Sox 6 Cubs 2 -Andale, Andale, Uribe!

Both pitchers gave up their customary big innings, and they both came in the first. After that, Sox and Cubs fans were treated to a nice pitcher's dual with John Garland getting the better of Sean Marshall.

The highlight of Garland's afternoon came in the sixth inning. He did a great job of fighting through a jam with two men on. He went right to work busting the Cubs inside with fastballs. His battle with Ronny Cedeno was one of the best of the season. Cedeno repeatedly fouled off his inside attempts, but Jon never gave in and left one over the plate. If he had pitched like this all season, Ozzie would have been able to name him to the All-Star team.

The hitting star for the Sox was Juan Uribe. Juan was 3 for 4 with 5 RBI and his ninth homerun in the eighth inning. After a terrible first two months of the season, Juan is starting to come around and has carried the Sox at times over the past couple weeks. This is not surprising since Juan is a notoriously streaky hitter.

6/30 What To Look For: Sox/Cubs Edition

Probable Starters: John Garland (6-3, 5.76) vs. Sean Marshall (4-6, 5.13)

As everyone knows, John Garland has had trouble with big innings and homeruns. In his last start, he gave up 5 earned runs and 8 hits over 5 innings. He has shown good control this year giving up 24 walks over 95.1 innings pitched. The key for him is to use the whole strike zone, including the inner half, and to avoid hanging his breaking pitch.

The Cubs are starting a rookie, Sean Marshall. Marshall pitched very well for the Cubs early on and was 3-1 at one point. However, he is 1-5 since then. The White Sox struggled with lefties during the first two months of the season, but they seem to have rectified that problem. Marshall has not lasted longer than 5 innings in 3 weeks and has only done so in 7 of his 15 starts. Marshall is 0-4 with a 6.75 ERA in day games, but he is 2.2 with a 3.12 ERA at home. Lefties hit just .191 against Sean Marshall. I have seen Marshall pitch several times this year, and he is similar to Garland. Both are prone to big innings.

Politte Polite To Pirates

Cliff Politte returned from the DL and pitched about the same as he did before he went on it, terribly. He managed to retire the Pirates in order in the eighth despite getting hit hard. In the ninth, he allowed a walk-off homerun to Freddy Sanchez. It was a typical Politte outing in 2006.

The worst part was that he wasted Jim Thome's late inning heroics. The Sox were trailing 6-4 in the eighth inning with one out. Rob Mackowiak smoked a line drive base hit to left field while pinch hitting for Brian Anderson. The, Ozzie Guillen sent Thome to the plate to pinch hit for pitcher Neil Cotts. Roberto Hernandez started Thome off with a fastball, and Thome jumped all over it. He nailed it into the Allegheny River. It was a moon shot despite being hit in the mid-afternoon.

However, it was all for naught, and we have Politte to thank for that. He had better get his stuff together because Kenny Williams is always looking to improve his team. Cliff may not be with us long at this rate.

Politte Is Back

Cliff Politte has been recalled and replaces Augustin Montero in the White Sox bullpen. Montero has been optioned to class AAA Charlotte. Politte had been in Charlotte rehabilitating an injury.

Montero pitched poorly at times for the White Sox, but he showed improvement. He looked absolutely nasty last night, and I expect him to be recalled again if a need arises.

6/29: Looking For a Sweep

Probable Starters: Jose Contreras (8-0, 3.15 ERA) vs. Zach Duke (5-7, 4.86 ERA)

Zach Duke is something of an enigma. His road ERA of 4.24 is much better than his home ERA 5.70, but his road record of 1-5 is much worse than his home record of 4-2. Duke is 1-3 with a 5.59 ERA during the day. Those numbers are not good, but he has been even worse lately. This month he is 2-1 with a 6.35 ERA. It is amazing that he manages to win games giving up that many runs, but it is probably due to the fact that PNC is a very good park for hitters.

Jose Contreras last lost a baseball game in August of 2005. He has struggled in June with a 5.57 ERA, but his ERA in day games is 2.27. On paper, this match-up is a no-brainer. The White Sox have a huge advantage today.

Sox 4 Pirates 3

It is a shame really. The franchise that gave us Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell should win a game every now and again, but tonight they had to tangle with the White Sox.

The Pirates led after 6 by a count of 3-0. Paul Maholm baffled the Sox hitters with a fastball that he liked to spot high and away and a curve that he placed down and in. However, as Sox Thoughts predicted, the Sox took some balls to right and center in the seventh, and when the dust cleared they had hung a four spot on the board. That was all she wrote for the Pirates.

Freddy Garcia gave up two long balls tonight, but he managed to give them up with no one on base. He did a good job managing the damage and picked up the win.

The bullpen held down the Pirates in the eighth and ninth with lefty Matt Thornton and right handed closer Bobby Jenks getting the call. Thornton looked unhittable, and the Pirates hitters looked clueless against him. Pirate fans are probably getting used to that look. Big, Bad, Bobby Jenks put two on with two outs but retired Jason Bay to end the game.

This leaves just one more game against Freddy Sanchez. Is that guy tough or what?

On Another Front: What was John Paxson doing trading Lamarcus Aldridge for Tyrus Thomas and some Russian dude? The trade leaves the Bulls with four small forwards, and they still have a black hole at the power forward position. I can only conclude that their must be a trade in the works that involves Nocioni or Deng. Nothing else makes much sense.

6/28: What To Look For?

Probable Starters: Pat Maholm (2-6, 4.90) vs. Freddy Garcia (9-4, 4.66)

This does not look like much of a match-up. Garcia has a lower ERA while pitching in a tougher league for pitchers. Garcia has struggled lately and has posted a 4.88 ERA in June. However, Maholm is winless this month with a 5.52 ERA.

The key in this game is for Freddy to keep the ball in the park. He has allowed 8 homeruns this month over 27.2 IP. In the exact same number of innings, he allowed 4 dingers in April. In May he only allowed 5 over 41.1 IP. His walk and hit rates have not been bad this year. He just needs to avoid the long ball. The Pirates rate sixth in the National League in homeruns so this is no easy task.

Maholm has allowed 46 walks and 138 hits over 127.2 IP. He has only allowed 10 homeruns. This suggests that Maholm is a nibler. He isn't getting enough of the plate to get hit hard, but he is walking people and giving up hits. The Sox need to stay patient and look to use the opposite field. Maholm will take care of the rest.

MLB All-Star Game Is a Sham

I used to be a big fan of the All-Star Game. However, the fan voting is ridiculous. MLB claims that they allow fans to vote because they want to be fan friendly, but that is absurd. Fans tune into the All-Star game to see the best players in the game and to see stars that they ordinarily do not get to see. As an American League fan, it used to be cool to get to watch the National League's smaller market start, like Tony Gwinn, in action. In this day and age, we are treated to to the New York/Boston Yankee Sox agains the New York Mets simply because there are more people in the northeast than the rest of the country.

Ideally, the All-Stars should be the best players in the league. It should be a remarkable accomplishment to make the team, and it should be awe inspiring to watch such a collection of talent on the field. That point has been lost somewhere.

One quick look at the American League's leading hitters shows how insane the voting has become. Joe Maurer is leading the American League in hitting at .389. After clicking through the league leaders on baseballreference.com, I do not believe that an American League catcher has ever led the league in hitting. The last National League cather to do it was Ernie Lomabardi back in 1942. Clearly, Maurer is on pace to have one of the greatest seasons of all time. Hitting for that kind of average while catching every day is remarkable.

However, Maurer is not one of the stars of baseball. At least, he is not if the American League's All-Star voting is to believed. Maurer is in third place and has a mere 1,004 vote lead on fourth place. The leader is Boston's Jason Varitek. Varitek is hitting .250 this year with 7 homeruns and 36 RBI. In other words, the league's leading hitter is over 200,000 votes behind a guy that is hitting under the league average and does not have enough power to justify his low average.

If you could not tell by reading my blog, I am a White Sox fan and, as such, do not care for the Twins. However, even I can tell that this is unjust, and it is just one example of the farce that the All-Star voting has become. Someone needs to step in and fix this because the All-Star game has become dull and uninteresting. Bud, are you listening? This is one of the fans talking that you claim to care so much about!

Politte Set To Return

This blurb is courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times.

"FULL STRENGTH: Right-handed reliever Cliff Politte (strained shoulder) is expected to rejoin the team for the game tonight,"

Augustin Monterro will most likely be the player demoted to make room for Politte. Hopefully, Politte has regained his form during his time off. If so, this could be the best bullpen in baseball. The last two years have been amazing in that regard, especially when you consider some of the bullpens that Ron Schueler put together.

Pro-Ozzie Media?

This Mariotti thing does not seem to want to blow over. However, it is not all negative coverage of the Sox. There are those that feel Ozzie gives needed personality to baseball and should be commended for daring to say what he thinks. I have compiled a couple of the latest articles.

Telling It Like It Is -by Kevin Brewer of the Washington Post
Ditka: I like Ozzie- by Lacie J. Banks of the Sun-Times

However, the best link that I have found dealing with Jay Mariotti is the blog Jay the Joke. The name itself pretty much sums it up. In fact, I think I will place a link to that blog with the other links on this one.

Sour Grapes Anyone?

The whiney little bitches that are the Saint Louis Cardinals have accused the White Sox of stealing signs in their sweep. Whitesox.com is reporting that a Cardinals source has said, "They looked like they knew what was coming the first two nights. They looked like they had no idea [Thursday]. You figure it out." The Cardinals claim that their catcher's signals were being relayed to the Sox by the centerfield camerman.

Quite frankly, this makes no sense at all. Coming in to the series, the White Sox had scored 8 runs or more in 6 of their last 8 games. Six of those games were played on the road. Are we to believe that the cameramen for the Reds and Rangers were helping out the visitors as well, or is it possible that White Sox hitters are hot right now?

Part of the proof cited by Saint Louis is that they changed their signs in the fifth inning on Wednesday, and the White Sox stopped hitting after that. Of course, they fail to point out that they removed Jason Marquis from the game in the fifth and replaced him with Braden Looper. That couldn't have had anything to do with it. No, it must be that the White Sox were cheating. The Tigers must have been cheating last night, too. They put up ten runs last night in Saint Louis.

Here is my take. Dave Duncan and Tony Larussa were coming back to the team the fired them twenty years earlier. I am sure they want to beat the White Sox worse than most teams, and they probably feel bitter about the thrashing their team took this week. More importantly, Dave Duncan probably feels that he needs to justify his employment after his pitching staff took a beating against the White Sox. It must not have been his coaching or his pitching that lost the games. The other side must have been cheating.

We Don't Want Him Either!

Rick Morrissey wrote an excellent article criticizing Jay Mariotti. In the article, he criticized Mariotti for failing to set foot in the Sox clubhouse. Morissey said,

"I'll give Mariotti this: Whether he realizes it or not, he might have been the nation's first blogger, without actually writing one.

He has led the way by not leading the way to the locker room or the clubhouse. He writes what he wants without ever talking to a soul."

I have to take exception to this comment. We don't want him, either! There are a lot of rational, intelligent bloggers out there. Mariotti is neither. He is just a shock jock with a newspaper as his forum.

Karma Helps Freddy Out

Last year, Freddy Garcia lost a one-hitter against the Twins, 1-0, when Jaques Jones hit a solo homerun in the eighth inning. It was the only Twins hit of the night. Last night, Anthony Reyes pitched allowed only one hit, a seventh inning Jim Thome homerun, against the White Sox. Naturally, the winning pitcher was Freddy Garcia, and the White Sox won 1-0. I guess what goes around really does come around.

Guillen & Mariotti Scandle

I was not going to post on this issue. My thoughts on Jay Mariotti are that he is the news media's version of a shock jock, and that he will go away if you just ignore him. For that reason, I have ignored the hullaballoo about Ozzie Guillen's comments about him. However, with Ozzie being fined today, I feel it is time to express myself on this issue.

Ozzie Guillen should sue MLB. They have fined him for using a word that he claims has a different connotation in Venezuela. Many have opined that he should know what the word means because he has been in the US for 2.5 decades. However, I don't find it very hard to believe that he might not have fully understood the meaning of the word.

Ozzie Guillen is a non-native english speaker. He learned to speak English in baseball clubhouses, and it should be expected that his speach patterns follow the norms of the environment in which he learned the language. The word in question, "faggot," is frequently used in athletic culture to refer to someone who is weak. Please note that I am not advocating that the word is unoffensive but merely that that is the way the word is used in athletic culture. Having heard the word in that context, it is natural that a non-native english speaker would understand that to be the meaning of the word. It is quite likely that he never made the connection between that word and homosexuality. Therefore, punishing him is discriminatory against him as a minority, and I feel he should consider suing MLB for damages.

The National League is a Joke

The White Sox have defeated the Saint Louis Cardinals by score of 20-6 and 13-5 over the last two days. This follows a sweep of the Cincinatti Reds over the weekend. The Sox have now scored eight runs or more in six straight contests, with five of those games coming against the senior circuit. Last night, the AL Central was 5-0 against the NL Central, and the historically bad Royals are on a winning streak. I can only conclude that the National League is a joke.

What does this mean? It means that historical records should be taken with a grain of salt. The NL has lost the last nine All-Star Games and seven of the last 10 World Series. During that period of time, we have seen Barry Bonds, Mark MacGwire, and Sammy Sosa have historically great hitting seasons. This season, Albert Pujols was one pace to challenge Bonds's single season homerun record before being injured. What do the four sluggers have in common? They all have had their best seasons in the National League. It is no coincidence that MacGwire never came close to 70 homeruns in Oakland even though he admitted to juicing when he was there. He could not hit that many homeruns because American League pitching is just that much better than National League pitching.

There are a couple of different theories that I have for the difference in quality between the two leagues. One is the DH. National League teams rarely have a quality eighth place hitter because they know that he is usually going to be pitched around to get to the pitcher. This puts them at a disadvantage when playing against American League teams. Without the pitcher's spot coming up at the bottom of the order, AL teams are much less likely to have unproductive bats in their lineup. Last night's game was a prime example of this. The Sox scored 11 runs in the third inning. Their rally began with doubles by Joe Crede and Brian Anderson, the eight and ninth place hitters, respectively. In a National League game, the Cardinals' pitcher, Mark Mulder, likely would have been facing a .220 hitting catcher and a pitcher to lead off that inning. This would have enabled him to grab two quick outs, and the rally probably would not have happened.

Another difference between the two leagues relates to the first difference. American League teams are forced into having deeper bullpens than their NL counterparts. National League clubs can hide a bad pitcher by having him face the bottom third of the order most of the time. If an American League club were to try this, the bad pitcher would be exposed because the bottom third of an American League lineup can hit. Once again, this is due to the presence of the designated hitter rule in the AL.

However, I think the biggest difference between the two leagues is the presence of the New York Yankees. When one team in your league spends 200 million dollars on their payroll, it forces the rest of the league to find creative ways to compete. National Leagues do not have as much pressure to improve their ball clubs from year to year because there is no team in that league with pockets as deep as the Yankees. In 2005, the White Sox did not take chances on risky pitchers like Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez because they liked taking risks. They took chances on those guys because they had to be bold in order to compete. National League teams do not face that pressure within their league.

Second Base Platoon

It is starting to look like Pablo Ozuna, hitting .427 for the season, will be seeing more playing time, and it will come at Tadahito Iguchi's expense. Ozzie Guillen recently said, "Iguchi has been struggling against lefties. We might put Ozuna at second base." Ozuna has hit .440 against lefties this year and .400 against righties. Iguchi has hit .216 against lefties and .331 against righties. Ozuna would be a big improvement against left-handed pitching, and the White Sox have struggled with lefties. They are15-13 against them and a league best 27-12 against righties.

Riske Business

Wednesday evening, the White Sox swung a deal with the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox are receiving left-handed reliever Javier Lopez while the White Sox are getting right-handed set-up man David Riske. This is a big pick-up for the White Sox. Riske is 0-1 with a 3.72 ERA this year, which is pretty good in its own right. However, he actually did not pitch real well early in the season before going on the DL because of a back injury. Since being reinacted from the DL, Riske's ERA is 2.08, which is awesome. Kudos to Kenny Williams for this one.

With this deal, the main weakness of the White Sox now looks like a strength. Cliff Politte is throwing better in side sessions and should be activated early next week. When Politte is activated, the White Sox will have a bullpen of Riske, Politte, Brandon McCarthy, Neal Cotts, Matt Thornton, and Bobby Jenks. Sean Tracey has been demoted to make room for Riske, and my projection assumes that Augustin Montero will be demoted to make room for Politte. If all goes according to plan, this is one heck of a bullpen.

Mark Buehrle Pitches Better

Mark Buehrle has not pitched as well this season as he normally does. However, tonight he mowed down the Texas Rangers in the White Sox 8-2 victory. What was the difference? Velocity. For Buehrle, less is usually more. When he overthrows, he tends to lose movement. As Buehrle put it, "The harder I throw, the straighter my ball goes."

Obviously, this bodes well for the White Sox because they have struggled to put together strings of quality starts this year. If Buehrle is returning to his old form, as it appears, this means that the White Sox have two dominant starters at present in Buehrle and Jose Contreras, and two starters who are dominating some of the time in Freddy Garcia and Javier Vazquez. If they can get Garcia and Vazquez to pitch more conistently and get Jon Garland to revert to his first half of 2005 form, this will be the most dominating pitching staff in baseball. With Don Cooper as the White Sox pitching coach, you can expect bigger things from this staff later in the season.

Point of Clarification- By quality start, I do not mean the league definition of pitching at least six innings and allowing no more than three earned runs. That definition considers three runs over six as quality, and I do not consider an ERA of 4.50 to be a quality ERA. Perhaps they should change the name of that statistic to "mediocre start," which would be more accurate. An ERA of 4.50 is typically around the league minimum, and a pitcher should last through the seventh in a good start. Any pitcher who logs a "quality start" as it stands today has been mediocre at the very least.

Cintron Again?

Alex Cintron had the game winning RBI for the second consecutive game. I wonder what kind of centerfielder Kenny Williams could get for Juan Uribe?

Jose Contreras was his normally dominant self. He mowed down the kitties allowing 3 earned runs over 7 innings of work. Augustin Monterro and Neal Cotts combined to shut down Detroit in the eighth, and Big, Bad, Bobby Jenks picked up his second save in as many nights.

In addition to Cintron, the hitting stars were Smokin' Joe Crede, Big Jim Thome (they tugged on his cape again), and Jermaine Dye. Dye and Thome each hit solo homers at times when the Sox trailed by 1 run. With the game tied, Crede's single put him aboard for Cintron's heroics. It was a good piece of hitting as Smokin' Joe fouled off several pitches until he got something good to hit.

In other news, Jeff Nelson is out for the season and Cliff Politte is on the DL with shoulder soreness. Monterro and Sean Tracy been called up in their places.

Absolute Cintron!

What a game! Alex Cintron won tonight's game against Detroit Rock City with a three run blast in the eighth. Brandon McCarthy picked up the win by pitching two scoreless innings, and Big, Bad, Bobby Jenks, the baddest fish in the whole fish tank, retired the side in the ninth to pick up the save.

Prior to Cintron's heroics, the story of the night was poor execution. Jim Thome struck out in two clutch situations. In the first inning, he struck out with Podsednik on third and one out, and in the seventh he struck out with the bases loaded and one out. Alex Cintron failed to lay down a successful sacrifice bunt with two on and none out in the second, and Brian Anderson took strike three twice with men on base.

Charlotte might be a good place for Anderson at this point. His average has dipped below .160, and he drew the sombrero tonight. His third strikeout came swinging in the eighth. Kenny Williams had better be on the horn looking for a new centerfielder. Anderson looks to be a year away.

Freddy Garcia was tonight's starter, and he had a James Baldwin type start, circa 2000. He gave up three homruns, but none came with men on base. He was shaky but effective enough to keep his team in the game. Provided we can continue to get good relief pitching like we did tonight, that should be enough to win games.