Sox Machine: Chicago White Sox blog

Motown Blood

Thankfully, I didn't start writing about how awesome the Sox's bullpen has been before David Aardsma hung a slider to Marcus Thames in today's 6-5 loss.  That's not to say the bullpen isn't a pleasant discovery -- Sox relievers have gotten the job done up until this point, and Kenny Williams looks like he got the job done on that front.  It'd just help if Ozzie Guillen didn't allow opposing teams to see all of his relievers every single game.

Anyway, some thoughts on the near-sweep, which concluded on the seventh anniversary of the great White Sox-Tigers brawl...

Darin Erstad has reached base eight times in his last three games against righties, which is outstanding -- until you realize how exactly he's done it:

• One solid single
• One duck-snort single
  
• Two seeing-eye singles
• A bunt single
• A free walk when a reliever licked his fingers
• An infield single
• An error

You know what that makes him?  The Secret Weapon: Blanco Edition.  Maybe if Pablo Ozuna were named Paul Olson and hailed from the upper Midwest, he might get three-quarters of the acclaim Erstad receives instead of 1 percent of it.

At any rate, Brian Anderson didn't help his own cause when he failed to hold Brandon Inge to a single despite playing at no-doubles depth.

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Anybody else think that the Tigers were on to Razor Shines' signs over at third base?  They went 2-for-2 in pitchouts in the first two games, and then Justin Verlander threw an eye-high fastball to Ozuna on a potential hit-and-run, which Ozuna somehow fouled off.

They pitched out unsuccessfully later in the game, so maybe the aforementioned incidents were merely the results of sheer good timing and hunch-playing by Jim Leyland.  But it's something worth thinking about.  Unless it isn't.

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Uptight Paulie Alert!  Check out this quote from Joe Cowley (I've edited for TV):


Konerko went 0-for-6 and left eight on base, and is hitting .175 with one homer in 63 at-bats.  I'm not saying that we should start fearing a 2003 redux, but I am saying a hug might be in order.  Nobody has to question whether Paulie gives a SHIRT, but he is prone to give too many SHIRTS at times.

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Minor league round-up:

• Charlotte 3, Columbus 2
• Heath Phillips struggled with control, walking five in six innings, but perhaps that could be called effectively wild.  He gave up only two hits and two runs, while striking out five.
• Ehren Wassermann, Bret Prinz and Ryan Bukvich pitched three scoreless innings to close it out.  Today was Prinz's first outing -- he gave up two hits, but struck out two.
• Josh Fields went 0-for-4, his average dropping to .179, but Ernie Young hit his first homer of the season, and career minor-league homer No. 315.
• Wiki Gonzalez went 2-for-3 with an RBI, and is 7-for-15 over his last five games.  Can he please, pleeeease replace Gustavo Molina already?
• Mississippi 2, Birmingham 1
• Gio Gonzalez struck out 12 batters in six innings, walking only one.  Unfortunately, he was tagged with the loss for giving up two solo homers.  Gonzalez has struck out 30 hitters in 21 2/3 innings, and his ERA is 1.69.
  
• Thomas Collaro provided the only Barons run with a solo homer, his fourth of the year.
• Donny Lucy went 2-for-3, raising his average to .364 over 44 at-bats.
• Augusta 7, Kannapolis 0
• Coming off his best outing of the year, Jacob Rasner was hit hard -- 3.2 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K.
• The Intimidators turned three double plays, but also committed three errors leading to four unearned runs.
• The first six hitters went 0-for-20 with two walks; Kannapolis only had three hits on the day.
• Winston-Salem OFF
  

Moonlighting

One of the things that struck me odd about Field of Dreams -- aside from Shoeless Joe Jackson batting righty and possessing no southern accent whatsoever -- is that while Moonlight Graham got a chance to hit, it didn't give him an actual at-bat to his credit.  His career began and ended with a sacrifice fly.

But Graham didn't complain -- he was fine trading in the "Moonlight" moniker for "Doc" instead.  And after watching Gustavo Molina attempt to hit at the major-league level, I'm wondering if there's a way somebody can force him into med school, too. 

Molina's MLB career started with a fairly deep sacrifice fly on Opening Day.  Since then, he is 0-for-8, and Ozzie Guillen has so little faith in his hitting abilities that Molina has yet to finish a game he's started.

Saturday's game marked the third designated off day of the season for A.J. Pierzynski, but he hasn't fully enjoyed any of them.  More than that, Pierzynski has multiple plate appearances in two of those three games.  A.J. said after the Toby Hall signing that he didn't want any at-bats taken away from him against lefties, and he's practically getting his wish.  So far, the results haven't been pretty.

Meanwhile, Hall says he's rehabbing well:

Let's hope he keeps making progress, because I don't know if Moonlight Molina's going anywhere otherwise.

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Minor league round-up:

• Columbus 4, Charlotte 1
• Jerry Owens, Ernie Young and catcher Ryan Smith had the only three hits for Charlotte.  Luis Terrero achieved the hat trick on an 0-for-3 night; Josh Fields went 0-for-2 with two walks.  He's batting only .192, but his OBP is .348 thanks to 13 walks in 15 games.
• An ugly day for pitchers all around -- both teams walked seven batters, and Vladimir Nunez walked five in 4+ innings himself.  Ehren Wassermann gave up his first earned run fo the season.
• Mississippi 6, Birmingham 5 (11 innings)
• Dewon Day continues his descent into mortality.  After the Barons gained the lead in the top of the 11th, Day gave it right back in the bottom of the inning and was tagged with the loss.  He gave up two hits and two walks (one intentional) without retiring a batter, though he was hurt by a Chris Kelly error.
• Adam Russell pitched five so-so innings -- seven hits, three runs, two walks, one strikeout.
• Ricardo Nanita and Jeremy West each had two-hit games; Cory Aldridge had a pair of RBI.
• Winston-Salem 6, Wilmington 1
• Justin Cassell pitched eight innings of two-hit ball, allowing one run and walking two while striking out seven.  He also induced 14 groundouts to only three flyouts.  The outing actually raised his ERA to 0.93.
• Keep an eye on Carlos Torres -- with another perfect innings of relief, Torres has started his season with 11 scoreless inning, where he's allowed five hits.  More impressively, he's struck out 13 batters while walking none.
• Aaron Cunningham hit his second homer of the year, and David Cook (4) and Micah Schurnstein (3) also went deep.
• Kannapolis 6, Augusta 2
• Justin Edwards pitched five innings of one-run ball for the victory, allowing five hits and no walks while striking out four.
• Archie Gilbert, Maurice Gatrell, Brandon Allen, John Shelby Jr. and Robert Hudson each had two hits; Hudson had a game-high two RBI.

B.A. still MIA

I'm having a difficult time charting this Darin Erstad-Brian Anderson saga.  Since Kenny Williams brought up winter ball, a couple of interesting quotes have arisen in the papers. From Joe Cowley's piece in the Sun-Times:


And in some notes also from the Sun-Times:


(The former piece also includes an awful Cowley line, "Rowand would run through a wall because he was told to. Anderson would run through a wall because it seemed fun and could land him a few 'honeys' along the way."  Between that and the "Dude, Where's My Car?" reference, I think he has a warped perspective on West Coasters.  At least I learned what AP style is for "honeys.")

That was on Friday.  On Saturday, the papers figured Anderson would get the start, as did I.  We were all wrong, as Erstad started in center field against lefty Nate Robertson and predictably went 0-for-5 in the Sox's 10-inning, 7-5 victory.  On South Side Sox, somebody mentioned that Hawk Harrelson grudgingly admitted Erstad is stinking up the joint, but I had Detroit's feed and couldn't enjoy it myself.  Anderson did enter the game as a pinch runner and scored the tying run, and was shortly yanked thereafter, in what was rather bizarre usage.

Ozzie's rationale for not starting Anderson?  The Trib's Mark Gonzalez reports:


So, if I'm getting this right, Anderson's playing time is now dictated by the presence of Molina, a backup catcher who still doesn't have a major-league hit to his credit, because playing two rookies against a lefty would be far, far worse than playing one rookie and a guy who is 1-for-13 (now 1-for-16) against lefties since Opening Day?  The only way Anderson could be provably worse is to give him enough chances to go hitless over four games or so, and we know that's not going to happen.