If Sale’s early-game loss of command and form didn’t so closely resemble the stretches that made his 2015 so much less than the sum of its awe-inspiring parts, it could be more easily forgiven. It was Opening Day and he was amped up and overthrowing. When he started pumping in more strikes at 94 mph and snapping sliders over the outside corner, he was Sale again, and in terms of problems he could have been expected to have when he shifted to the rotation in 2012, that his stuff looks just as electric and overpowering in Year 5 is a major victory.

2. And you could almost envision a new era of a viable White Sox attack when they reeled and lit up a wild Rich Hill–he hit two of the first three batters!–in their second trip through the order.

Adam Eaton will need to slow down quickly to repeat his April slump of last year, after he reached base three times, and alternated between flashing the ability to slap through the 5-6 hole to left field and showing surprising power by blasting a triple to the Coliseum wall. Jose Abreu saw 26 pitches on the night and crushed a hanging Hill curve so hard in the third it clearly impeded Jimmy Rollins from scoring, and even Rollins himself and Austin Jackson looked hitterish in a lineup that very much needs for their bats to not be dead.

This same group went almost completely silent against the A’s bullpen, Todd Frazier‘s timing looked so off early in the night that a simple lineout to third in his last at-bat was a relief, and the Sox got picked off and popped up bunts into outs two times each. Everything they did to force the issue and initiate energy and push the defense into mistakes blew up in their face nigh immediately, which is not a good look for a team that’s spread a lot of talk about being ready to avoid their umpteenth slow start. But the good news is they don’t need to execute yet. The A’s rotation is too infirm, their defense still relies too heavily on Marcus Semien, and the Sox have enough installed major league competence to wait out the unforced errors.

3. Now that Opening Day has…opened, the Opening Day payrolls have the White Sox with the 16th-highest in MLB with roughly $113 million. A roughly median payroll is fine on its own, maybe even to be expected given how far down the Sox are in terms TV and ticket revenues. Avoiding a scorched Earth rebuild is an understandable, and in my eyes, commendable decision to maintain a decent standard of product during a period of transition. Draft spending has also been commensurate with the league, and international free agency has been trending upward after an impossibly ugly nadir.

It’s all fine, and we don’t need to call anyone “cheap” while still acknowledging that in concert, it’s all very middle of the road activity for a major league club that projects to be middle of the road and is buttressed by a middle of the road farm system. There’s some potential for overperformance, but it’s unsurprising that this all totals up to middle of the road expectations. They need a way to distinguish themselves.

4. Miguel Gonzalez’s contract does not have an opt-out date, reports Dan Hayes. He is pure, unadulterated starting pitching depth for a rotation that often can go long stretches without a natural opening for a spot start.

Mat Latos is already on a short leash as is, but right now Gonzalez is the best threat to actually provide some push from below. Given the way his Spring went, that could just be the thrill of something new. At least Rick Hahn feels good about where Gonzalez ended the year velocity-wise.

5. It’s a little early for the rotation to be in chaos, but the A’s are ahead of schedule. Sonny Gray‘s bout with food poisoning–apparently not an unusual issue for him–means old friend Chris Bassitt will go on Tuesday.

Bassitt’s nice results (3.56 ERA in 86 innings) last year made the Jeff Samardzija trade sting even more, but his 107 cFIP in 2015 sees the Sox being pretty right on in pegging him as expendable. Gray is set to pitch on Wednesday, which will spare the Sox from an encounter with another old friend. Elbow surgery for Felix Doubront–already not a great option–means Eric Surkamp (memorable for a mostly unsuccessful stint as a White Sox LOOGY) is headed to the rotation.

This A’s team was a juggernaut ticketed for a deep playoff run 18 months ago.

Lead Photo Credit: Kelley L. Cox // USA Today Sports Images

It was hardly the prettiest of victories, but wins are wins, and I’ll try my best not to pick nits after Game 1 of 162.

The entirety of Monday’s scoring came in the third inning, with the White Sox tacking putting up four runs thanks, in part, to a pair of Oakland errors. After Austin Jackson walked and advanced to third base on an errant pickoff throw by Rich Hill (Oakland’s foul territory is really spacious!), Adam Eaton tripled him home with his first of two hits on the night. After Jimmy Rollins singled home Eaton with his first hit in a White Sox uniform, Jose Abreu doubled and the White Sox brought home their final two runs of the night when Mark Canha couldn’t handle the throw to first on a grounder by Melky Cabrera.

A 4-0 lead for Chris Sale seems more than safe enough, but a shaky third inning coupled with the White Sox bats going silent made things interesting until the end. After Sale retired his seventh-straight to open the game, and third via strikeout, Stephen Vogt reached on an infield single, old friend Marcus Semien walked, and after a Billy Burns groundout advanced the runners, Jed Lowrie singled them both home. After another single by Josh Reddick, Danny Valencia drove home Oakland’s final run of the inning and, as it turns out, the game.

Sale settled down from that point on, making it through seven innings, striking out eight and walking one. Robin Ventura wound up using four relievers on the night, three to get through the eighth inning. After right-hander Jake Petricka came in to face Lowrie — and walked him — he then turned to Zack Duke to retire the left-handed Reddick. Nate Jones then entered the game and retired Valencia and Khris Davis.

David Robertson recorded his first save, walking Coco Crisp to leadoff the ninth inning before retiring the final three batters.

Some notes from a 4-3 victory:

• Sale’s shaky third inning seemed a combination of him overthrowing his fastball and some tough luck with balls in play. He didn’t allow a single extra base hit in the inning, and the only two he allowed for the game were both doubles by Billy Butler, who improved to an absurd 17-for-50 off of Sale for his career.
• Jackson bobbled a single to center during Oakland’s third-inning rally. He had an outside shot at throwing out Lowrie at the plate had he not done so, but it would have had to be perfect, thus why all three of Sale’s runs were earned.
• The White Sox had a pair of TOOTBLANs on the night. More specifically, they had a pair of runners picked off first base, as both Eaton and Brett Lawrie were thrown out at second base after jumping too early.
• The debuts: The White Sox had five guys in their Opening Day lineup who were not on the roster last year. Rollins finished 1-for-4 with an RBI, Lawrie went 1-for-4 (and was picked off after his hit), Jackson went 1-for-3 (and also drew the team’s lone walk of the night), while Todd Frazier and Dioner Navarro both went 0-for-4. Frazier struck out in his first two at-bats and finally hit the ball hard in his last at-bat, lining out to third base. Navarro tried sacrificing Lawrie after his aforementioned single and promptly popped out. He did, however, make a nice defensive play later by picking off Burns on a botched steal attempt.
• As mentioned before, the White Sox offense was mostly quiet outside of the third inning, and their lone extra-base hits both came in that frame with Abreu’s double and Eaton’s triple. No dingers like the Spring foretold, but Oakland isn’t exactly the easiest park to go yard in.
• Ventura REALLY wanted the platoon advantage in the eighth inning, and while it seems strange to use Petricka, Duke AND Jones to get three outs, the three of them combined to throw 17 pitches so I can’t imagine it affects their ability to pitch the rest of the series. Also, Jones looked great in his two-thirds of an inning of work, particularly in striking out Davis.
• Although the White Sox’s four-run third inning was defense-aided, it also knocked Hill out of the game after just 2.2 innings. Oakland’s bullpen, of course, shut down the Sox, with Fernando Rodriguez, Ryan Dull, John Axford, Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle combining to allow just four hits over the final 6.1 innings.

Record: 1-0
Up next: 9 p.m. CT Tuesday against the Athletics on WGN. Jose Quintana vs. Chris Bassitt

Lead photo credit: Kelley L Cox/USA Today

The Athletics are coming off of their worst finish since 1997, which led to them missing the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Seven trades were made during the offseason, necessary to keep pace with the heavy dealing the team was engaging in during the 2015 season. The Oakland squad has a reputation that no player is safe, and it’s earned. Every game is a tryout when you’re wearing white shoes with some variation of green and/or yellow.

Among the additions not achieved through trade is left hander Rich Hill.  Hill wasn’t expecting to pitch when he woke up today, but originally scheduled starter Sonny Gray was an afternoon scratch due to food poisoning. Hill has had a strange career trajectory. Early on he failed to live up to the expectations stemming from his overwhelming curveball. He then spent time as bullpen journeyman after being scrapped as a starter, and once he found himself successful in a handful of starts for Boston in 2015, he parlayed it into a nice free agent contract from the A’s. The success of four starts in the last five years is evidently enough to slot him in at #2 on the A’s depth chart, needing only the push of some bad fish tacos to make him an opening day starter. The world is a crazy place.

Chris Sale, predictably, is representing Chicago’s South side as the season gets underway. Sale is expected to maintain the dominance he’s shown in each of his four seasons as a starter, while the Sox are coming off of their worst season since…the season before. Which was also their worst season since the season before that. Less depressingly put: the White Sox are trending up!

2015 Chris Sale was just as devastating to hitters as he’s always been, his league leading 64 cFIP is even an improvement on previous years, but the look of his more traditional stats took a hit due to a terrible defense behind him, and of course an anemic offense that was regularly lacking in run support. The 2016 edition should benefit from some turnover. Todd Frazier at 3rd represents an improvement on both sides of the ball, and from an offensive standpoint both Jimmy Rollins and Brett Lawrie hope to represent improvements while not costing the team much on the defensive end.

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton – RF
2. Jimmy Rollins – SS
3. Jose Abreu – 1B
4. Todd Frazier – 3B
5. Melky Cabrera – LF
6. Avisail Garcia – DH
7. Brett Lawrie – 2B
8. Dioner Navarro – C
9. Austin Jackson – CF

Athletics Lineup:

1. Billy Burns – CF
2. Jed Lowrie – 2B
3. Josh Reddick – RF
4. Danny Valencia – 3B
5. Khris Davis – LF
6. Billy Butler – DH
7. Mark Canha – 1B
8. Stephen Vogt – C
9. Marcus Semien – SS

Concerns about whether or not Robin Ventura would bat Jimmy Rollins second in the batting order preceded the knowledge that Jimmy Rollins would even be the starting shortstop. You’ll hear varying schools of thought regarding the importance of lineup construction. On an any-given-game basis, it might not matter a great deal, but the idea is to accrue a higher likelihood of success over the course of a season. With that goal in mind, batting your aging middle infielder whose .285 OBP would be the lowest of any of Chicago’s 2015 regular starters (other than, oddly enough, his predecessor Alexei Ramirez, who had the same OBP) in what many would contend is one of the most important spots in the lineup is puzzling. With Mark Parent out, and Rick Renteria in as bench coach, the Sox made a specific point of announcing their intention to be more analytic from the bench. I’m not prepared to call foul before the season even starts, but in the first opportunity to show it, we see indications of the same dugout thinking that has accompanied Robin’s regime throughout.

When alluding to the lineup late last week, Ventura pre-emptively defended his decision, while at least not committing to full-time exposure in the 2-spot for his shortstop:

“He can move. Just because he’s a switch-hitter and can handle the bat, he can go to a couple of different places. Right now it looks like he’ll be [second].”

But today is not a day to get upset, at least as long as a dominant Chris Sale start doesn’t go to waste. Today is a day to rejoice. It’s the first White Sox game of a new season, and it’s the first Chris Sale Day of the season. I advise you to stay up late and enjoy it.

Photo Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports