Donny Lucy started his major-league career in fine fashion
tonight. He contributed a quarter of the White Sox's hit total and finished the game with a .500 average and a 1.50 catcher's ERA. He didn't throw out the only baserunner to attempt a steal, but that's because Gavin Floyd made no extra attempt to hold Curtis Granderson close to the bag after a first-pitch pitchout.
Of course, there's no reason to get carried away, because in his first at-bat against Kenny Rogers, he struck out on a changeup that ended up somewhere in the middle of the left-handed batters box.
Basically, it can be said that he held his own in his debut. But compared to the last two rookie catchers the Sox have thrown out there, Lucy is on track for a first-ballot Hall of Fame career. He has as many hits in one game as
Gustavo Molina had in his 10 with the Sox this year. Not to mention he's already accomplished more at the plate than
Chris Stewart ever did on the South Side.
Making matters funnier,
Lucy had an OPS of .471 in Triple-A, roughly 60 points lower than Molina's in Charlotte this year, and 270 points below Stewart's in 2006.
You know it's a good year when one opposite-field bloop single means that all expectations have been exceeded.
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The lack of exciting promotions is
one thing Kenny Williams addressed today: He said few people impressed him or farm director Alan Regier, and only
Lance Broadway and Heath Phillips merited the call. That leads me to a few questions:
No. 1: What exactly did Broadway do to earn a promotion over Charlie Haeger? I went over Broadway's walk-to-strikeout woes yesterday, but it looks even worse when comparing him to
Haeger. Somehow, a knuckleballer managed to walk fewer batters than Broadway, and also strike out more.
Also, like Phillips, Haeger dominated over his last seven starts to the tune of a 2.56 ERA, with 11 walks and 38 strikeouts over his last 52 2/3 innings. The only difference is support: Phillips went 7-0, and Haeger finished 2-5.
No. 2: Why did Williams give Regier an "A-plus"? This is only Regier's first year on the job, as he took over for Dave Wilder when Williams shook up the development department. Still, I'm not quite getting all the back-patting going on during such a disastrous season.
Jerry Reinsdorf
gave Ozzie Guillen an "A" and said Williams had his best offseason ever. Williams can't find ways to improve upon the director of player development's performance during a largely uninspiring year across all levels of the farm system. I know that the players are the ones who play the games, but I don't know why everybody else is so comfortable.
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Williams also addressed the matter of
a rumored extension for Guillen by not addressing it, but offering strong verbal support instead:
"Let me just say this," Williams said before the Sox lost 2-1 in
Detroit in 11 innings. "There has not been one thought in my mind
through all of this that maybe Ozzie Guillen isn't the guy to bring
another championship in Chicago. I'll just leave it at that."
That Guillen could receive an extension at the tail end of his first losing season shouldn't surprise anybody. Back when Jerry Manuel was on the hot seat, when somebody mentioned to Williams that he couldn't fire 25 guys, Kenny disagreed. I'll see if I can find the exact quote tomorrow.