Manfred is judging your poor level of play tonight, White Sox.
What.
Was.
That?
You are the Chicago White Sox. Coming into this game, you had a .530 winning percentage. That’s a 35-31 record. You were up 1.5 games on the Cleveland Indians. The Indians won tonight, however. And because you lost horribly tonight, they’re only half a game behind you. What are you going to do about that, White Sox?
I don’t even want to talk about what happened to you tonight, but since this is a game recap, I kind of have to. You lost 12-3. Zach Stewart got the start tonight, as Robin Ventura opted to give Jake Peavy and Chris Sale a little bit more rest for the week. In return, Stewart basically vomitted all over the field and himself in the 5.2 innings he pitched. He gave up six runs, all earned on nine hits. All of those runs came on FOUR HOME RUNS. Which is horribly awful and makes me want to cry rivers of tears. Will Ohman came on to pitch, and he lasted 0.2 innings, giving up two runs on one hit. Oh, but it gets worse.
“No, Jen. It can’t get worse,” you say. I’m sorry, fair reader, but it does. Nate Jones, who came into the game with a 2.14 ERA faced five batters in the seventh and failed to record an out. Yup. Every single one of them got a hit, and four runs scored. You thought Stewart vomitted on himself and the field? So did Jones. But he did it without recording outs. And ballooning his ERA to 3.21.
Hector Santiago was our saving grace of the evening. He pitched 2.2 innings and didn’t allow a hit or a walk! No base runners! Woo hoo! He even struck out three batters!
Because the pitching was so bad in this game, Robin started taking starters out in the eighth. Eduardo Escobar hit for Gordon Beckham who went 1-for-3. Later that inning, Brent Lillibridge hit for Paul Konerko who went 1-for-3 and hit a two-run homer that scored Beckham in the sixth. In the ninth, Robin made more changes. Jordan Danks replaced Alex Rios in right, and Tyler Flowers replaced AJ Pierzynski who provided the only other run on the night, a solo home run in the fifth.
Only one Sox player had more than one hit. Alexei Ramirez went 2-for-3 tonight. Adam Dunn also picked up a hit, but he also struck out three times tonight.
Your level of play was so bad tonight, White Sox, that I can’t even find an appropriate picture for this post. So that’s why Manfred is at the top of this post. Cheryl gives you Cookie Monster with vegetables, Jen gives you Manfred.
Maybe tomorrow the Sox can manage to not be pulverized into tiny little pieces by the Cubs. Jake Peavy takes the mound and faces Travis Wood, so I have a bit more faith that the Cubs won’t score 12 freaking runs tomorrow.
EDIT: Per White Sox beat writers on Twitter, John Danks has a grade 1 sub-scapula tear but was assured by team doctor Gregory Nicholson that he would not need surgery. He is out indefinitely.
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I expected us to lose yesterday with Zach Stewart taking the mound against Garza. As much as I wanted to sweep the Cubs again, it was the right move for the Sox pitching staff overall to give Peavy and Sale an extra days rest (Sale gets two with the off day Thursday) and not worry about beating our cross town rivals. As convulsing as it was last night the big picture is a lot more important because if either Peavy or Sale break down we have zero chance of winning the division.
We should win the next two games against the Scrubs. If we don’t then I’m going to start to worry and wonder if we should start thinking about becoming sellers rather than buyers at the trade deadline.
As for Danks, that is not good news. The only thing no surgery means at this point is he MIGHT be able to come back sometime this season. Bottom line is he is going to be out for an extended period of time. It’s nice that Quintana has emerged as a more than solid starter. He actually reminds me a lot of Buehrle as he doesn’t have over powering stuff, pitches to contact and seems to know how to actually pitch (instead of just throwing) by keeping hitters off balance. Now if we could only get Humber or Floyd going we will be okay. If Floyd fails against the Cubs this week (lets face it, despite the 12 runs scored off Stewart and company yesterday they are fielding a line-up that would get beat by a lot of minor league teams) my head might explode!
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I’m not sure I expected to lose last night. It was a toss up for me since Stewart isn’t a starter per se, but at the same time, it was the Cubs and their less-than-stellar play this season. What I didn’t expect was how bad we lost. Especially Nate Jones’ outing. He has been stellar this season, but he was downright awful last night.
I do agree that starting Stewart was the right move though. The loss sucks, but this wasn’t a division opponent. I’d be angrier if it was against someone in the division. And if Peavy or Sale breaks (again in Peavy’s case), it’s gonna suck to be a Sox fan for the rest of the season.
I worry about Danks now that we know what’s going on with his shoulder. Part of me is glad that it doesn’t require surgery. But as someone reminded me yesterday, Brandon Webb had the same sort of issues in his career and he hasn’t been as effective since his two surgeries in 2009 and 2011.
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I know what you are saying in regards to if they should have lost last night. Like I said, the Cubs resemble a minor league affiliate outside of 4-5 players on their roster. It’s always tough to lose to a team that you know is so inferior, but to get beat so badly stings for sure. The problem is that Stewart probably doesn’t belong on a big league roster at this point either, so it leveled the playing field a bit.
I agree with Nate Jones being a disapointment last night. He’s been awesome this season. He’s been used a lot this year so far (he appeared in only 40 or so games ALL of last season in the minors and has all ready been in 27 this season)so he was bound to have a horrendous outing sooner or later. As long as his arm holds up I think he’ll be just fine though.
At least we know why Danks was so bad this season. I remember hearing Steve Stone talk about him about a month and a half ago saying he seemed to be pitching injured with how his mechanics were, particularly on his breaking balls. He was flying open early (Stone claims a lot of pitchers who have shoulder injuries tend to do this to avoid the pain) and missing the plate with his breaking balls. He was basically a one-pitch pitcher. Hopefully some rest and some strengthening of the area and he’ll be back to his old self. I shudder to think if he never bounces back. The last thing the Sox need is a big contract player not being able to deliver.
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