The leg injury
Jermaine Dye suffered in tonight's victory, albeit minor, will probably relegate him to second banana status as trade talks heat up, with
Mark Buehrle dominating the foreground. And that makes me one sad panda.
Sure, it makes plenty of sense to deal Buehrle for a quality prospect, because the Sox have plenty of holes to fill, and starting pitching is their one area of depth -- especially if Gavin Floyd's recent string of quality starts in Charlotte can translate at all to the big-league level. It'd be an incredible deal if the Sox could somehow sign Buehrle in the offseason after dealing him, a la Baltimore retrieving Sidney Ponson after trading him to San Francisco for Kurt Ainsworth, Damian Moss and Ryan Hannaman at the deadline.
But the chances of a successful reunion in this case are slimmer than a high school couple's after the boy and girl go off to different colleges. So in all likelihood, if/when Buehrle is shipped from the South Side, he'll come across the worldly exchange students with the hot accents (the Mets) or the drunken sorority pledges with a newfound sense of freedom (the Cardinals), and he'll never look back.
That's a shame, because Buehrle is a fan's dream. He's got personality, he's great with crowds and he doesn't waste their time. Contrast Buehrle with Jose Contreras -- a lot of the Count's good starts are as nerve-wracking as Buehrle's bad outings. At least when Buehrle's off his game, the pain is still short-lived.
Similarly, we'll have to deal with plenty of media backlash because he's a fantastic source of quotes and is second only to pre-game rainouts in helping writers make deadline. Not only will there be a void, but there will be loud voices bitching about it, so we have twice as much to look forward to.
I have a bunch of other reasons why I won't push for a trade, but I'll save them for the eulogy. All I'll say is that after watching Jon Garland, Joe Crede, Brian Anderson, Ryan Sweeney, Jerry Owens, Josh Fields, Joe Borchard and all the participants of Fifth Starter Hell over the years, I don't think it's possible to overappreciate a prospect who hit the ground running, by and large.
So, in summary, I'm probably going to be a stubborn, sentimental fool about the future of the Sox in relation to Mark Buehrle. To those who come here for attempts at solid Sox analysis, I'll probably be failing you on this front, and for that, I apologize.
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Speaking of failed prospects, Mike Downey has an update on the whereabouts of Mike Caruso. I've actually thought about
Caruso a lot over the last couple of years, mostly because he provided the name of my fantasy baseball team for the only pay league I'm in, where everybody picks the name of their favorite flash-in-the-pan. Fittingly, I finished in last place.
At any rate, I hope Downey was only kidding about his closing line: "Maybe they could turn back the clock, invite him back." Then again, it'd give Sox fans another reason to watch the team, if only out of morbid curiosity.
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I had some thoughts about
the pow-wow between Kenny Williams, Ozzie Guillen and Paul Konerko, but then I took a peek at South Side Sox and realized
The Cheat had pretty much voiced them already.
There is one thing I'd like to add, and it's an open-ended thought: Namely, I wonder how big of a mistake Ozzie Guillen made in naming Konerko Sox captain-for-life.
Considering the Sox clubhouse comprises grown men with roughly equivalent levels of skill (even Jerry Owens is in the top 0.1 percent of baseball players), I doubt it makes that great of an impact. At the same time, Konerko is a deferrer by nature, and didn't want to be captain in the first place. And when the team has needed a swift kick in the ass for a solid calendar year, and the leader will only be hard on himself, well...there's some dissonance there.
At the very least, we might be able to state with some confidence that Konerko's title hasn't exactly
helped.
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Minor league round-up:- Norfolk 3, Charlotte 0
- Charlie Haeger threw a quality start, allowing three runs on nine hits and two walks while striking out seven.
- After walking three of the four batters he faced in his last appearance, Carlos Vazquez pitched a fine 1 2/3 innings of relief, allowing only one hit and recording one strikeout.
- The Knights only had four hits; Ryan Sweeney went 0-for-3, snapping his 10-game hitting streak. Scott Podsednik went 0-for-2, but walked twice and stole his second base.
- Chattanooga 9, Birmingham 0
- Wes Whisler struggled with his control, walking five and allowing nine hits and seven runs over 5 1/3 innings.
- The Barons also only had four hits, and Victor Mercedes had the lone extra-base job, a double.
- Winston-Salem, Kannapolis OFF