Yes, this team has won four in a row. What is this crazy talk? It started with taking two straight from the Twins and now they have taken two straight from the Angels. If you count the times the Angels and Sox have faced each other this season, it is three in a row over the Halos. Who would have thought such a thing would be possible.

Certainly not I as this team has been one bad outing after another. It was amazing if this team would win two games in a row, let alone three. Four just seemed like something that was never going to happen. But it did.

» Continue reading “Four In A Row? The White Sox Did It!”

Not a good defensive night for Big Donkey / Photo by Amy Swenson

And the White Sox come home after a 10-game road trip. The trip was pretty terrible. No offense and sometimes some terrible pitching. Tonight was a no offense night. The team was facing Toronto Blue Jay knuckle baller R.A. Dickey. As terrible as he was in his last start, his knuckle ball was working just as good tonight. The Sox would go on to lose by a final of 3-1. Alex Rios was the first Sox batter to get a hit off of Dickey. That did not happen until the fourth inning.

As for Chris Sale, he did have a bounce-back performance compared to how he pitched in Cleveland. Unfortunately, he had a few issues with holding runners as Rajai Davis stole a couple of bags off him. Then Chris had a throwing error that led to the go-ahead run advancing to third base and Big Donkey followed up with another error. All told, the Blue Jays got two more runs to win the game. While Chris had settled down, the offense just wasn’t there to support. It kind of makes you wish that  last night’s offensive outburst had saved a little bit for tonight. » Continue reading “Unable To Dance With the Knuckle Ball, White Sox Drop Finale And Series In Toronto”

The long ball reigns supreme for the White Sox. The Sox again played their second game of extra innings and this time, they won by a final of 4-3 over the Seattle Mariners. There wasn’t much offense in today’s game. The runs were scored in the first, sixth, seventh and 10th innings. Oh and every single run was scored because of a home run.

The offensive hero in the game

The game started off in blech fashion with Michael Morse taking Chris Sale to left field to put the Mariners up by two. Unlike in games last season when I just felt the game was over, this time, it was just eh, the Sox will score some runs.

» Continue reading “Home Runs Power White Sox To Win In Extras”

April in Chicago is usually not a good time for baseball. It typically is cold and even day games are miserable with fans sitting in the stands bundled up like they are about to head off to the frozen tundra. Today, the temperature was actually fairly decent. The warmest day it has been at a game start so far this season. You’d think with the warmer temperatures, the hot bats of the Chicago White Sox would continue. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

The Sox were in a bid to start the season off with a sweep of the PITA Kansas City Royals, but it was not meant to be as the Royals would win the game by a final of 3-1. As he has in the past, Jeremy Guthrie had the Sox offense befuddled. Before today’s game, Jeremy was 1-0 with a 0.30 ERA in his four most recent appearances against the Sox. It was already going to be a tough battle and he didn’t disappoint Royals fans by going out and doing what he does against the Sox.

The Sox did try to make things interesting in the ninth inning, but it wasn’t enough. Two of three against the Royals, a team that has had the Sox number of late is pretty good. Now if the Sox can do this all season, that would be fantastic.

To his credit, Mr. Consistently Inconsistent was quite good today. Gavin Floyd was locating his fastball well and his curveball was working quite well too. So well in fact that a few times, Royals batters looked at the home plate ump to ask if he was sure that was a strike because the curve ball looked so good and out of the zone. Now, if that Gavin (minus the fifth inning antics) can stick around all season, fans will be in so much love with him, he won’t know what to do with himself from all the fan affection. » Continue reading “Despite Good Gavin, White Sox Can’t Take Finale From Royals”

It’s FINALLY over! The long barren months of no baseball unless you were watching games you might have put on your DVR or saw some archived games is gone. Today, we have baseball at 35th & Shields! And how fitting is it that the Chicago White Sox will open up at home against the Kansas City Royals? A team that some fans insists sucks, but in the past few years have given the White Sox a run for their money. So much so that last season, the Royals came away winning the season series.

This year, I’m hopeful this will not be the case, but you never know until those 18 games are played. Here is what you should know about the upcoming three games:

2013 Record: White Sox 0-0 Royals 0-0

2013 Cactus League Record: White Sox: 14-14 Royals 25-7

2012 Record: White Sox: 85-77 Royals: 72-90

2012 Season Series Record: 6-12

All-Time Series Record: 348-314 (The Sox are 196-140 against the Royals at home)

The following pitchers are expected to start each game this series: 

Chris Sale: 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 0K vs. James Shields: 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 0K

Jake Peavy: 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 0K vs. Ervin Santana: 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 0K

Gavin Floyd: 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 0K vs. Jeremy Guthrie: 0-0, 0.00 ERA, 0K

Monday’s game is at 3:10 pm, Wednesday and Thursday’s games are at 1:10 pm. All times CDT.  » Continue reading “The Long Nightmare Is Over! Series Preview: White Sox Versus Royals”

Thanks guys for an amazing season. No, it did not end as the fans would have wanted, with you playing playing baseball this month. However, you did give us a ton more than was expected this season.

The early favorite pre-season was that the Sox would finish with a record under .500. In fact, some said you might be lucky to get to 75-80 wins on the season. You did more than that and got a total of 85 wins. You know fans were disappointed, particularly given how the last two weeks of baseball went. » Continue reading “RIP 2012 White Sox”

Oh goodie! The Sox get to continue their road trip with a visit to their new house of horrors, Kauffman Stadium. It definitely won’t be easy. Those teams with no post season hopes are always the most dangerous to those who do have playoff aspirations. Here is what to know for the next few days:

2012 Record: White Sox 80-66, 1st in AL Central. Royals 66-80, 3rd in AL Central

2012 Season Series: 5-10

All-Time Series Record: 347-312 (The Sox are 195-138 at Kansas City)

The following pitchers are expected to start the three games:

Gavin Floyd: 9-10, 4.59 ERA, 121K vs. Luke Hochevar: 8-13, 5.46 ERA, 128K

Chris Sale: 17-6, 2.78 ERA, 173K vs. Luis Mendoza: 7-9, 4.50 ERA, 89K

TBD: vs. Bruce Chen: 10-12, 5.42 ERA, 128K

All three games begin at 7:10 pm CDT. Tuesday’s game is the free MLB.com game of the day.

» Continue reading “House Of Horrors. Series Preview: White Sox @ Royals”

Thank you Paul Konerko! The White Sox manage to squeak out a 9-8 win over the Mariners. I say squeak because headed into the ninth inning, the Sox had a 7-2 lead. They should have cruised to a win over the Mariners. But, alas that wasn’t to be.

The bullpen had a hiccup tonight, allowing the Mariners to score six runs to take an 8-7 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning. Things weren’t exactly looking promising with Gordon Beckham leading off the inning. However, he proved people wrong by getting on. Then Dewayne Wise followed. Kevin Youkilis then singled to drive in Bacon who represented the tying run. Adam Dunn the flied out and finally, Paul Konerko came to the plate and hit a ball into the right field gap that allowed Wise to score the go-ahead winning run.  » Continue reading “White Sox Win in Ridiculous Fashion And Stop Mariners”

Slowly but surely, people are starting to believe. Starting to believe that the White Sox just might do something incredibly special this season. After coming off of two series sweeps, (the first a loss, the second a win) the team will not face the team that has been the hottest in baseball since the break. Here is what you need to know about the weekend series against the Mariners:

2012 Record: White Sox 68-55, 1st in AL Central. Mariners 61-64, 4th in AL West

2012 Season Series: 5-1

All-Time Series Record: 217-184 (The Sox are 121-80 at home against the Mariners)

The following pitchers are expected to start this weekend:

Jake Peavy: 9-9, 3.11 ERA, 150K vs. Jason Vargas: 13-8, 3.53 ERA, 109K

Jose Quintana: 5-2, 2.76 ERA, 58K vs. Blake Beavan: 8-7, 5.00 ERA, 57K

Gavin Floyd: 9-9, 4.56 ERA, 113K vs. Kevin Millwood: 4-10, 4.29 ERA, 97K

Friday’s game begins at 7:10 pm, Saturday’s game is at 6:10 pm and Sunday’s game is at 1:10 pm. All times CDT. » Continue reading “Keeping On A Roll. Series Preview: White Sox V Mariners”

why, WHY is Kaufmann the new house of horrors where the White Sox just cannot win?

You know things won’t be good when your lead off man gets on base, gets to third and doesn’t end up scoring in the first inning. Doesn’t help either when in the bottom of the first inning, “fundamental” get ‘em on, get ‘em over and get ‘em in works perfectly.

And of course, who can forget all the errors. It was clown shoes tonight for the White Sox who generally catch the ball. The Royals had an error as well, but unfortunately, the Sox were unable to capitalize on that error. The Royals on the other hand? They were all over scoring on miscues of the White Sox.

At least the Sox were not shut out. There was danger of that as Bruce “Cy”  Chen was mowing the Sox down. Retiring countless batters and just making the hitters look . . . turrible. The second hit of the game wouldn’t come until the fifth inning when Dayan Viciedo led off with a single. More followed, but just like the first inning, nothing doing in terms of scoring.

Paul Konerko FINALLY got the White Sox on the board with a two-run home run in the sixth. After the home run, Cy got the rest of the outs in the sixth and then departed the game. » Continue reading “New House Of Horrors: White Sox 4 PITAs 9″