is the magic number that the White Sox have to reach, then the White Sox have to go 57-47 the rest of the way which translates to a .548 winning percentage. If we assume that the standard deviation of projected performance over a whole season is six wins, then the standard deviation of projected performance as a percentage of games played is something like 3.7 percent (or a difference in winning percentage of .03703). Simplifying the process, if we use a traditional one-tailed test assuming a normal distribution, based on the White Sox expected winning percentage and the necessary winning percentage required for 86 wins, the probability the White Sox win 86 or more games is roughly 21.68%.

Unfortunately for the White Sox, 86 wins is the lowest of all the bars to clear, so even that 21.7 percent chance looks like it may be optimistic. Only two of 40 teams since 2012 have made the playoffs while winning less than 88 games, with the Astros being the only team to win 86 games and make the playoffs. So if we move our bar to 88 wins, or 59-45 the rest of the way for our White Sox, using this new winning percentage of .567, the probability the White Sox make the playoffs drops all the way down to 9.75 percent. This second iteration suggests that you’re probably better off watching Requiem for a Dream and expecting to feel happy and lighthearted after the movie than you are to expect the White Sox to get into the playoffs. *Audible groan*

A look at the current standings does offer some more hope. If we add the wins from the current standings to the rest of season PECOTA projection for wins, we get the following playoff picture:

AL Central Winners: Cleveland Indians, 91 Wins (32 currently, 59 projected)
AL East Winners: Boston Red Sox. 89 Wins (34 currently, 55 projected)
AL West Winners: Texas Rangers, 87 Wins (36 currently, 51 projected)
Wild Card #1: Seattle Mariners, 87 Wins (32 currently, 55 projected)
Wild Card #2: Toronto Blue Jays, 85 Wins (31 currently, 54 projected)

So, this information is a bit bittersweet. It’s bad in the sense that the White Sox odds of winning the central division have taken a pretty drastic hit over the past month. Cleveland is a solid team that’s playing well right now and if they reach 91 wins, there’s roughly a 1.9 percent chance the White Sox could reach that win total with their current roster. Oh boy.

But it’s better news in the sense that PECOTA doesn’t see any excellent teams in either of the wild card spots and 86 wins could very well vault the White Sox into the playoffs. Again, this isn’t great news as there’s currently only a 21.7 percent chance this happens, but when you compare that number with the other two percentages I’ve calculated, it starts looking a lot better.

However, there’s one last wrinkle I’d like to add to this somewhat painful probability calculation sheet. The White Sox are currently mired in a 6-20 slump that’s not exactly showing any signs of slowing down. As it stands, none, NONE, of the forty teams that have made the playoffs since 2012 have had a 26 game span where they’ve lost 20 or more games. So, if the White Sox do indeed make the playoffs, it will be the most impressive turnaround against adversity that Major League Baseball will have seen since the implementation of the second Wild Card. All records are meant to be broken! The Golden State Warriors taught me that, so maybe this is the White Sox team to do that!

To offer some hope, there have been five teams, the 2012 Oakland A’s, the 2013 Los Angeles Dodgers, the 2014 Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants, and the 2015 Texas Rangers that have all had 25 game stretches where their records were 7-18, so there is some precedent of teams playing pretty darn awful and then going on to find some success in the postseason. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of the White Sox play, but at least it offers some proof that bad things happen to good teams.

The bottom line is, like Ethan Spalding said, is that the White Sox aren’t complete toast at this point in time. Hey, maybe the White Sox turn around, fire Robin Ventura, turn Carson Fulmer into Jonathan Lucroy, sign Justin Morneau, and promote Tim Anderson and everything comes up Millhouse! It could happen. I just wouldn’t bet on it.

*Han’s odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field were 3,720 to 1 and he did it. Maybe the White Sox can too.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski – USA Today Sports Images

1. On such a premise, Chris Sale set out to improve on his 8-0 record against an Astros lineup that had tuned up his compatriots for 11 runs in the first two entries of this series.

And to be honest, it looked pretty easy. Sale always makes pitching look easy, but recently he’s been making it look easy compared to 2015 Chris Sale too.

He allowed one soft single through the first five innings, shut out the Astros through the first seven innings, and weathered an Evan Gattis solo shot in the eighth to throw his third complete game of the season. In 107 brisk pitches, Sale added to his MLB lead in wins (9), now leads the AL in innings (68.1) and is breathing down Jose Quintana‘s neck for the AL ERA lead (1.58).

2. But the solo shot did complicate things. Sale immediately burning through his insurance run as he entered the ninth inning with a rested and ready David Robertson in the bullpen, added to the fact that he was missing armside to start the ninth, all demanded complete faith in his total dominance to stick with him through the end.

Sale validated the decision. He dialed up a 94 mph fastball with life to blow away Jose Altuve for the first out, and capped off the night with a backdoor slider off that froze Tuesday’s villain, Tyler White.

3. There have been plenty of nights where we have been able to gawk at how Sale’s impossibly nutty stuff and life allows him to pitch over clunky command. This was not one of those nights. Sale was so precise, all of his dominance just came from hitting his spots in the zone.

He threw an impossible 80 of 107 pitches for strikes, he threw first-pitch strikes to 24 of 31 batters, and nine of his 12 whiffs came just off his fastball, as he reserved his looping slider for nailing the corners. Sale threw nothing but strikes, and whether or not hitters chased in vain was just window dressing. He’s indomitable when he’s pitching this way, and he has so many other ways to do it as well.

4. The little bit of run support the White Sox provided came from very odd sources, as Astros starter Collin McHugh would have been the pitching star on almost any other night (7 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, BB, 8 K). The Sox staked Sale to an early lead in the second when Todd Frazier nubbed an infield single too deep for Altuve to retrieve in time. After teasing at testing Gattis’ arm for a while, Frazier finally made his rush and nabbed second on a pitch in the dirt, then came around to score when DH Jerry Sands looped an RBI single off the end of the bat over Altuve’s head.

Another infield single keyed a run in the seventh, as Jimmy Rollins placed a swinging bunt against the shift down the third base line. Rollins too abused Gattis to steal second, advanced to third on yet another Sands single, before easing home when Alex Avila fisted a sacrifice fly to left.

5. Sands was a forgotten man during Avisail Garcia‘s hot streak, but was the only member of the lineup with multiple hits Thursday night as he subbed in for the slumping DH. Rollins, out of the second spot in the order on a rare occasion, added a sharp night in the field to his role in the seventh inning rally.

Team Record: 25-16

Next game is Friday at 8:10pm CT vs. Kansas City on CSN

Lead Image Credit: Kim Klement // USA Today Sports Images

The sort of consistency we’ve seen out of Sale may be paving an early road to the Cy Young award that has eluded him thus far in his career. Last time out, Sale rode his four-seamer and change-up more than he had in any start this season to a complete game performance against the Yankees. He also got fewer swings and misses than he has in a 2016 game – but the low strikeout results allowed him to finish the game with fewer than 100 pitches. The Astros offense strikes out at a higher rate than any other team in the majors, so I think we can expect Sale’s chameleon act to continue, and his pitch usage to adapt in favor of attacking this lineup more aggressively.

Collin McHugh’s first season in Houston was also his first full season. The waiver claim posted a 2.76 DRA in 2014 and struck out 25.4 percent of the batters he faced. Since then, he’s watched his K-rate fall, and his DRA climb. Thus far in 2016 he’s been a negative WARP player with a 5.59 DRA. He’s had a couple of nice starts mixed in with a handful of short, unimpressive outings. The latter includes his season debut, in which he never escaped the first inning while allowing five earned runs.

Good news: Jimmy Rollins is not batting second in the lineup. Bad news: Carlos Sanchez is in the game and batting second in the lineup. Good news: Jerry Sands‘ platoon splits this season haven’t been huge, so Robin Ventura regularly exposing him to starts against right-handed pitching hasn’t blown up in his face too badly. Bad news: Jerry Sands has been terrible, in general, against all-handed pitching.

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton – RF
2. Carlos Sanchez – 2B
3. Jose Abreu – 1B
4. Todd Frazier – 3B
5. Melky Cabrera – LF
6. Jimmy Rollins – SS
7. Jerry Sands – DH
8. Alex Avila – C
9. Austin Jackson – CF

Astros Lineup:

1. Jose Altuve – 2B
2. George Springer – RF
3. Carlos Correa – SS
4. Tyler White – DH
5. Marwin Gonzalez – 1B
6. Evan Gattis – C
7. Luis Valbuena – 3B
8. Jake Marisnick – CF
9. Tony Kemp – LF

Lead Photo Credit: Noah K. Murray – USA Today Sports Images

1. So Latos, as I mentioned, is not that good. Coming into this game he may have had a 3.40 ERA and 5-0 win-loss record, but any informed reader knows that’s deceiving. He has a 5.07 FIP after this start, and a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 1.29. It’s not good, and it showed tonight. He allowed five earned runs over just five and one-third innings, and he allowed two home runs in the process, to Colby Rasmus and Jason Castro in the fifth and sixth innings, respectively. Other than those two solo shots, he got into trouble… in essentially every inning other than the third. In the first he allowed a single to Jose Altuve, a walk to George Springer, and a run-scoring single to Carlos Correa to bring in one; in the second a Castro single, a Tony Kemp double, and an Altuve ground out led to another run; and in the fourth he allowed a walk to Castro, a single to Kemp, and then a run-scoring single to Altuve.

2. On the scoring end, there wasn’t much. It looked like the Sox could have had Fister on the ropes as early as the first inning, but they only got one run out of the affair: Adam Eaton singled but got thrown out at second, Jimmy Rollins hit a double off the wall, then Jose Abreu drove Rollins home. Todd Frazier walked, but then Melky Cabrera grounded into a double play to end the threat. Cabrera would have his revenge, though, in the sixth: Frazier hit a one-out single, then Cabrera hit a triple to pick up an RBI. Cabrera is now up to 117 wRC+ on the year, so it’s really nice to see him positively regress this year. The Sox would actually get a total of nine hits against Fister over his six and two-thirds innings; he also allowed one walk and picked up five strikeouts. It was classic, “hits were falling, but not in sequence” type of night, and it bought the Astros enough time to get to Ken Giles and the bullpen.

3. Before I get to the rest of this recap, can we pause for a second and appreciate this triple play in the top of the eighth?

pic.twitter.com/gQo3zyKfK1

— Matt Provenzano (@mattprov94) May 19, 2016

This was the team’s second triple play of the year, which is pretty crazy considering how rare that is. It was the first time the White Sox have had multiple triple plays in a season since 2006.

4. So, back to the game. The rest was actually quite bad. Giles came in with essentially no command, walking Eaton and allowing an RBI single to Abreu, but got Frazier to fly out to end the inning. Will Harris worked a clean bottom of the eighth, then Luke Gregerson closed it out.

5. The Sox have now lost six of their last eight, in case you haven’t noticed. That was bound to happen with the roaring start, so I wouldn’t look too closely into it. This was a team that banked a ton of wins early in the year, and was going to slow down a bit eventually. It’s back to Chris Sale tomorrow at 7:10 PM CT against Collin McHugh, so they have a shot to turn it around.

Team record: 24-16

Lead Image Credit: Mike Dinovo // USA Today Sports Images