Crying Wolf? Is that the scheme the White Sox are running? They look great one day to make believers out of all of us, only to fall apart the next day and then prompt us all to say “I told you so!”.
Everytime the Sox put together a solid 9 innings, I want to believe they’re about to get hot and start a streak and make us all eat our words. It’s a sad situation when you go 1-for-4 and it actually raises your average, and you consider that a good day. Guys like Quentin, Ramirez, AJ and Beckham would applaud a 1-for-4 performance. I know it’s not always about your batting average, it’s what you do with how you perform in that particular game is what’s important.
At a time in Chicago where there are other top sports stories brewing that has put baseball on the back-burner, White Sox and Cubs baseball isn’t exactly dominating the sports pages. I mean, how often do we get to cheer for the Blackhawks in late May? It’s been since 1992 that we did it last. Ask anyone in Chicago, even Ozzie Guillen or Lou Piniella what’s a bigger story and they’ll have to tell you the Blackhawks. Looking at the way the White Sox are playing this year, no one would have guessed it. However, not as many are paying attention to how bad they are playing because of the diversion of the Hawks being in the Stanley Cup Finals. That gives the Sox at least another week to turn things around.
Sitting at 18-25 and if the Sox can get back to .500 or darn near close to it by the time the NHL season comes to close … fans might not be panicking as much they would if we didn’t have hockey to watch. Don’t get me wrong, I’m stoked that the Hawks are in the Finals and are the favorites – they’re an exciting team. I’m just thrown off because it’s my body-clock, it’s almost June and I love baseball.
Inter-League play has started and so far the Sox are 2-1. Not bad. They must win series from now on to have a chance to compete. Mark Buehrle snapped a personal five game losing streak to shut down the Marlins Friday night for 8 innings and earn the win for the Sox. Good game, they showed promise and we felt better. Saturday, it was Gavin Floyd’s turn to look sharp and earn his second victory of the season, as the Sox won 4-1 with timely hitting, good pitching and good defense. A familiar recipe for winning, I’d say. Then along came Sunday. 25,000 plus fans, temperatures pushing 90+ with humidity, a two game win streak with a chance to sweep, who can blame fans for wanting to witness that. Big game on the line, it’s hot – who better than to have “Sweaty” Freddy Garcia on the mound. I’ll spare you the details.
Dropping the game 13-0 to the Marlins was a disaster. It was hot. Wasn’t that supposed to mean that the bats would come alive? So many cold games in April and early May, lethargic offense, sub-par pitching … weren’t we led to “un-officially” believe that warm weather would spruce our guys into top form like it has in years past? Even though the other team has to play in the same weather. Well, we were wrong. The Marlins obviously had no problems hitting and pitching in the park with heat and some wind.
The Sox missed a golden opportunity to pick up a game on the Twins while sitting 7.5 games back and in third place. Put it this way Sox fans, it could and almost should be a lot worse. A few Sox players names are starting to crop up in trade rumors as June approaches. Unless they put together a win streak or at least a consistent style of productive play …. you may see a few guys shipped out of town to dump salary. That would almost signal the beginning to the end of a promising season.
A roster that I was impressed with back in Spring Training is now starting to look like the deli counter at a grocery store. The Sox are stuck in a rut playing the same old style of struggle-ball. It gets kind of boring after a while watching them leave tons of guys on base while the other team hits the ball like it’s sitting on a tee.
It’s hot outside, let’s match the temperature with intensity.
Dan McGuinness 