2006 State of the Sox

Week in a Box: May 21-27

Talk about bookending a week with ugly.  It started with a collapse against the Cubs in the first game of the post-brawl era, and ended with a piss-poor effort that inspired an Ozzie Guillen.  

In the middle, however, was the first home sweep of the Oakland Athletics since 1997, including an impressive effort to foil Frank Thomas’ impressive return to the city.  

The awards:

Player of the Week:  Paul Konerko.  Konerko hit five home runs this week, although four of them were of the solo variety.  But two of them kept the Sox in the game against the Cubs, and another two kept the Sox from being completely embarrassed against the Blue Jays.  

Player of the Weak:  Jermaine Dye.  Nobody had a truly terrible week, but Jermaine had a few things he’d like to forget – a silver sombrero against the Cubs, dropping an easy flyball against the A’s and not running his hardest from first to third and getting thrown out by Alex Rios in the process.  

Pitcher of the Week:  Mark Buehrle.  Buehrle hasn’t allowed an earned run in 21 consecutive innings – which is both good and bad if you think about it.  But his seven strong innings against the A’s (including a pickoff) keyed a rare Sox sweep of Oakland.

Pitcher of the Weak:  Freddy Garcia.  Garcia was hit really, really hard in his start against Toronto, snapping his seven-game winning streak in the process.  He couldn’t find the inside corner and the Blue Jays let him have it.  Troy Glaus’ homer nearly hit some diners at the restaurant in the upper deck behind center field of the Rogers Centre.

Firemen of the Week:  Bobby Jenks and Matt Thornton.  Not only did Jenks pitch another scoreless week, but he went above and beyond the call of duty as a closer.  He pitched two innings for the win in the opener of the Oakland series, and closed out the last game of the series by pitching 1 1/3 inning – including striking out Jason Kendall with runners on second and third with two outs in the eighth.  Thornton has been thrown into high-leverage situations and he’s responded with zeroes, so we can’t rob him of an award again.  

Gas Can of the Week:  Cliff Politte.  He pitched three outings and allowed run(s) in each of them.  His ERA is back up to 7.00.

Super Sub:  Rob Mackowiak.  Perhaps Brian Anderson catches what turned out to be Michael Barrett’s game-tying triple on Sunday, but Mack can’t take himself out.  He did make up for it with a game-tying homer in the opener against Oakland, and then drove in a key insurance run in the closing game of the series.  He went 7-for-15 this week.

Super Scrub:  Nobody.  Everybody on the bench is basically holding up his end of the bargain. 

Gold Glove:  Joe Crede.  Crede made a couple of big-time defensive plays this week.  One was a diving stab to his right against Oakland, and another saved a run – though in vain – against Toronto.

Hands of Stone:  Jermaine Dye Rob Mackowiak.  See the comments below.