2007 State of the Sox

April 23: White Sox 7, Royals 4

Now here's a game that'll drive you away from baseball.  But more on that later.

The big story was after Paul Konerko had a troublesome quote in the paper, the White Sox first baseman exploded with a two-homer, five-RBI day, and made a nice pick of a liner in the ninth inning to make the final frame less scary.

I still have to watch the first seven innings of this game, but the last two took a solid hour to complete due to the Royals and Sox combining to use nine pitchers in the last two innings.  So I can't say I feel cheated.  The guy who wrote Genesis 5 could write the recap:

Mark Buehrle begat Andy Sisco, who lived for three batters, allowing two to trespass and throwing a errant orb; and Sisco begat Mike MacDougal, who received a flyball out and begat the pinch-hit coming off the bench from Ross Gload; the mere sight of Gload begat Matt Thornton, who in turn begat Reggie Sanders off the bench and promptly singled; Sanders begat Esteban German who finally retired himself into the guarded hands of Jermaine Dye...

Of course, anything Ozzie Guillen hath wrought, Buddy Bell did wrought better -- the Kansas City manager used four relievers in a single inning and five overall, and to even less savory results.  Jimmy Gobble came in to face Jim Thome in the top of the eighth and allowed a single, and Bell replaced him with David Riske -- who gave up Konerko's second homer.  Riske would eventually retire two hitters, but he was pulled when Rob Mackowiak came up for lefty Neal Musser.  Ozzie countered with Brian Anderson, who walked without taking the bat off his shoulder, and Bell went to the bullpen to bring in Ryan Braun to face Juan Uribe.

Bobby Jenks managed to bring the tying run to the plate in a three-run game by putting runners on the corners with one out, but he ended the game with a double-play ball off David DeJesus' bat.  At least he finished the whole inning, and preserved Mark Buehrle's second victory of the season.

Outside of a scary sixth inning, Buehrle looked almost as good as he did during his no-hitter.  The extra two miles per hour on the fastball helps a lot, because it kept hitters from sitting on the changeup.  He spotted it well and didn't allow a lot of hard contact aside from John Buck's homer.  Even Esteban German's triple was on a low pitch, and it just happened to get past Rob Mackowiak, which is prone to happen.

The line drives started coming in the sixth, but he roared back with a vengeance in the seventh, closing out his start with two strikeouts and a weak popout.

Konerko, meanwhile, jumped on a couple of fastballs that he was swinging under in days past.  But Tadahito Iguchi impressed me almost as much, because he's back to looking comfortable in the second spot and hitting bad balls where they ain't.

While I wasn't a fan of all the pitcher switching, I did like Ozzie's call to start Joe Crede after his leadoff single.  Rob Mackowiak couldn't find a hole, but it worked like a sac bunt without automatically giving up the out, and set up the go-ahead run when Darin Erstad ripped (yes, ripped) a single back up the middle.

Record: 10-8 | Box score | Play-by-play

Week in a Box: April 16-22

Player of the Week:  Jim Thome.  A .690 OBP is hard to beat.  Not only did he draw 15 walks in six games, but of the five hits he had when people pitched to him, three left the yard.

Player of the Weak: Paul Konerko.  He's the reason why people are walking Thome.  Paulie did have a couple of big hits, but going 3-for-25 (including an 0-for-6 stinkbomb) with Thome on base all the time hurts.

Pitcher of the Week:  Mark Buehrle.  Duh.

Pitcher of the Weak:  John Danks.  Like in his start, Danks is once again the hard-luck loser.  Everybody else is pitching pretty well, while Sox defense limited Danks to only 4 2/3 innings in his start.

Fireman of the Week:  Bobby Jenks.  Jenks saved three games this week, and his ERA is falling while his radar gun readings rise.  Plus, everybody else either had a blemish or didn't see much action.

Gas Can of the Week:  Mike MacDougal and David Aardsma.  Both provided gigantic gut punches this week -- MacDougal's 0-2 fastball to Sammy Sosa, and Aardsma's slider to Marcus Thames.

Super Sub of the Week:  Rob Mackowiak.  Mack is giving Ozzie Guillen another reason to not play Brian Anderson, posting a couple of multi-hit games and his first homer of the season in relief of Scott Podsednik.

Super Scrub of the Week:  Gustavo Molina.  The guy still hasn't given A.J. Pierzynski a day off.

Gold Glove of the Week:  Joe Crede.  The diving stab and amazing throw to nail Jerry Hairston Jr. made Buehrle's no-hitter possible.

Hands of Stone:  Nobody.  The Sox played errorless ball this week, although Darin Erstad's failure to call Juan Uribe off on a pop-up helped submarine John Danks' start, and Tadahito Iguchi's dropped exchange on a double-play ball led to a two-run homer.