…and a 2-1 victory against the Royals should probably go in the loss column, but what the hell, we’ll take it. Don’t knock yourselves out trying to score a few runs for your pitchers, though, fellas.
Didn’t you pretty much know that two runs was all it was going to take tonight? I did, right out of the blocks. Two runs should be all it takes most nights against KC, but with Santana on the mound, and Nathan fresh in the pen, it was a done deal the moment Lew Ford’s little bloop dropped into the no man’s land behind second base.
And now Santana has won a whole bunch of games without a defeat (I’ve heard something about it over the last couple weeks, and Dick and Bert might have mentioned the subject at some point tonight, but I was sort of in a no man’s land of my own –what is it? Thirty games? More? Less? Am I even warm?). I do know that he’s now struck out forty-eight batters and walked only three, including the intentional pass tonight. I think the kid’s got a chance to be a halfway decent pitcher.
I see, though, that Chicago is winning again out in Oakland. My God, and I thought Hawk Harrelson was insufferable when the White Sox played like garbage wrapped in skin. Have you subjected yourself to the yammering of that jackass in the last couple weeks? I’m not an advocate of violence, but I wish one of you people who is would please do me a huge favor and rip the guy’s lungs out the next time he’s in town. Seriously, the man is inhumane. He deserves to spend the rest of his life locked in a broadcast booth –or, better yet, a hotel sauna– with Tim McCarver. (Talk about a No Exit scenario. It gives me the creeps just thinking about it.)
Ooh, Oakland just tied it up….Anyway, have you looked at the numbers for the White Sox? It’s pretty unreal, quite honestly. They were 16-4 going into tonight, including 10-2 on the road, and they’d won eight straight. They’d scored more runs than the Twins, and allowed fewer. The five pitchers in the White Sox rotation had a combined 2.84 ERA (and none of them was higher than 3.48).
That’s all pretty good. Chicago’s had a remarkable start, no doubt about it, and without Frank Thomas, etc. But here’s where things don’t look so good for the Sox (and exactly where things didn’t look so good for Cleveland last year when they were making like they were going to give the Twins a run for their money): Despite that 2.84 ERA (and a 10-3 record), Chicago’s starters have only 75 strikeouts (versus 40 walks) in 132-and-two-third innings pitched. The whole pitching staff has recorded 126 K/64 BB in 186 IP.
That ratio for the starters would be a borderline survival number for most individual major league starters, and when you compare it with the numbers for Minnesota’s rotation (85 K/11 BB in 118 IP) it’s even more glaring. Chicago’s starters have given up fewer hits than innings pitched (by a considerable margin so far), but I’d expect that number to start to climb as they leave the Central behind. As I said a couple weeks back, I do think they’re a much more balanced team; they’ve got two horses in Buehrle and Garcia, and their bullpen is improved with Hermanson and Marte capable of taking some of the heat off Takatsu. Garland is young and should only get better; Hernandez is Hernandez, and we’ve already seen what he can do when he’s dealing. He could also blow up at any time.
The bottom line is that the White Sox are a better team than they were last year. They’re probably going to be a pretty good team. But, holy shit, 16-4 (maybe, by the time you read this, 17-4)? They’re not that damn good.
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