Danks and Broadway Take One For the Team: Sox - Orioles Game 3

If you’ve ever read the Odyssey, you might say today’s Sox game was a reenactment of said story. What amazes me is that the loss was given to John Danks today and not Ken Griffey Junior. “Never write angry,” someone told me once. Well, how about when you’re in despair? After 8 inning of dismal pitching, unproductive batting, and the most questionable managing I’ve seen all year, the Sox lost 11-3 to the Orioles.

John Danks was all tied up on the mound today. He threw 93 pitches in just 4 innings and collected 7 hits, 3 walks, and 4 runs. I swear, it looked like he even had a hard time throwing pitches to AJ on an intentional walk. But, I’d still consider him the victim here. He was hobbling and no one had his back, which amounted to disaster. I imagined today would only end after a big helping of D.J. Carrasco. Sure enough, Danks was gone in the fifth inning, but replaced by Lance Broadway. Lance gave up 7 runs over 4 innings. The home runs were his fault, but much like Danks, he was also a victim. I won’t say the pitching was good, but the fielding was much, much worse! Either strike your batter out, or prepare for him to touch base. I think 4 of tonight’s runs were single-handedly earned by Uribe, 4 others by Griffey, and the remaining 3 points were due to Lance Broadway allowing 3 home runs.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating (Yeah, it wasn’t all Uribe; Swisher earned one, too!), as I always do on days like this, but there are certain decisions I just couldn’t understand today. The first was to sit out Crede. Sure, you have to break him in easily. Sure, Juan Uribe is a decent replacement. Sure, he hasn’t been the most productive at bat, but he has been a highlight reel in his first games back and we really could’ve used some Crede magic on third base today- and I’m sure he could’ve used more at-bats to get his swing back. Did you know Carlos Quentin had the day off? After a hugely successful day yesterday (and a hugely successful season overall), he’s certainly allowed a day off. But there’s the fact that tomorrow is an off day. Then there’s the fact that Ozzie broke his own rule: “If I take you out of the game today, you ain’t playin’ tomorrow.” Yet, here was Nick Swisher playing left field for TCQ after being taken out of the game yesterday. I know I promised I’d stop fighting the Brian Anderson crusade, but the measures being taken to keep him out of the game are bordering on ridiculous. Hand that kid a box of tissues. And, ok, don’t give him the start, but when the 6^th inning came around and Griffey had fallen on his butt for the second time and everyone with a bit of knowledge of baseball had already figured out that Lance Broadway was going to get fly balls, the situation had crossed the line past ridiculous and into mindless.

And there was no hitting to boot. This Liz guy’s ERA is down to 6.95 after today. He should’ve been very hittable. I mean, Konerko made it look easy; he went 2 for 3 with a walk and homered. Dye had a solo home run the only time he had a hit, and Thome and Uribe were the only others to have a hit. A few got on base on a fielders’ choice or walks (Griffey had 3 today), but 7 were stranded.

I think that was enough complaining for one day. If you have some venting to do, the comments section can be the official place for you to do it. I’ll leave you with some flashback comics from my favorite thing about the internet [The Pale Hose]. Although they're from 2006 and 2007, they are exactly what I’ve been thinking today. And while I’m plugging other sites, check out the latest from Sox Machine [White Sox, White House].