posted on Friday, April 06, 2007 11:09 PM
by
Jim
And that's a White Sox white-out
The
unexpected snow(ish) day gave the heavily worked bullpen some rest, and also presented Ozzie Guillen with some options regarding how to handle his starters for the next five days while Mark Buehrle figures out if he's healthy enough to make his next start.
Actually,
Ozzie seems to have his mind made up, but it gives us something to talk about. John Danks will start Sunday, after Ozzie
thought about skipping the rookie lefty and giving Jose Contreras on five days' rest instead of six.
Contreras starting Sunday would be a waste of an option, but Contreras starting tomorrow would've been an idea. He would be pitching on regular rest, and then it could go Garland-Vazquez-Danks in some order,
if Buehrle isn't ready to go. That puts the Sox's three best pitchers before the two biggest question marks, giving Nick Masset the best chance to rest up if he needed to make a spot start.
It would put the two Sox lefty starters back-to-back, but Buehrle and Vazquez could change places again with an off day the Thursday following the Oakland series.
Then again, that's a lot of effort for Ozzie to exert this early in the season that could mess with his players' rhythms. It seems Contreras could also probably
use an extra day of rest to lick his wounds. And then there's the fact that Johan Santana will likely start Sunday, so if the Sox
are going to lose anyway, they may as well do it with their worst starter. Danks is actually in an ideal situation for his debut, since a bad first start won't lessen the Sox's chance to win all that much.
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In preparation for the Sox-Twins series, Stick and Ball Guy looked at
the evolution of White Sox mugshots. I like how David Aardsma made a conscious effort to tone down the squirrely look.
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Minor-league round-up:- Pawtucket 5, Charlotte 1
- As noted in the BP profile yesterday, Charlie Haeger's been able to overcome being a young knuckler with his uncanny ability to limit home runs. Needless to say, when he gives up two in the same game, it severely hampers his chances. He gave up four earned runs in six innings, but he did settle down after a rocky start.
- Josh Fields went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, and is hitless in his first eight at-bats.
- Ryan Sweeney and Jerry Owens went 1-for-3 with a walk apiece, and were the only Knights to not strike out. Charlotte struck out 15 times in all.
- Birmingham 4, Carolina 2
- It's hard to start the year better than Gio Gonzalez did -- 5 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 9 K. He actually faced two more than the minimum, because of a Donny Lucy passed ball on one of the strikeouts.
- Dewon Day struck out the side for his first save, and Oneli Perez has started his season with two straight scoreless outings after a rocky spring.
- Winston-Salem 9, Kinston 4
- Aaron Cunningham went 2-for-3 with an RBI.
- Micah Schnurstein is seeing some time at first after playing mostly third and some second last year.
- Kannapolis 6, Columbus 3
- The Intimidators scored all six runs in the ninth inning.
- Brandon Allen, Chris Carter, Lee Cruz and Anderson Gomes form an intriguing middle of the order, and it started the game-winning rally. At the very least, Kanny should do better than the 42-94 record they posted last season.