As White Sox fans gathered at U.S. Cellular Field on that evening, Anderson started off his career tugging at baseball’s heartstrings with a loud double off Royals starter Ian Kennedy. Of course, being haunted by the shortcomings of the White Sox prospects of past, the apprehension was high, and the expectations were rather low. At least they were for me.

But in 99 games and 431 plate appearances, Anderson didn’t disappoint. He even went as far as to impress, finishing the season with a slash line of .283/.306/.432, a 27 percent strikeout rate and a 3 percent walk rate. The latter two numbers sound rather dismal, but given the profile that Anderson brought with him, the final product of his slash line is more than laudable for a strikeout-prone White Sox prospect’s first 99 games in the big leagues.

It was well-known that Anderson would bring speed and pop with him to the major leagues, but along with those tools came that high strikeout rate, the inability to take a free base, and the uncertainty of his future as a shortstop.

In his first month, the strikeouts were significantly high — a whopping 31.8 percent, while the walks were low, just 1.1 percent. But oh, the power! Anderson put up a .512 slugging percentage in his first 19 games in the big leagues. Over the course of the season, he would hit nine home runs, four of which traveled 426 feet or farther, and four leaving the bat at 106 mph or faster. Anderson wasn’t simply holding his own in his first season in the majors, he was making baseball on the South Side joyful again.

Anderson kept the strikeout rate below 30 percent for the remainder of the season, which sounds as though it’s not praise-worthy for any other profile, but for Anderson it was an encouraging small step in the right direction. He even reached a walk rate of nearly 5 percent in September, and while his peripheral stats at the plate suggested a grim future for the shortstop, the slash line was hearty enough to suggest that when he was making contact at the plate, it was strong enough contact to merit optimism that future success is just a few walks and a couple of check swings away.

Anderson’s defense in the field was yet another aspect of his game that made baseball fun again. Going as far as to draw very deserving young Derek Jeter comps at some points, FRAA wasn’t a fan of all that met the eye, giving Anderson a -4.4 on the season. But he still showed plenty of promise, the eye test was approving, and for a player who just before the season started was still having his ability to stick at shortstop questioned, credit should be given where credit is very much due.

Anderson may not have had the perfect season, but all things considered, all context taken into account, and especially the franchise he’s a part of, he is one of the most solid and legitimate success stories the White Sox saw in 2016. Anderson is likely to only get better in 2017, continuing to smooth out the rough edges he has, but after just over 400 plate appearances in the majors, Anderson has made adjusting to big leagues look like no sweat.

Photo courtesy of Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

Of course, the entire idea of needing to rejoice because this season is “finally over” brings us back to the initial issue with the season itself — 2016 was a massive disaster that no one saw coming.

From Adam LaRoche grabbing national media headlines in March, to waving the white flag at the end of July, bright and quirky moments such as the Matt Albers Game, to the addition of Tim Anderson to the major league roster, 2016 was spanned the range of emotions for White Sox fans.

But there were just too many telltale and strange occurrences throughout the season, more than I’ve ever seen squeezed into a single year, as a White Sox fan. So in case some of you have forgotten just how strange this season was at 35th and Shields, let’s take a look back on my top seven oddest moments.

L’Affaire LaRoche

Fans should have sensed right away that things were going to get a little weird this season when the White Sox were grabbing national headlines and exploding the Twitterverse before Opening Day. Adam LaRoche’s abrupt decision to retire came as a shock to baseball, but what came as even more of a shock was the reason behind his retirement. After being told he was no longer allowed to bring his son, Drake, to the clubhouse, LaRoche decided to call it quits on March 16th. After Adam Eaton‘s comments that the White Sox lost a “leader” in Drake and Chris Sale‘s claim that the team was “bold-faced lied to by someone we were suppose to trust”, fears emerged of not only a division in the clubhouse, but also that a front office vs. players war was about to ensue before a pitch had even been thrown in 2016.

White Sox acquire James Shields, DFA Mat Latos

I think we can all agree that Mat Latos was simply terrible. Just like the rest of the South side crew, he started off hot, giving the White Sox hope that Don Cooper’s pitching magic was able to salvage a player many felt was dead on arrival. But as the calendar changed from April to May, things went south for Latos, who started six more games in a pinstripe uniform to the tune of a 7.62 ERA in 31 innings pitched. This problem needed to be solved.

Alas! James Shields, aka “Big Game James!” failed to provide a respite after coming over in a major trade. Shields had struggled a bit after hitting a sudden rough patch in San Diego, and the White Sox front office thought they could possibly capitalize on this tiny blip on Shields’ radar to get a discount and have Cooper do the rest. If this was 2009, perhaps that logic would have held up. As it was, and the White Sox sent failed starter Erik Johnson (who recently underwent Tommy John surgery) and infielder Fernando Tatis Jr. to San Diego for Shields. The Padres even threw in $22 million of Shields salary, what a bargain!

Wrong. The struggles Shields endured during his final days in San Diego were more foreshadowing than blips on the radar, and his struggles became even worse as the dingers sailed farther in a smaller ballpark (31 in 114.1 innings). Somehow, Mat Latos and his 4.62 ERA on the season seemed like that one person whose phone number you wish you hadn’t thrown away…

Jimmy Rollins…

Veteran leadership was the guise under which the acquisition of 37-year-old shortstop Jimmy Rollins was sold to the White Sox fan base. It took the famed shortstop of yesteryear 41 games before the Sox brass realized that his .221/.295/.329 slash line were not sufficient among a lineup that also included names such as Dioner Navarro and Avisail Garcia and their less than stellar offensive marks. Rollins may certainly have brought veteran leadership, wisdom, and experience to the clubhouse, but batting him–often at the top of the order–in more than a handful of games for the first two months of the season didn’t slow the Sox slide down from their hot start. Hey, at least we can all go get Jimmy Rollins Sox shirseys on the clearance rack though, right?

The Justin Morneau Thing

Yes, it’s a thing because on June 9th, when the White Sox began to realize that they were at the crossroads of “We Can Get Out of This Slump Avenue” and “This Season Is Over If We Don’t Move Quickly Lane”, they decided to sign a 35-year old, banged-up first baseman in Justin Morneau. Sounds bad already, but there was more! He wouldn’t even be able to join the team after rehabbing from an injury (Sounding even better!) until after the All-Star Break.

Morneau was the red flag that was waved before the white one was later unfurled. He was everything the White Sox aim for, and a symbol of everything wrong with this team’s idea of fixing a poor situation. Some felt a twinge of hope that perhaps by some unbounded miracle Morneau would play the way he did when he was 25 because baseball can be magical sometimes, but others saw the White Sox take the wrong turn at the crossroads.

Matt Davidson, Charlie Tilson, and the barrage of ruined major league debuts

The White Sox were already having a weird season injury-wise, after Jason Coats‘ bloody outfield collision during his debut, and catcher Kevan Smith being placed on the disabled before even officially appearing in a single game, but the worst two of all certainly had to be Charlie Tilson and Matt Davidson‘s debuts.

Davidson has been in the White Sox system for a very long time. After posting strong power numbers and lackluster performances in all other aspects of the game for parts of three seasons, his status as future star third basemen fizzled, and has remained dormant for quite some time. Davidson finally made his debut with the White Sox on June 30th, and while running the bases in his first major league game, he fractured his foot. Goodbye season, goodbye Matt Davidson.

Tilson, who was originally drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011, was traded to the White Sox for reliever Zach Duke at the 2016 trade deadline. Tilson made his major league debut with the White Sox on Aug. 2, and right after collecting his first major league hit in the third inning, two innings later he curiously fell over while chasing a liner to the gap. The effort had torn his left hamstring, requiring season-ending surgery. 

“I can’t even imagine,” Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “This is a dream. He gets called up, gets a hit in his first at-bat and after that it all gets taken away from you for a while. It’s tough. All the guys on the team, as much as you want to put it out of your mind, you feel for the kid.” 

One can only find so many ways to say “bizarre,” and this season exhausted them all.

“We’re mired in mediocrity”

Unforgettable is probably the word I would use to describe how I felt the moment I read this quote from the only person in which I still had unwavering faith in the White Sox organization, general manager Rick Hahn. It was just before the trade deadline, and the White Sox still had over two months of a season of baseball left to play, yet the only person for which myself and many others looked to for direction through the murkiness of 2016 had found a way to eloquently dress up the phrase “It’s over.” I’d known for a while, much like many Sox fans, that the season was nearly over. The hope still hung by a thread though. But Hahn’s words on that afternoon cut that frayed little thread for me — with half of a season of baseball left to play. White Sox fans didn’t know how or what to feel, and despondency quickly took the place of hope on the South side.

Chris Sale cuts up an entire team’s jerseys a few hours before first pitch

After a week that felt as though it had lasted a decade in the lives of White Sox fans, another bizarre moment occurred. ESPN updates lit up phone screens across the city as Chris Sale abruptly left the White Sox clubhouse an hour before his scheduled start. Coming less than one week after Hahn’s white flag waving comments sparked conversations on whether Sale would be moved at the deadline or not, and days before the deadline, this moment felt as though the thin walls of sanity still propped up at 35th & Shields and around Sox fandom during these perilous times were crumbling down.

For a time during his inexplicable absence from the clubhouse, it seemed he must have been traded, confirming the dire situation long feared: that the organization really had to trade their franchise player. But, as it turned out, Sale simply had a meltdown, and destroyed the entire team’s uniforms just before the start of the game because they were “uncomfortable”. Just when folks thought things couldn’t get any weirder for the White Sox, they did.

White Sox fans have suffered their share of heartbreak over the last decade, but it’s safe to say that 2016 has provided them with a vast array of reasons to feel like this year was unique. From a 23-10 start to Guaranteed Rate Field… 2016 saw everything. Bring it on, 2017! It can’t get much weirder than this (But it still can).

In the last week:

—Mat Latos was designated for assignment, and James Shields made his debut, which was worse than anything Latos had managed all season.

—Jimmy Rollins was designated for assignment, Tyler Saladino was effectively returned to a utility role, and top prospect Tim Anderson was promoted and installed as the starting shortstop.

—Justin Morneau was signed. His injury history makes him best utilized as a designated hitter, occasional first baseman, where he figures to be a left-handed salve to a DH situation overly reliant on Avisail Garcia. He was immediately added to the disabled list, where he is expected to remain for another month.

—Austin Jackson was placed on the disabled list with a medial meniscus tear in his left knee that is expected to keep him out of action for six weeks.

That last item does not really belong in the same category, as it is not so much a move as something that happened to the White Sox against their will, but in the immediate, it has the same impact of the first three items combined, if not more.

Jackson was hitting .282/.356/.369 from May 1 on (check the current OBPs across the roster if that clip sounds worthless), but his absence has more of a cascading effect that the simple loss of his individual production. He was the one solid defender at a premium position who decreased everyone else’s responsibility. Adam Eaton was allowed to become a superb right fielder, Garcia was spared the indignity of playing defense at all, and J.B. Shuck was able to remain a slap-hitting pinch-hitter/defensive replacement/pinch-runner that could avoid the scrutiny that regular playing time — and hitting fifth — brings.

Jackson’s absence necessitates a move, ideally not a duplicative addition of another light-hitting defensive center fielder who will lack a purpose in six weeks, but Jay Bruce, Carlos Gonzalez, Ryan Braun; the more improbably aggressive, the better. They need the impact bat that they will still lack for another month even in the best-case scenario for Morneau; another veteran with whom the Sox are hoping to stumble on a late-career burst of production.

At 31-32, the Sox are tied with the Yankees — who mostly made Chicago news this weekend for the possibility that they could sell off — for the ninth-best record in the American League. Never at any point projected to be world beaters coming into this season, with PECOTA only tracking them for barely over .500 for the rest of the year, the Sox are at the point where they could dig a hole they will be unable to fill in.

Anderson is less an upgrade than an acknowledgement that Saladino and Rollins offered no certainty to be immediately better, and they might as well start the youngster’s grueling adjustment to the majors now and hasten the arrival of his peak. Shields is the most fitting acknowledgment of the urgency of the situation, and allowed the Sox to avoid the brunt of the impending disaster of Latos’ diminished abilities that had really only started to arrive. But his debut certainly provided no immediate relief, and his mundane assignment to be a No. 4 starter looks to be more appropriate than hoped.

Both Shields and Morneau stand to be a referendum on the Sox ability to scout and identify which veterans have something left in the tank and which are toast, an area in which they have not covered themselves in glory of recent. But can either raise the Sox to a new tier of talent level? Above the Indians, who were projected to be significantly superior and now have a 4.5 game lead? Or above the glut of Wild Card contenders?

A fully operational Jose Abreu might be able to do that. A version of Adam Eaton unlike the one that has a sub-.300 OBP over the last month might do that. But if the Sox leave it at that, they will remain in this middle space where it is impossible to tell how dedicated to winning in 2016 they really are. They have a mostly short-term roster, they have been extraordinarily active, and of recent, almost ruthless with their willingness to cut bait on marginal contributors who are not producing, but the major addition, and the major investment, that puts them undisputably in line with the AL contenders remains missing.

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

Anderson will join the White Sox today as first reported by @barstoolWSD. He figures to be part of the starting lineup against the Royals

— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) June 10, 2016

Anderson has hit .304/.325/.409  with 11 stolen bases in Triple-A Charlotte this year, with stark platoon splits. More encouragingly, after an early transition period, he has hit .337/.368/.476 with a 19.4 strikeout rate since May 1 with no signs of slowing down, with five multi-hit games this month already. His athleticism is top-notch, his bat speed is tremendous, and the hope is that those qualities can keep his head above water while the rough transition to the majors challenges his raw approach and lack of refinement on defense.

Too much has been made of Anderson’s minor league walk rates, as he’s never going to be Jack Cust, but he has an aggressive plate approach that will likely be exploited early on. And while he could dust pretty much anyone on the roster in a foot race, Anderson’s hands at short have led many, like 2080 Baseball’s Mauricio Rubio, to estimate that his future could be in center field.

The tolerance for Anderson’s likely early struggles has been built up by both Saladino and Rollins, the latter of which is now DFA’d, showing they are incapable of holding down a starting role. Anderson might be raw, but the Sox have gotten a .621 OPS from the shortstop slot, and where Rollins and Saladino are lacking in upside, Anderson is packed to the gills.

Anderson is coming up to play, and he’s the most meaningful White Sox position prospect in a decade, so there should be every expectation that the shortstop position is his for the remainder of the year barring absurd and unprecedented struggles. While center field may well indeed be an ideal home for his skill set, the Sox are committing to him at short, and upgrades they seek over the next two months will look to fit around him, not in front of him.

Indeed, there is nothing standing in front of Tim Anderson at all anymore.

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

What wasn’t much discussed when he was acquired is that he’s also a reasonably prolific base thief, having swiped 13 bases last year and 20 the year before (against eight times caught stealing each year), which would have been good enough for third and second on the White Sox, respectively (It did merit a parenthetical in Jim Margalus’s analysis of the trade). With the departure of competent base stealer Alexei Ramirez, then, it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s tied for the team lead in steals; he, Adam Eaton, and Jimmy Rollins each have five steals and have been caught twice. BP’s SBR (stolen base runs) has Frazier at +0.76 for the year, 0.6 runs ahead of runner-up Avisail Garcia and 0.4 runs ahead of last year’s leader, Melky Cabrera. For what it’s worth, FanGraphs’s wSB has Frazier at +0.1 for the year, in a pack with Garcia, Rollins, Eaton, and Dioner Navarro.

Given that he is a not particularly fast third baseman, it makes sense that Frazier does not steal bases in quite the usual way. August Fagerstrom looked at this after Frazier’s 20 steal campaign and observed that a huge portion of his steals that year were stolen without a throw; he just took a big walking lead off an unobservant pitcher and breezed into second. Indeed, per Fagerstrom, only two of Frazier’s steals that year involved him beating a clean throw by the catcher.

Based on my review of his steals this year, one of those things has changed and the other hasn’t. In Frazier’s seven attempts, the catcher has yet to make a clean throw on any of them. He’s been caught stealing by the pitcher twice, and of his steals the catcher held the ball once, threw poorly three times, and had the ball bounce beyond his grasp once. (To be fair to Frazier, it looks like he would’ve beaten each of the bad throws.) From watching his jumps, it seems like he’s as reliant as ever on getting a huge walking lead and taking off, but since he now has a reputation for this he’s not likely to be as effective as he was two years ago.

PECOTA projected Frazier for 12 steals and six caught stealing before the year and has him at 13 and six now, so none of this is truly unexpected, just a little bit odd. Eaton and Rollins are both projected to finish with 17 steals, and Austin Jackson with 12, so while I can see a road to Frazier leading the team in steals—Rollins loses some playing time, Frazier gets lucky, Eaton gets unlucky or God forbid gets hurt—it doesn’t seem particularly likely.

Given that he’s the commanding favorite in the team home run race, if he did pull it off, he’d likely be the first White Sox player to lead the team in both since Jorge Orta in 1976. (Orta had 24 steals and a mere 14 dingers; unsurprisingly, that team lost 97 games.) Even if he doesn’t, he’s on track to post one of the better power/steals combinations in club history:

White Sox Players With at least 30 HR and 10 SB

It’s worth reiterating that Frazier’s stealing is likely to come in at about neutral for the year, so even with his relatively large stolen base totals his legs won’t make up any real portion of his value. (He’s also generally below average at the non-stealing parts of baserunning.) As someone who really likes watching stolen bases, it’s not as much fun as seeing a real base thief (which the White Sox haven’t had since Juan Pierre—no pressure, Tim Anderson!), but seeing an unassuming third sacker break for second every few games constitutes a nice fringe benefit to the Frazier trade.

Numbers via Baseball-Reference and the Lahman database.

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

19 teams total have weathered a losing streak as long as eight games–the streak the Sox were staring when the fell behind 4-0 after five innings Tuesday–in the Wild Card era and lived to see the postseason, and four of those 19 teams have come since the playoffs expanded again in 2012. None of those teams can be found in the the last two years, though, and no White Sox playoff team ever–there have only been nine in 115 years–has endured an eight-game losing streak.

As such, Tuesday night’s sudden comeback in New York not only salvaged the sanity of a weary club, but saved the Sox from the brink.

In the wake of this breakthrough, reports of the Robin Ventura managin’ long craved finally began to surface.

Robin Ventura apparently addressed the team after one of the games in KC, told them not to quit.

— Dan Hayes (@CSNHayes) June 1, 2016

Latos also talked about postgame words of encouragement from Ventura this weekend in KC that the team has taken to heart.

— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) June 1, 2016

The timing for the players to reveal this is a little convenient, or well-strategized, as it serves to show Ventura providing value as the team returns to form, rather than efforting in vain before another loss. But if we want to drive a stake in the ground for the argument of Ventura as a leader of men, this will be a moment to call back to if the team endures a jaw-droppingly awful stretch and stays in the playoff race.

It would be a fair credit to hand him, but might paint an overly dramatic view of Ventura’s leadership. He’s not a confrontational team meeting type, but a steady supply of positivity. Todd Frazier was making notes of his positive reinforcement even back when the home series against the Royals was going in the tank, and it’s easy to see this new bulletin on words of encouragement in a similar vein. Despite his demeanor, it’s always been clear Ventura is active, and not indifferent, it’s just a question of whether it works.

2. It was a good time for warm, fuzzy feelings to make their way into the clubhouse, because the pre-game statements from a Surprisingly Present in New York Rick Hahn were open for interpretation.

Here’s the full Rick Hahn quote on Robin Ventura’s in-game management. pic.twitter.com/6wFzInM7Al

— Colleen Kane (@ChiTribKane) May 31, 2016

A charitable read is that Hahn wants to close himself off for good as an outlet through which to second guess or double check the in-game work of Robin Ventura, and to make it sound like it would be as out of place to ask Hahn about tactics as it would be to ask Ventura about potential trades.

A more dastardly way to read it is that Hahn is claiming he can only vouch for all the information and prep work that goes into the in-game decisions, and is throwing up the shruggie as far as the actual product on the field.

The former sounds a lot more like what a public statement from someone as cautious as Hahn would be trying to put out, but votes of confidence for coaches and managers are often more notable for what they leave open rather than what they plainly state.

3. Tyler Saladino was already regularly making a show of all the athleticism on defense he could flash that Jimmy Rollins could not, but now that he’s capped off an improbably hot month of May (.372/.417/.545) with two home runs in the last three games, and his absurd Tuesday night with a go-ahead blast (off a right-hander), reaching base in all four plate appearances, and his first two stolen bases of the year, he’s blowing his elder off the field. Rollins only got 21 more plate appearances in May and hit .206/.275/.302.

There’s a lot of fun in Saladino’s game right now, even if he shouldn’t be looked at as much more than a good utility hitter on a hot streak. He’s sitting at .290/.320/.449 with a good glove at short, which should be enough to hold off a raw prospect on a hot streak, even if Tim Anderson is “forcing the issue” as Hahn put it. That is real organizational value being provided by Saladino, because not every Sox prospect–especially the rawest ones–needs to be promoted after their first good month in Charlotte.

4. Mat Latos benefitted greatly from the fifth starter treatment Tuesday. Two errors are certainly the last thing the regular starter most starved for strikeouts in baseball needed, but they also shifted the focus to how he dodged total disaster in the first two innings, and away from how much of his own work played into pushing the game closer.

His slider was his best pitch and he used it aggressively to rack up a season-high five strikeouts, but his fastball was still low-90s with lots of mistakes up in the zone, and the Sox yanked him after five innings without letting him complete a third trip all the way through the order. Objections about his stuff and its viability remain, but treating Latos more like the Latos who has shown up in Chicago and less like the former No. 2 starter can only help.

5. Robin Ventura hinted that Austin Jackson could return by Friday, making his absence a very reasonable three games, which is both suitable for avoiding a disabled list stint and maintaining a tolerable level of J.B. Shuck as the everyday centerfielder.

Turf toe is a sprained ligament and time will tell how much this will be an issue limiting and re-aggravating Jackson’s speed-based game over the rest of the season. He was showing some No. 2 hitter properties when he went down, which was a relief given Ventura’s insistence on a speedy, contact guy in that slot, though if Brett Lawrie ever comes out of his funk, he could be dynamite at that spot, where he was tried out Tuesday.

If Saladino provides any service, it’s displacing a No. 2 hitter option that offers a name brand but not the production. If Saladino himself becomes the No. 2 hitter, well, then, all is lost again.

Lead Image Credit: Brad Penner // USA Today Sports Images

Perhaps a close second in terms of perplexing calls would have been having the career 5.4 walks per nine innings Kahnle intentionally walk two batters in a row to load the bases, but that only adds to the disconnect between the leverage of the situation, and the personnel involved.

Personnel that was promptly demoted Monday for outfield depth, as Kahnle was the eighth guy in an unnaturally large eight-man bullpen.

2. J.B. Shuck is that outfield depth, coming up and starting in Monday’s affair in New York after Austin Jackson was bothered by turf toe in Sunday’s series finale in Kansas City. Jackson not going straight to the disabled list is some mild comfort, but he was hitting .293/.356/.391 in May and finally was providing a viable No. 2 hitter option for Ventura, who for the most part has simply refused to condense the top of his order rather than persist with the massive hole at the front of it.

It’s of interest that Shuck is going straight to center field, since through last year, I considered him a tweener similar to Adam Eaton, who could be passable in center but exceptional in a corner. Eaton has seemingly gone from shifting to right field to accommodate a superior defender to entrenched, where they would rather set an inferior defender in center than move Eaton at all.

3. Robin Ventura as an in-game manager reads pretty similar to how he did in 2012. He shades traditional in his approach, leading to his quixotic approach for a No. 2 hitter “type” over No. 2 hitter production, and his bullpen use tends to be tedious and tinkering. He can at times seem focused on using secondary options and resting his best arms, so that he reacts too slowly when crisis breaks out like Friday, but also is committed enough to how a close and late game and save opportunities work to have a lot of three days in a row workloads for his elite guys. The same guy who used five pitchers to flip-flop handedness in the seventh inning Friday, once used Addison Reed in six-straight games in August of a 99-loss season.

But even setting tactics aside, while Ventura’s job is very nuanced, and his defenders would cite his unmeasurable poise and control of the clubhouse, there are some objective results he is challenged to deliver, and they have not been there. Even ceding 2013 and 2014 as rebuilding years, a 2015 season with high expectations cratered on his watch, the veteran-stocked division leaders for most of 2012 lost their ability to hit in the clutch at the worst possible time, and his current group is on a disastrous 4-14 stretch. If the work we can’t see Ventura doing is unable to prevent cascading failure from consuming the team, what is it delivering?

4. One hot weekend has been enough to push Tyler Saladino (.269/.282/.388) and his one walk all season ahead of Jimmy Rollins (.231/.288/.343).

So, play Saladino.

First of all, Saladino’s defense was already superior to the point where Rollins needed to be significantly superior with the bat to justify starting him. If anything, Saladino’s athleticism in the field and post-Tommy John surgery arm strength has exceeded expectations. Second, Rollins is not someone the Sox should wait on. His benefit to the team was to be someone who could provide immediate competence in case Saladino could not improve on last year, and serve as a stopgap while they waited on Tim Anderson, but waiting out slumps and slow starts of 37 year-olds is a losing game the Sox should not play.

5. To end on a positive note, Miguel Gonzalez delivered his second-straight solid start against the Royals on Friday night, and deserved a better final line than he wound up getting. He ate up 12.1 innings over his last two outings without any walks–albeit against the Royals, but then again success against the Royals probably means they should take DNA samples from his and splice it with the rest of the roster–and he has enough stuff to be just fine as a No. 4 or No. 5 starter if he fills up the zone and doesn’t create any additional problems for himself. He should be off the rotation chopping block, which means Mat Latos is on it.

Lead Image Credit: Kevin Jalraj // 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

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1. The Yankees entered the game hitting just .245/.325/.358 against left-handed pitching, so combine that with facing Sale and this is what one would expect. Sale completely mowed down this lineup, allowing just one run on six hits with six strikeouts. His one mistake was to Chase Headley,  who crushed a fastball into the left field seats. It was just his second home run and extra-base hit of the year, and they came on back-to-back days. He is also now 6-for-12 against Sale. Baseball is weird. Sale retired 24 of 28 batters after the Headley home run — including 15 straight at one point — to notch the complete game. He’s good, guys.

2. The offense was clicking, and it was against a pitcher who is at risk of being sent back to Triple-A. The Sox started the scoring in the second after Brett Lawrie led off with a double and Alex Avila knocked him home with a double of how own with one out. Jose Abreu came up with the bases loaded after an Austin Jackson walk and Adam Eaton single, and hit a single that brought in two more.

3. The fatal blows were delivered in the following inning, and it was all with two outs: Avila singled and Jackson walked, then Eaton hit an RBI double after Aaron Hicks ran a terrible route in center field to allow the ball to go over his head. Then Jimmy Rollins hit a two-run moonshot, and Severino was out of the game. The bigger concern for the Yankees, however, is that the 22-year-old gripped his right arm, and now he’s going for an MRI. Yikes. Nonetheless, the White Sox took care of business against a struggling starter. Offenses that want to be above-average need to do that.

4. The offense didn’t hit a lick after the Rollins home run, as Nick Goody, Chasen Shreve, and Kirby Yates tossed six scoreless innings in relief, allowing just two hits and three walks. If there was a time for the Sox offense to go into cruise control, that would be the ideal time.

5. This was an easy victory, one that is welcome after the Sox dropped two of the three to Rangers. We knew going into this series that it would be Sale and Jose Quintana facing a struggling Yankees offense, so taking advantage of that is absolutely necessary if they want to solidify themselves as a top-tier ball club. They did just that. Quintana will go Saturday afternoon at 12:05 p.m. CT; he will take on Ivan Nova, who has a 4.34 ERA on the season.

Team record: 24-12

Lead Photo Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

Rollins, who has been focused on–including here–as an undeserving occupier of the No. 2 slot, is up to .268/.323/.411 on the year with six strikeouts in 62 plate appearances. Frazier, who homered three times last week, is now at .224/.294/.461 despite a .218 BABIP. Both batting lines grade out as above-average overall.

None of this commentary should be construed as a full-throated endorsement–though Frazier certainly looks comfortable and fine, and Rollins’ early contact and power rates are very encouraging–but a reflection of how early in the season this is and how quickly “slow starts” are washed away. Rollins had 20-percent of his hits for the season Monday night, and naturally his stat line did a backflip. Accordingly, we should expect personnel assessments to be based on look and feel rather than numbers at this point.

Jon Heyman reported Monday that Frazier was understandably seeking to stay with the Reds up until his final departure this offseason, and put the negotiations for an extension around the seven-year, $100 million range. Frazier is a borderline All-Star until his peak ends, but I’m not sold on him after 2017, when his on-base issues could become more pronounced and his defense will slowly lose the ability to make up the value.

2. There’s no great clarity on Miguel Gonzalez‘s future with the team after his underwhelming–but still promising in moments–White Sox debut Monday night. Ventura’s emphasis on how the move functioned to give an extra day of rest for the rotation screams “spot start,” but Gonzalez clearly showed superior raw stuff to John Danks and braved a lion’s den in Toronto, and scrutiny being placed on Danks at all is an eye-opening turn of events.

If pressed, I would say Gonzalez seems more likely to have the slot by the second half, but it’s unclear how much they will try to string that process along, or how they will be able to string it along before something definitive has to happen.

3. There are a lot of raw deals in the difficult world of baseball. Having your back lock up on you while warming up for your major league debut is among the worst I have heard this season. Not only did catcher Kevan Smith miss his major league debut with back spasms, but post-game reports have him likely to join Alex Avila on the disabled list. That would almost undoubtedly prompt the promotion of Hector Sanchez, who would need to be added to the 40-man (bringing it to 39), but he at least offers passable defense and five years of MLB experience, offset by a career .227 TAv.

Robin Ventura said the situation has led him to the point of emphasizing caution to Dioner Navarro:

Ventura told C Dioner Navarro ‘don’t try to beat anything out. He was the only guy I ever said ‘don’t run hard, don’t pull anything”’

-Daryl Van Schouwen

Navarro has at least obliged by beginning to hit a bit since this became a full-time job. He has a three-game hitting streak (baby steps) and clocked a ground-rule double Monday night, but in general this situation is crazy tenuous and why catcher might be a position the Sox are searching for mid-season, kicking tires on Derek Norris and Jonathan Lucroy and whatnot.

But if you think the Sox catching situation is rough, think of the poor Charlotte Knights.

4. The Chicago Tribune’s Jared Hopkins reports Jose Abreu paid $5.8 million during his rookie season to smugglers responsible for aiding his defection from Cuba. The information is coming out because two of Abreu’s former agents, Bart Hernandez and Julio Estrada, are being indicted for, surprise, human trafficking-related charges and allegedly falsifying government documents in the effort of establishing residency for Cuban free agents. The Tribune notes that Estrada specifically, has played a role in keeping the story of Abreu’s defection out of the press.

Abreu unsurprisingly declined comment, but it doesn’t look like there is any momentum to charge him for his involvement in what appears to be a multi-layered criminal operation. There certainly isn’t much public interest in seeing Abreu prosecuted for obvious reasons, but also he was a passive participant without many alternative options for defection, and his goals–immigrate to America, generate a ton of revenue–have no real victims unless you count pitchers in the AL Central. That said, such nuance and understanding is not usually lent to the subjects in human trafficking rings that are not All-Star first basemen.

5. Matt Albers’ scoreless streak is at 30 games, and he’s feeling himself just a bit right now. [NSFW]

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