There are logical arguments to be made for trading either or both. That’s an argument for another day. However, while Rick Hahn indicated at this week’s GM meetings in Orlando that the White Sox are in no rush to part with either of them, their respective values on the trade market are going to be a source of speculation throughout the winter. So with that in mind, here are a three teams who could, hypothetically, feel the need to acquire one of them.

Jose Abreu

• The Colorado Rockies have always seemed like the most obvious landing spot. During the White Sox Winter Purge of 2016, they were rumored to be interested in making a deal for him, but instead foolishly threw $70 million over five years at Ian Desmond — who had never played first base before — and he promptly put up a 73 OPS+. The Rockies made the playoffs anyway, because baseball. Desmond’s contract and the Rockies seeming unwillingness to part with prospects would be a hang up, of course, as would the presence of prospect Ryan McMahon, a third baseman who is blocked at third by some guy named Nolan Arenado. The Rockies’ desire to acquire Abreu would ultimately depend on how willing they are to go “all-in” after a surprising playoff appearance in 2017.
• The Seattle Mariners got similarly poor production out of their first basemen in 2017. They entered the season with a first base platoon of Danny Valencia and my large adult son Dan Vogelbach, and after that flopped they acquired Yonder Alonso, who fell back to worth after a surprisingly All-Star worthy first half in Oakland and is now a free agent. The Mariners have the longest active playoff drought in baseball and Dealin’ Jerry DiPoto is about the only general manager out there more active than Hahn, but the major hangup here would be Seattle’s barren farm system.
• The Boston Red Sox got a surprisingly productive season out of Mitch Moreland at first base in 2017, but he’s a free agent and the team is starving for power. The Red Sox, of course, are recently familiar trading partners with the White Sox. They’re also a rich team that may be more apt to spend their money on the market instead of parting with more prospects. That’s not to say Dave Dombrowski wouldn’t, if he and Hahn found a mutual agreement. But the odds seem long.

Avisail Garcia

• The Oakland Athletics have already been rumored to be interested in Garcia, a move that would seem logical in a “nobody ever knows what the hell the A’s are thinking” sense. Oakland has been in “Are they rebuilding? OK they’re definitely rebuilding. But maybe they’re trying to win now, too?” mode for a few years now, so all bets are off in guessing what Billy Beane could be up to.
• The Toronto Blue Jays are seemingly set to watch Jose Bautista leave in free agency, an outcome that would leave a gapping hole in right field. Garcia would be a logical replacement if they’re willing to part with prospects. With Kendrys Morales entrenched at DH despite a poor 2017, however, there wouldn’t be another spot for Garcia in the event that his already shaky defense continues to be an issue.
• The San Francisco Giants are coming off a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year in a season where many had them pegged for the playoffs. With the likelihood that they move Hunter Pence out of a full-time role, right field would be a spot they would presumably target to upgrade as they look to put 2017 behind them. The Giants, like the Red Sox, seem more likely to upgrade their roster with money rather than via trade, and a National League landing spot is less ideal for Garcia given his DH-ness. Besides, could you imagine him patrolling that right field?

There are other potential landing spots, of course, but IF Hahn finds himself inclined to move either player, the market is likely the biggest obstacle to overcome. I mentioned in both the Red Sox and Giants bullet points that those teams are more likely to upgrade their positions of need with money rather than via trades, but the same could be said for most any team.

Abreu and Garcia both hold value of their own, of course, but why trade valuable prospects for them when you could throw money at a Eric Hosmer, Carlos Santana, Logan Morrison, Lorenzo Cain, Jay Bruce, etc.? Because of both the market and, in Abreu’s case, his non-quantifiable value to the clubhouse, the odds are that both likely stay in Chicago. But if teams fall short of their goals in free agency, things could change quickly.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

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

Sunday, Sale made his 16th start of the year, again versus the Blue Jays. Of course, Sale’s year has been very different so far, and though his run prevention has been great he has yet to record a double-digit strikeout game. For one day, however, Sale mirrored 2015. While he could not finish what he started, he once again allowed only two runs on two solo shots as the Sox won 5-2. The win is Sale’s 13th, the most in the majors.

1. In a year that has been frequently characterized by the Sox offense “fixing” pitchers that had been struggling (including Matt Harvey and Dallas Keuchel earlier this year), the White Sox touched up a struggling Marcus Stroman, getting four runs (and working four walks) against the young righty in five innings.

2. After hitting seven solo home runs Saturday, the White Sox hit two more, making each of their last 10 of the single-RBI category, all of which were hit by players other than Todd Frazier and Jose Abreu. While ideally the Sox would have players on base when they hit home runs, this seems much more of a fluke than a trend that will continue, and at the very least it’s been encouraging to see power from people other than Abreu and Frazier.

3. For the second straight day, Tim Anderson deposited a home run into the left field bleachers. Anderson, who now has a White Sox-leading .493 slugging percentage (min. 50 PAs), has displayed serious pop so far in his career despite a slight frame. There are still obvious flaws — Anderson has yet to take a walk while striking out in almost one-third of his plate appearances — but he has displayed much of what made him a Top 20 BP prospect.

4. Despite winning five of seven against two strong AL East teams in the Red Sox and Blue Jays this week, the White Sox actually lost ground on the first place Indians, who won all six of their games this week (after sweeping the Sox last weekend).

5. The White Sox now sit exactly .500 heading into a week where they will face the scuffling Minnesota Twins before heading to Houston to face the Astros. In an AL that is pretty center-heavy for the most part, a strong week could put the White Sox right with the glut of teams vying for the league’s two wild card spots.

Team Record: 38-38

Next Game: Tuesday at 7:10 p.m. against the Minnesota Twins.

Lead Photo Credit: Caylor Arnold-USA TODAY Sports

Somehow, that’s what happened on Saturday as the Sox took a host of Toronto pitchers deep seven times — all of the solo variety — but still fell short in a 10-8 defeat.

Miguel Gonzalez vs. R.A. Dickey essentially turned into a round of batting practice for White Sox and Blue Jays hitters, but Dickey came out the better as, despite four of the solo home runs coming off of him, he only allowed three other baserunners while Toronto strung together multi-run efforts against the inconsistent Gonzalez, who spent his afternoon missing over the heart of the plate. Doing that against the Blue Jays’ juggernaut offense usually spells disaster.

Gonzalez has done his part to earn the No. 5 spot in the White Sox rotation, but his inability to consistently hit his spots is the reason he’s now sandwiched a six-inning, one-earned run effort around a pair of clunkers, Saturday’s being an eight-run, five and third-inning outing in which he walked more hitters (3) than he struck out (2).

He dug himself into an early hole when, after retiring Ezequiel Carrera to lead off the game, he allowed five-straight batters to reach as Toronto scored three quick runs, punctuated by three-straight doubles by Edwin Encarnacion, Michael Saunders and Troy Tulowitzki. The damage could have been worse if not for Toronto running into an out at the plate on a nice J.B. Shuck-Brett Lawrie rally.

The 3-0 deficit quickly grew in the bottom of the second when, after Gonzalez walked No. 9 hitter and Dickey Personal Catcher Josh Thole (two of the three walks Gonzalez issues were to Thole), he missed badly on an 89-mph slider over the middle of the plate and Devon Travis crushed it for a two-run homer.

The bottom of the White Sox order was up to the task against Dickey, however, and the five-run deficit quickly became two in the bottom half of the frame when Lawrie, Dioner Navarro and Shuck went back-to-back-to-back, the first time the Sox hit three-straight homers in a game since 2009.

Dickey’s knuckleball was unhittable at times, and made some batters (hello, Tim Anderson) look downright foolish, but when he rolled one, Sox hitters took advantage with four solo home runs, the fourth being Lawrie’s second homer of the game in the bottom of the fourth inning.

The deficit kept growing as Gonzalez struggled, however, as prior to the fourth solo shot of the day, the Blue Jays tacked on another three runs in the top of the fourth when he walked Josh Donaldson with the bases loaded and Encarnacion dropped a two-run single over the head of Lawrie to score a pair.

Toronto’s offense from that point stalled despite the depleted Gonzalez failing to get through six innings. Chris Beck and Dan Jennings combined to throw 2.2 innings of shutout baseball in relief. That lull allowed the Sox to make the game interesting as the fireworks continued, with Anderson taking Drew Storen deep and DH-for-some-reason Alex Avila doing the same to Jason Grilli. Again, both solo homers.

The only non-homer run the Sox scored on the afternoon was an RBI single by Lawrie in the sixth. The homers and effort by Beck and Jennings brought the score to 8-7, but that’s where things unraveled, as Toronto’s offense touched up Michael Ynoa for two insurance runs in the top of the ninth to basically deflate all hopes of a comeback attempt. Adam Eaton’s solo shot in the bottom of the ninth — which tied a franchise record — didn’t make a difference.

Deflating is a good word for the game as a whole. Too often this season (and, really, over the last several years) have we seen solid pitching performances go for naught as the offense slumbered. On Saturday, the offense had one of its best efforts of the season, only to see the pitching finally succumb to a Toronto team it had fared well against through the first four meetings of the season.

Seven home runs and a loss? Unthinkable. The White Sox keep coming up with new ways to surprise.

Team Record: 37-38

The next game is at 1:10 p.m. Sunday against Toronto on WGN, with Chris Sale set to take on Marcus Stroman.

Lead Photo Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Facing Toronto’s young gun Aaron Sanchez and throwing out a J.B. Shuck, Avisail Garcia and Tyler Saladino bottom of the order meant the Sox needed some standout, step up performances.

They got them, in a way that made it surprising these type of night haven’t come to them more.

1. Carlos Rodon still doesn’t look particularly smooth. He lost his release point and rhythm on multiple occasions, needed frequent discussions with his catcher to settle himself, and crucially balked (or is better said, was called for a balk) that pushed Michael Saunders along to second, and he would eventually score on a two-out infield single by a diving-into-first Kevin Pillar. He would only make it through five and two-thirds innings and left the game tied.

But when he was pointed toward home, Rodon stuff was easy and electric. He sat mid-to-high 90s with a low effort delivery, had his wipeout slider running so well he barely touched the change all night, got 14 swinging strikes and struck out a season-high eight for the second start in a row.

He made his mistakes per usual, but Rodon’s best stuff was untouchable, and that’s why he stayed bolted into this rotation even through the worst of it.

2. Filling in as the lineup lynchpin, Melky Cabrera continued his hot streak and finished a triple short of the cycle. Only his go-ahead solo shot that golfed a hanging Sanchez curveball out to right in the fifth wound up factoring in the score.

3. Scuffling trade acquisitions Todd Frazier and Brett Lawrie filled in the rest of the void. Lawrie collected three hits, the second of which pushed Alex Avila along, to where he could eventually score off an Avisail Garcia RBI groundout in the fourth.

With two outs in the seventh, after Tim Anderson failed to scoot home from third on a diving stop made by Edwin Encarnacion with one out, Frazier, who came in the night batting .131 with runners in scoring position for the year, banged his second single of the night to left field with two outs to score Anderson and put the Sox up 3-2 to stay.

4. The Sox came into the night with a short pen, worn out from their 10-inning finale in Boston Thursday, and needed to find away to cover 10 high-leverage outs. It will be a dicey game going forward, but Robin Ventura played it as well as he could Friday. He stuck Nate Jones to face the meat of the order in the seventh, and stuck Zach Duke at the start of the eighth to take out Saunders, and was rewarded when he pitched over a one-out walk to deliver a clean inning.

5. Handing a one-run lead in the ninth to his closer, David Robertson, the difficult decisions were over for the night for Ventura, but the stress was only beginning.

After getting his first out on one pitch, Robertson was a centimeter away from striking out pinch-hitter Darwin Barney on a diving curve. After some confusion on whether it was a live ball, a review found that Barney tipped the ball, but it became academic when the veteran utility man came back to work a walk. Ezequiel Carrera followed up by lining a single to left, and all of sudden Robertson had gone from cruising to putting on baserunners for the heart of the vaunted Blue Jay order.

Josh Donaldson grounded a hot smash to third that Saladino stayed in front of, but blocked too far away from himself to see it initially, or gather it in time to tag Barney at third. In a true white-knuckle moment, Robertson blew a 3-2 fastball by Encarnacion for the second out, and celebrated his 100th career save when Saunders went hunting early and sprayed a weak flare to Anderson to end it.

Team Rec0rd: 37-37

Lead Image Credit: Matt Marton // 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

Estrada was hesitant to discuss the extent of his soreness other than he expects to keep pitching without interruption, so at this point it does not seem like a leading AL East contender necessarily broke one of their most reliable starters to duck a putrid bullpen, but it was a reminder of how success can force other teams. Last year, Chris Sale‘s strikeout wave forced the Jays into an ineffectual aggressive attack against him, and he and Jose Quintana, and even Mat Latos will not go much farther without teams trying to alter their approach, but maybe things will get weirder. Perhaps the Sox seventh inning heroics will push team to take away the soft underbelly between their tiring starter and the non-elite members of their bullpen, where the Sox have frequently chosen to strike.

2. Put Josh Donaldson‘s post-game comment to SportsNet in the “Jose Quintana May Still Be Underrated” file.

“Quintana was locating today. But honestly, I don’t feel like there should be a left-handed pitcher, especially two days in a row, who should be able to go through our lineup like that,” Donaldson said. “We need to reevaluate some things.

“I think some people need to evaluate their approach. Chris Sale’s Chris Sale. But we have a lot of big time right-handed bats in this lineup that should be able to handle Quintana,” Donaldson continued. “He’s had a good start to the season. But it looked to me like he was throwing a lot of heaters. And I don’t believe there’s anybody that should be able to come in through here and throw a lot of fastballs and have that kind of success he had against us.”

To be fair, confidence and high personal standards are a good thing, and Donaldson is the reigning AL MVP for a team that nearly scored 900 runs last season AND he reached base all three times versus Quintana Wednesday night. There are legitimate reasons for Donaldson to be miffed, but he might be making wrongheaded assumptions about Quintana’s fastball. It’s not a weak contact or strike-grabbing pitch, it’s a putaway pitch that he sits 90-94 mph with great extension and run.

His signature move is going up the ladder with his heater to get whiffs, but he put it on the hands of right-handers or painted the outside edge with equal measure Wednesday. He definitely had a particularly successful night, but he has the seventh-highest whiff per swing rate on his four-seam fastball (minimum 100 pitches) in all of baseball this season. If anyone was going to dominate this Jays lineup with heaters, Quintana would be one of the most likely candidates.

3. Chris Sale, the guy intentionally throttling down his fastball to grab strikes early in the count, is still 10th in baseball in whiff/swing rate with his four-seamer, which is pretty amazing since his slider and changeup are both wipeout pitches on their own. Less amazing is Mat Latos‘ place on this list of 93 qualified pitchers.

It is 93rd. His whiff/swing rate on his four-seam fastball is 0.00%.

We all knew that Latos has been opportunistic with his run prevention so far, but this heightens up scrutiny on him getting his slider and overhand curveball working, because this is post-shoulder surgery Freddy Garcia levels of bat missing with his fastball early on.

4. Daniel Webb has been called up to the big club, replacing Miguel Gonzalez, who has been optioned back down after an uneven spot start. Webb, though just 26, has established an exhaustive (and exhausting) reputation for having no command of his promising raw stuff. It’s not Webb’s fault that his very presence is a callback to the bad old days of the Sox bullpen, but given that the Sox spent time in the offseason stacking depth to move Webb down in the pecking order–most notably Tommy Kahnle, who is outperforming Webb so far at Triple-A Charlotte (12 strikeouts, three walks and a 3.00 ERA in nine innings)–this is likely a highly temporary detail as the Sox continue to carry an extra arm.

5. CSN Chicago’s Jeff Nuich tweeted out that the White Sox broadcast peaked at 115,000 homes, their highest CSN rating in over two years. There’s no doubt that figure helped by the Blackhawks and Bulls both ending their seasons early and the Cubs being rained out, but as Crain’s Danny Ecker noted the Sox being dead-last in baseball in TV ratings means they regularly averaged under 30,000 viewers on a given night, so blowing away that average is meaningful. Moreover, actually having a good showing on this rare opportunity for a larger platform is as important as the ratings bump–however temporary–itself.

It’s all revenue in other people’s pockets, but a stable build up alongside some actual sustained success could eventually change how the White Sox do business.

Lead Photo Credit: John E. Sokolowski – USA Today Sports Images

1. Quintana was not at his very sharpest, walking three and putting runners in scoring position in four of his six innings of work, but was certainly at his most electrifying. Trying to paint the corners with everything isn’t the most efficient way to get through a night, but Quintana struck out 10 Blue Jays hitters by dialing up his best velocity and nailing impossible spots in seemingly impossible situations.

After a Josh Donaldson double in the first inning, Quintana struck out Jose Bautista looking. In the third inning, with runners on first and second, he blew away Bautista with back-to-back fastballs up top, and in the fifth inning, right after Donaldson had reached base and put the potential go-ahead run on second, Quintana dropped a curve on the corner to end the frame and whiff the Blue Jays slugger a third time. Bautista’s plate appearances summed up the night on the whole. When Quintana needed a strikeout, he reached back and got it, no matter who was up.

2. Yet as Quintana turned the game over into the seventh, he was stuck in a 0-0 duel with Jays starter Marco Estrada, who was still shoving past 100 pitches despite looking like he was dealing with shoulder discomfort. But with the way the Jays bullpen has been betraying him all month, manager John Gibbons apparently felt the better route was giving his starter all the rope he could handle. One strike away from seven clean innings, Estrada’s 118 pitch of the night was roped into the right-center gap for a two-run triple by none other than everyday catcher Dioner Navarro, who had not tripled since 2012.

3. Austin Jackson, finally showing major signs of life in Toronto with a two extra-base hits, immediately provided insurance in the seventh with a triple to the right-center gap of his own to drive in Navarro, and added a walk. Jackson’s hitting just .239/.292/.343, but his OPS has jumped up 200 points in four games.

4. Baseball’s stingiest bullpen slightly decreased their runs allowed average with three shutout frames. Zach Duke has now given full scoreless innings in five of his last six times out, and Nate Jones and David Robertson both sport ERAs under 1.00. Robertson working with a four-run lead was unusual, since he worked three-straight days up until Tuesday night, but he likely was already warming before Avisail Garcia‘s RBI single in the top of the ninth.

5. The White Sox have won six in a row, just swept two 2015 playoff teams in a row, have recorded five shutouts in their first 22 games, have scored 23 runs in the seventh inning this season, and their 16-6 record puts them on pace with the 2005 team. There are surely more of these if we look but this will do for now.

Lead Image Credit: John E. Sokolowski // USA Today Sports Images

Team Record: 16-6

Next game is Thursday at 6:05pm CT at Baltimore on CSN.

The offensive surge isn’t something Jose Quintana is used to pitching in front of. The White Sox scored five runs in his last start, but he took it upon himself to allow zero to the Rangers anyway. Quintana is the second Sox pitcher to appear in the top 25 for cFIP in all of baseball and currently has the best FIP in the AL thanks in large part to his stinginess with free passes.

Marco Estrada is making his fourth start of the season, and he’s only allowed one home run thus far – impressive given that his other three starts have occurred in Toronto, Boston, and Baltimore. He’s been striking out a ton of hitters, much more than has been his practice in the past. His cutter usage has also increased for the season, a pitch that he’s getting a 13.33 percent whiff rate on, which represents a jump from the 4.20 percent he got with it last season.

White Sox Lineup:

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

Blue Jays Lineup:

1. Michael Saunders – LF
2. Josh Donaldson – DH
3. Jose Bautista – RF
4. Edwin Encarnacion – 1B
5. Troy Tulowitzki – SS
6. Matt Dominguez – 3B
7. Russel Martin – C
8. Kevin Pillar – CF
9. Ryan Goins – 2B

Lead Photo Credit: Dan Hamilton – USA Today Sports Images

His fastball in his last two times out has been a solid four miles per hour slower than even his Opening Day start, his slider has dropped by the same magnitude while he’s switched to a loopy slurve that didn’t get any swings and misses Tuesday, and his strikeout rate has dropped eight percent from last season’s reign as king of whiffs in the AL.

It could also be the best month of his career. It’s the first five-win month of his career, which is ephemeral, but since he’s averaging more than seven innings per start, Sale has more impact on the decisions than most.

Superficially, Sale is getting all the luck that eluded him last year. Even Philip Humber in 2011 rode rock bottom BABIP and high strand rates longer than Sale has so far without getting written up breathlessly. The difference is whether it can still be trusted that Sale has the whiffs in his back pocket when he needs them. He pops out top velocity (touched 96 mph Tuesday) and ramps it up over the start enough to keep the faith, and if 99 out of 100 pitchers would simply be grappling with physical decline rather than giving a feint to the entire league, the 100th would be Chris Sale.

2. Sale pumped in first strikes to 21 of 29 hitters Tuesday night, using a lot of low-90s fastballs early in the count against the Blue Jays lineup that’s one of the least aggressive in baseball so far in 2016. That’s one of the largest hints of how he was acting on his preseason goals for more efficiency, but Adam Eaton also threw out a quote that was a bit more provocative than the usual ‘this team is great’ fare.

“He has a chance to throw a no-hitter every night. He has that type of stuff,’’ Eaton said. “I definitely think his mentality has changed this year and that has to do with the catching. [With] Navarro and Alex [Avila], he seems not to get mad as much. He stays on task.’’

Sale had nothing but praise for Tyler Flowers, but that has little impact on the outside perception of Flowers’ ability to rein Sale in. Recently, Sale’s outings are too low stress for this principle to really get a workout, but it’s something to watch for the rest of the season.

3. Yesterday’s note about it still being early enough to flip a batting line with a few hot games certainly applies to Avisail Garcia, who vaulted his OPS more than 150 points just by having four hits over the last two games, including slapping a lifeless R.A. Dickey knuckler to the moon Tuesday night (and promptly getting a very eager free pass his next time up).

Garcia hasn’t done anything in the last two days that he hasn’t done before (spray singles to right field, swat hangers), but if the conversion rate on the things he can do was higher, he probably wouldn’t have people suggesting he be demoted. An Avisail Garcia full of limitations but being excellent at the things he’s capable of is not a foolish thing to hope for and can probably at least fight off Jerry Sands for playing time. The Sox’ ridiculously hot start will still ratchet up the scrutiny on Garcia either way, especially since DH help will be the easiest to find.

4. Hector Sanchez is now with the big club after injuries felled Alex Avila and Kevan Smith, and it would stand to reason that he would get into a game soon, since Dioner Navarro, of 32 years on this Earth, parts of 13 seasons in the majors and 921 games, has appeared in parts of the last six games in a row.

Navarro has been looking increasingly hitterish since working regularly, going 5-for-10 with two home runs and two walks in the last four games. Returns against right-handed pitching can probably be expected to diminish when the opposition is not a bad knuckleballer who can’t break 80 mph, though.

5. Zach Putnam worked the ninth inning of Tuesday’s blowout, striking out the side with his usual recipe of “Here, try to hit my insane splitter.” He threw splitters on 10 of his 13 pitches, and half of those 10 went for a swing and miss.

That actually dragged down his whiff percentage for a pitch he throws roughly three out of every five times on average (he gets whiffs on ~56 percent of swings). His success is … odd. That Putnam is striking out more than 30 percent of hitters again is actually a repeat of last season, but he was hurt down the stretch of 2015 and finished with a 4.07 ERA despite a flashy 64 strikeouts in 48.2 innings. Putnam’s one dimensional nature is hysterical to watch — everything we know about the complexities of pitching makes a guy throwing the same nasty tumbler over and over and getting major leaguers out absurd — but it also serves to make him more volatile. Naturally, if he comes out and doesn’t have his splitter working, he’s a tomato can and your first hint of such is typically a ball rocketing over the fence.

It would still be nice to see him get more high-leverage work due to just how useful a reliever with no real platoon split, a high strikeout rate and a pitch built to induce grounders can be in U.S. Cellular Field.

Lead Image Credit: Dan Hamilton // USA Today Sports Images