Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms and mother figures out there. Here at SSHG, we’re glad you are baseball fans and possibly even White Sox Fans. Though, if you’ve abandoned the Sox of late, that is completely understandable because they have not played inspiring of late.

In any event, the Mother’s Day game was a Sunday night affair. Hopefully the mom-types had a chance to do some fun things today before settling in for some Sunday night baseball. Things started off in the game rather hopeful. A crazy comeback to Chris Sale and then a strikeout of Mike Trout. It got me all giddy that the game might be amazing. It was an EASY first half of the inning for Sale. I’m not used to seeing such baseball out of the White Sox. They’ve conditioned me to expect runs to be given up right away. Of course, I had to calm myself because this rare start probably won’t last. Something will go wrong soon to cause this game to be lost. Whether it be lousy defense – as if this team has any other type – or lack of offense.

Early on in the game, Chris Sale was cruising in the game. He was mowing down the Angels hitters and they were not really into trying to work the count. They basically swinging at first pitches and making no contact. It was a thing of beauty to see. Of course, this season the pitching really has not been the problem. The problems with this team have generally been due to poor, uh I mean PUTRID defense and lack of offense. » Continue reading “I Just Expect An L These Days From The White Sox”

As this game started, there appeared immediately to be some clown shoes defense. A ball tips off the third baseman’s glove and the short stop can’t get to it either. It just felt like things were going to go badly. Fortunately, the Sox restored some faith that things might be okay when they scored a run in the bottom of the first inning. Yes, it was early, but given how things have gone of late, it gave me hope that today would be a good day.

the offensive hero in today’s game

The Rays however, would come back and tie the game up. The Sox would later take the lead again on a two-run home run by The King. The Rays would tie it up again and from there, it became who is pitching for the Sox and the Rays would finally blow things open and win the game by a final of 8-3. Such a sad ending for a gorgeous spring day in Chicago. » Continue reading “Oh Look, Another White Sox Loss”

Today’s game just didn’t get off to a great start. One pitch and a run on the board for the Cleveland Indians. If you’ve been watching the Sox the last few games, you probably got a pit in your stomach thinking, “here we go again” and that the game was lost already. The offense has been putrid. The starting pitching has been abysmal and Jake “Dirt Bag” Peavy had to go and serve up a nice juicy pitch for Michael Bourn to hit out of the park right away.

Fortunately, after getting off to the worst road start in over 35 years, Jake and the team settled down and managed to stop the road bleeding with a 3-1 win over the Indians. Offense came in the form of Paul Konerko hitting a two-run home run in the sixth inning to put the Sox ahead in the game 2-1. Alejandro De Aza added his own solo shot in the eighth inning as insurance for the Sox.  » Continue reading “Road Win For White Sox? Road Win For White Sox!”

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”

Lead off home runs are nice to see. Unless your team is not the one who gives it up. Tonight there was a lead off home run. Unfortunately, if you root for the Chicago White Sox, it was not a good thing. The Seattle Mariners’ Franklin Gutierrez led off the game with a ball that initially appeared to be a routine fly to right field. Then the wind got a hold of that ball and out it went for a quick 1-0 lead. The Sox would tie things up in the fourth inning, but then the Sox and Mariners decided it would be a good idea to start trading runs.

yeah, he didn’t help his cause tonight

Jose Quintana started off the evening pitching like the starters had in previous nights. Getting his pitches over and keeping the opposing batters off balance. Then the fifth inning came. And he just fell apart. First, Jason Bay hit a double to left field. Then what should have been an out on Dustin Ackley resulted in Jose committing the first error of the season by someone on the infield. From there, The Mariners decided getting hits was a good idea. All told, they ended up scoring five runs for a 6-1 lead. After they scored the five runs, Jose was off to take a shower for the night. Oh and there were no outs recorded yet.

In came Matt Lindstrom and he did a good job to finally get guys out. He lasted for 2.1 innings before being relieved by Donny Veal. If you thought all hope was lost after that disaster of a fifth inning, all was not as the White Sox came back to score four runs off Mariners starter Blake Beavan. Perhaps that was because he sat in the dugout too long. In any event, the Sox pulled to within one run. » Continue reading “In A Game of Trading Runs, White Sox Come Up Short”

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”

Hello Sox Fans!!!! Sorry that I have been away from talking to you. Unfortunately, my “real” job got in the way of me keeping up as meticulously as I should with White Sox news of late. However, hopefully you’ve been kept abreast of what has been happening with the team.

So far this off season, we’ve seen some decent re-signings as well as having to say goodbye to old favorites we all love for one reason or another. And now that it is late January, we might be starting to get itchy for baseball. The World Baseball Classic will soon be starting up, which will slightly fill the role of the game until Opening Day. Speaking of WBC, congratulatiosn to Jesse Crain (Team Canada), Alex Rios, Hector Santiago, Andy Gonzalez (Team Puerto Rico) and Andre Rienzo (Team Brazil) on their participation. But of course, the big news is that SoxFest is next weekend. Are you going to be there? If not, no worries as I will be there again to live tweet what is happening. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for all the happenings at SoxFest. » Continue reading “Spring Is On The Way”

How fitting that the White Sox end the 2012 season in Cleveland. Given how the Sox played the Indians all season, it is conceivable for a sweep. Then again, after last week’s games, it could be bad. Here is what you need to know about the final series for the 2012 regular season:

2012 Record: White Sox 83-76, 2nd in AL Central. Indians 67-92, 4th in AL Central.

2012 Season Series: 9-6

All-Time Series Record: 1,044-999 (The Sox are 488-527 at Cleveland)

The following pitchers are expected to start the three games: 

Hector Santiago: 3-1, 3.69 ERA, 69K vs. Corey Kluber: 2-4, 5.02 ERA, 48K

Jake Peavy: 11-12, 3.37 ERA, 186K vs. Justin Masterson: 11-15, 5.03 ERA, 154K

Gavin Floyd: 11-11, 4.47 ERA, 138K vs. David Huff: 3-0, 2.86 ERA, 17K

All three games begin at 6:05 pm CDT. Wednesday’s game is the free MLB.com game of the day.  » Continue reading “Playing It Out? Maybe. Series Preview: White Sox @ Indians”

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”