White Sox Reflections 1 ½ Months In

Visits: 2

Manager Ozzie Guillen

I’ll let Paul Konerko and Ozzie Guillen sum up the White Sox season (15-18) through the halfway point in May.

“We stink.” – Guillen

“We’re just not good right now, that’s it.” – Konerko

That pretty much sums it up, but let’s take a look at why the Sox are struggling so much.

Offense

The offense has struggled mightily thus far, ranking them near the bottom in the AL in many

categories.

Runs Scored – 14^th (Last)

Batting Average – 13^th

OBP – 12^th

BA w/ RISP – 11^th

The batting order and lineup has been shuffled quite a bit thus far, mainly due to some minor but nagging injuries keeping starters from the lineup. In particular, the biggest adventure has occurred in an already unstable centerfield where DeWayne Wise and Brian Anderson have seen considerable time lost resulting in Plan C, D & E (Lillibridge, Owens & Podsednik). Quentin, Getz, Dye and Thome have all missed some time here and there as well.

2B/SS Alexei Ramirez

Alexei Ramirez has followed up his ROY bid last year with a huge sophomore slump, and has been benched for stretches without much improvement. He’s hitting just .223 and has only 1 HR at the time of this writing.

The result, the White Sox have had 10 games where they have scored 1 run or less (6 shutouts, 4 1-run games).  You can’t win with the best pitching staff in the league with those kinds of performances.

Pitching

The top of the rotation has been pretty good with Buehrle and Danks posting solid numbers thus far.  From there it goes downhill fast.  Gavin Floyd (7.32 ERA) has struggled with control and as a result he is getting pounded. Likewise, Contreras has already been jettisoned to the minors after a horrific start. Colon has been able to fill the 5^th starter role admirably, but with the Contreras (8.19 ERA) demotion the expectations rise for him as well. Clayton Richard is now the de facto 5^th starter, but depending on how it goes that spot might be a merry-go-round for some time to come if Contreras can’t regain form.

The bullpen is the one bright spot in an otherwise craptastic team. Dotel, Jenks, Linebrink and Thorton are living up to their salaries and are probably the best in the league at shutting down innings 7-9.

Fielding

Fielding separates the men from the boys, and clearly the White Sox are boys so I don’t need to go into an analysis right now.  They need to make themselves relevant in the batting and pitching departments before I start splitting hairs.

Overall

The offense will get better, I just don’t see any way that it will stay this impotent throughout the course of the season. I believe Gavin Floyd is the lynch pin of this team.  He needs to get back to form for this team to be successful.

SP Gavin Floyd

The outlook is grim right now, but I will remind you that it is still May and things can turn around very quickly. I’ll leave you this little nugget:  Last year at this time, the AL Central Champion White Sox had a record of 19-21, so don’t jump off a bridge just yet.