posted on Thursday, September 25, 2008 10:11 AM
by
Jim
Fighting piranhas with piranhas
It was only a couple months ago that the White Sox were stacked in the outfield, with the MVP favorite in left, a fringe candidate in right, and a former force getting it together in center. Not to mention a Gold Glove-caliber defender and a speedster with some pop backing up.
With four games left in the season, the Sox are down to one decent outfielder.
If you combine two of them.
Then tilt your head and squint.
Making matters worse:
1. One of them isn’t Jermaine Dye.
2. One of them is on the verge of “flash in the pan” status.
3. And one of them is parked in the defensive position for which he’s least able.
Addressing those points one at a time:
No. 1: After another 0-for-4 night, Dye is hitting .234/.298/.312 in September. He also extended his homerless streak to 95 plate appearances,
the third-longest of his career or longest since 1999, take your pick.
No. 2: Dewayne Wise is 0-for-7 now, including a strikeout with the bases loaded and a flyout with two on Wednesday. While Wise has done more than anybody could ever ask of him, everything in his history suggests he could hit a wall hard. This could very well be it.
No. 3: All five of the Sox’s runs this series have come during Ken Griffey Jr. plate appearances. He’s a solid 8-for-28 over his last nine games, with five of those hits going for extra bases (three doubles, two homers). Nevertheless, like Rob Mackowiak before him, General Soreness is thrust into the position that is most likely to nullify his contributions with the bat, although he made every play possible Wednesday.
Carlos Quentin’s wrist injury wasn’t supposed to mean this much. Granted, he would’ve been a shoo-in for MVP had he not overreacted to missing a Cliff Lee fastball, but with Dye and Jim Thome holding their own, Nick Swisher coming off an acceptable August and Paul Konerko beginning to come around, the biggest question was supposed to be the bullpen.
That’s not the case, and the Sox’s attack is a shell of what it was just a month and a half ago. It seems like much longer than that.
Nevertheless, I have a solution for tonight – but the Sox will have to act quickly. Ladies and gentlemen, two words:
Jason. Tyner.
Let that image soak in. He’s small. He’s weak. He’s bunting. He’s ready to run. He’s everything the Sox aren’t.
You can’t look at that picture and tells me it fails to excite you. And if you did, I’d just punch you in the face, anyway, for wasting my time with your lies.
Tyner is five-foot-nothing, one hundred and nothing pounds of original piranha. He hit .289 at the Metrodome between 2006 and 2007, including a .386 clip against the Sox in 2006. He’s well-versed on chopping the ball off concrete and running like hell, which gives him a leg up on every member on the Sox. And yet he's just wasting away at wherever he went after Charlotte's season ended.
I’ll grant the remote possibility that Kenny Williams signed Tyner to be some sort of minor-league filler, but to me, this signing was all about espionage. He knows their secrets, and there’s no time like the present to use that against them.
Put Tyner on the roster, and nobody will be sorry. For one, he can have Dewon Day’s spot. And he wouldn’t even take up room on the bench, because I’m pretty sure he fits in the bat rack.
Hell, Dye could even try swinging with him. It’s not like anything else is helping right now.