Wednesday, May 26, 2010

That's Barely A White Sox Winner

Today was a strange game in more ways than one. For starters, I was, as usual, wrong about the channel and the start time. Well, by the time I realized, “Hey, the Sox are already in the 3rd inning,” I turned on the TV to see Randy William pitch. In the 3rd. If you tuned in late, like I did, you may have wondered “Wow, how bad could Buehrle have been if the Sox are leading 3-0? That makes no sense. Wait… maybe he was badly injured.” Turns out a balking incident resulted in both Ozzie and Buehrle being thrown out of the game, which is quite unfortunate on days when we have the lead and so early that practically the entire bullpen had to be used.

Fortunately, with a little bit of luck (Which always seems to be the case when Joey Cora is in charge of the team), the Sox held it together. My only question to Cora is, “Why keep Jenks in?” He was struggling during what should have been a guaranteed win. I supposed they needed to save something for tomorrow, especially with a 4-day series against the Rays, but there must have been some sort of shuffling possible in the bullpen.

Alright, here are some notes from the game:

Mark Kotsay continues to be ON FIRE! He’s hitting something like .385 over the last 10 games, a far cry from his season average, .220. It seems that he is getting back to the guy he was in Spring Training (a guy that does well against awful teams?).

Does anyone else imagine the Hawk and Stoney drinking heavily in the booth? I imagine them taking a shot every time Juan Pierre grounds out. As the season goes on, my imagination drifts more and more toward a scene from Major League. Is Bobby Jenks “Wild Thing” in this scenario?

After Jenks’ performance today, I gotta say I’m almost convinced he will not be brought back next year. That was way too close for comfort. How could Jenks come in with a 4-run lead and turn it into a bases-loaded mess that brought the score to 5-4? That is a question that I do not have an answer for.

On the other hand, Tony Pena sure picked a good day to keep himself in check. He had a rough start to his outing, but he held the score, thankfully. Remember how much I hated him last year? Well, looks like Coop fixed him.

Randy Williams, on the other hand, hasn’t been fixed by Coop just yet. Or maybe he’s just unfixable.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Bobby Jenks has had only one perfect 1-2-3 save since August of 2009. It's time to demote him and make him earn his job back. Make Putz or Thornton the closer. He's terrible even when he saves games.