Series Preview. White Sox vs. Mariners

The White Sox are riding an 8 game winning streak into their next series against the Mariners. The Mariners are coming off scoring 21 runs in Texas. It's easy to see that both of these teams are playing great baseball right now. The White Sox are obviously the hotter team because they are 9-1 in the last ten and the Mariners are only 4-6 in their last ten, but that doesn't tell the whole story and won't dictate who will win this series. The White Sox did sweep the Mariners the only other time that these two teams have faced off so far this year. That does not mean it will happen again, but there is a good chance. The Sox are sending out some of their best pitchers against the Mariners who until lately have not been a great offensive team. The toughest game will probably be when the Sox have to go against Felix Hernandez in the first game of the series. The best thing about baseball is that you never know who is going to win any game on any night.

Game 1
Jake Peavy (6-1 3.07 ERA) vs. Felix Hernandez (4-4 3.17 ERA)
Both of these pitchers are great pitchers and their sort of high ERAs don't really show how good they can be. Peavy's ERA was excellent until he had a bad game against the Indians. He still got the win as he got great run support. Hernandez is storied for not having run support, but with the Mariners scoring 21 runs maybe that offense is ready to do some good things.

This is going to be the game that the White Sox are the closest to losing. The White Sox can still win this one if they get the offense going again and Peavy throws another gem like has been doing this entire year. The Mariners aren't going to be easy for the Sox and the White Sox will have to work hard and do a better job with runners in scoring position. If the offense can click again, the Sox can win.

Game 2
Gavin Floyd (4-5 5.02 ERA) vs. Hector Noesi (2-6 5.01 ERA)
You look at these two guys' ERA and you expect this game to be a high scoring game. That might be true, but both of these pitchers are capable of having really good games. We all know as Sox fans that Gavin Floyd is probably the most inconsistent pitcher in all of Major League Baseball. If Floyd has a good game, he gives the Sox a great chance to win the game. If he has one of his bad games, the White Sox will have to work hard to get the win.

I think the Sox have a great shot to win this game as long as Floyd doesn't put them in a really bad position. One again, the White Sox have to be better than they were in the last game of the Rays series with runners in scoring position. They can't leave runners on and then lose by a few runs. One of these games, leaving the bases loaded with no outs is going to bite them in the butt. They have to stop failing in those situations and need to score a ton of runs off of those situations. Continuation hitting is one of the reasons that the Sox beat the Rays in the second game and they need to play like that to beat the Mariners and other teams.

Game 3
Chris Sale (6-2 2.34 ERA) vs. Kevin Millwood (3-4 3.56 ERA)
Chris Sale has been one of the best White Sox pitchers this year. In his last game, he threw 15 strikeouts and completely dominated a good Rays lineup. If he can do something like that again for the Sox, he gives them a really good chance to win. Millwood isn't a great pitcher, but his ERA isn't terrible and it's not going to be easy for the White Sox.

For a final time I'm going to say it, the White Sox have to succeed when they have runners in scoring position especially when there is less than two outs. Right now AJ is the best player on the team with runners in scoring position and he will probably be playing tomorrow, but who knows how many of these three games he will play because he hasn't had rest in awhile due to how well he's been playing.

White Hot Sox

Check out my epic photoshopping, am I right?

Another sweep for the White Sox and they've won 8 in a row! There's no doubt that the White Sox are playing great baseball right now and they're finding ways to win games no matter what obstacle they're facing. The Sox have swept in 3 of their last 4 series; they are 9-1 in the last ten, and they don't seem to be stopping any time soon. The starters have pitched well, the bullpen has been solid, and the White Sox are playing great on offense right now. Not much is going wrong for them other than umpires throwing people out without a warning, but that's not a big deal. Right now the Sox are winning games and that's all that matters.

One of the biggest differences between this year and last year is that the White Sox no longer rely on Konerko to lead the team by having a big game every game or else the Sox lose. Konerko went 2-13 this series and the Sox still swept and scored 13 runs. That would have never happened last year. Now that the offense doesn't depend on Konerko for everything, the pressure is off of Konerko and he can just focus on playing his game. I think that is one of the reasons that this year has been different from every other year that he has played so far. If the White Sox offense keeps it up, Paulie will keep it up as well.

Another big difference in this series is that the White Sox did not depend on the long ball. Obviously it is how they won in Game 1, but that was a different game than the other two. The White Sox only had one home run in the last two games of the series and they still scored 11 runs. The White Sox offense has something that it hasn't had in awhile. That is the ability to hit in succession and score runs without necessarily hitting the ball out of the park. This is a big difference because when you depend on the home run ball, you're going to lose a lot of games when the ball just isn't going out. Now the Sox can win both with the home run and in other ways like they did on Tuesday.

Up next the Sox will play Seattle and will have to face King Felix in the first game of the series to try to improve their win streak to nine games. The series will be tough as the Mariners just put up 21 against the Rangers today, but the Sox can win this series and keep it rolling while staying in first place.

Series Recap. White Sox win 2/3 against Twins

The White Sox had a tough series, but ended up winning 2 out of the 3 games. The first game was the worst of the entire series, but the only game that was even close to easy was the second game. The pitching by the White Sox was not stellar in the series, but Chris Sale did have a great start in the second game.

The power from the White Sox was the biggest story of the entire series. The players that hit home runs this series are Beckham, Rios (2), Konerko (2), Pierzynski, De Aza, and Viciedo. The power was especially helpful to the White Sox in their win in the third game of the series as they came back in the 6th after their terrible 5th inning.

The Indians swept the Tigers, so the White Sox did not gain any ground in the central division race. The Sox will have a great chance to do that though as they are going to play a three game series against the Indians starting tomorrow.

Game Preview. White Sox vs. Indians

The White Sox go from Texas to Cleveland without a day of rest as they play the Indians today. This might be a small problem because of the little rest, but I'm sure manager Robin Ventura has them ready to play today. Playing the Indians shouldn't be as much of a struggle as playing the Rangers was, but who knows because the White Sox weren't exactly stellar against division opponents last year.

Chris Sale is on the mound for the White Sox making his first Major League start. If he can control his pitches and not leave that slider hanging, he'll have a good game. During spring training, he looked like one of the best pitchers on the staff and he'll hopefully keep that going into the regular season today against the Indians.

The White Sox offense will need to back Sale up with a few runs. They had big troubles with runners in scoring position against Texas and need to do a better job of bringing those guys home in this series and game. Brent Morel, who is still without a hit, will probably start today and will hopefully get on track against the Indians. Rios and Dunn have been pretty good so far and they'll look to continue that. Konerko is solid as he always is. De Aza and Beckham haven't really gotten it going yet this season, so I'll look to them to have big games. Neither Pierzynski nor Flowers have been great at the plate so far, but whoever is playing today will hopefully get a base hit or two and get on track for the season.

The White Sox can win this game if Sale pitches well. The offense will have to score some runs because I don't think Sale will shut them out. The short rest could hurt the White Sox, but this game is still winnable for the Sox.

Game Recap. White Sox lose 5-0 to Rangers

The White Sox did not play a very good game today. They didn't score a single run and gave up 5, including three homers. The Sox end up losing the series 1-2.

The first few innings of the game were great pitching. The problem is that Floyd made three mistakes and all three of them were driven out of the park. The Rangers only scored one run that didn't come from a home run. After Floyd got out of the game, the bullpen was good. Nate Jones got to play in his first ever MLB game. His first two batters were a little shaky and he walked both, but then he got a double play and struck out Josh Hamilton. The thing that worries me most about this game is that Floyd didn't pitch well. If the White Sox want to be successful, Floyd has to pitch well.

The offense was a big problem in this game. Not a single player on the team had more than one hit. Everyone was equally bad. Konerko had two bad at bats today. Dunn didn't get a single hit and neither did Rios. Pierzynski really struggled today because for the entire game he had to face a left handed pitcher. I'm not sure why Ventura played him instead of Flowers against the lefty.

Right now everyone is to blame for this game. Neither pitching or offense was good and when neither is good,  it's hard to win games. The Sox should be able to get back on track against a team that's not as good in the upcoming series. They'll play the Indians in Cleveland next.

Opening Day Roster Revealed

The White Sox made all their cuts and finalized the roster for opening day a day earlier than most other teams. It was quite the treat seeing the roster for this year, and now I'll break it down.

Catchers
AJ Pierzynski- AJ has been a solid catcher year after year for the Sox, and I expect nothing less than normal this year. With Flowers playing catcher as well, he should get more rest and be more of a presence at the plate. I think he'll have the best batting average on the team at the end of the year. He's always healthy and is a great catcher. He's one of the best at making the pitchers he works with better. I'm looking forward to another successful season from him.

Tyler Flowers- Before last season, he was called up occasionally, but I was never impressed with how he played. He was a streaky hitter and wasn't that great of a catcher. When he was called up last year after Castro left the team, he played great. He was a good hitter and defensive catcher. I'm hoping he can continue playing that way this season.

Infielders
Paul Konerko- Konerko is always the one solid player on the team. Doubts were in my mind about how long he could keep up the pace, but from what I've seen this spring, he's ready to have another great season. Even if he doesn't have his best season, he will help lead the team and others will step up to take some of the load off his shoulders.

Gordon Beckham- He hasn't had that breakout season that everyone is expecting from him yet. There's always that hope that this year will be that year. I don't think it will be that year, but I think that his hitting will improve. He's a great defensive second basemen, but really needs to improve his hitting. I think the new hitting coach will help him improve a little, and I think he'll have an okay year.

Alexei Ramirez- He's had streaky hitting years in the past, but even if he is just average this year that would help the team. If he improves a tiny bit, that would make a huge difference. He's become better and better each year with playing defense. If he can shy away from too many errors, the White Sox infield will be defensively sound.

Brent Morel- Morel is one of the players that I think the new hitting coach will have the greatest effect on. He didn't hit well last year, but he's fixable. He'll bounce back this year by striking out less and popping out less. His defense is pretty good and as long as he doesn't make careless errors, he'll help add to the great defensive infield.

Eduardo Escobar- He's a rookie and he's looked pretty dang good this spring. That's basically all I can say about him, because that's all I know. I hope he can add something to the team and step into places in the infield when certain players aren't hitting or playing well.

Adam Dunn- This season is huge for Dunn. If he bounces back and hits 25 home runs, the White Sox are in great shape. His swing is already looking better and he is striking out much less than he was last year. By looking at last year's numbers, he can only go up.

Outfielders
Alex Rios- The new hitting coach is going to have a giant effect on Rios this season. Last year, Rios was lost at the plate. The hitting coach didn't help at all, and Rios just had a bad season. With the new hitting coach and maybe a new attitude, Rios can get back into the same form as the Rios from 4 years ago. I believe he can be that hitter again and I believe playing right field instead of center will benefit him defensively.

Alejandro De Aza- Last season was just a sneak peak into how good De Aza is. He's both good at the plate and out in the field. I trust him in center much more than I trust Rios. I'm excited to have him on the team full-time this year. I think he'll have a good hitting season and will help the offense improve.

Dayan Viciedo- He is a tank. I don't think anything else needs to be said.

Kosuke Fukudome- It's exciting to have him on board this year. It's also nice knowing that if Rios starts to struggle, there is someone who can adequately fill in for him. He had a pretty good spring and I'm happy to have him as a fourth outfielder.

Brent Lillibridge- He's been the streakiest player ever in the past couple years, but it's nice when he's hot. I think Venturra will be happy to ride him until he cools down if he does happen to get hot. Looking forward to him having a small, but important roll in this year's team.

Starting Pitchers
John Danks- This is his first year as the ace of the squad and I think he can handle it. Since he first started with the Sox, Buehrle was his mentor and now Danks has Buehrle's place on the team. He's up for the challenge and he's going to do a great job.

Jake Peavy- I'm not expecting Peavy to have a Cy Young year or be close to what he was before he came to the Sox, but I am expecting him to have a good season. He's a good number two pitcher as long as he has confidence and gets along with Cooper.

Gavin Floyd- He's been shaky the past couple seasons, but hopefully he has a good season this year. He's probably the pitcher that I'm most worried about this season just because I can't trust him to be good. He'll have good games, but he'll also have really bad games.

Chris Sale- He's had a great spring and I expect him to have a great season. He could falter toward the end of the season just because he isn't used to the amount of work that is put into an entire season as a starter. Otherwise, I think he's completely ready for this role.

Philip Humber- I'm not expecting him to pitch like he did last year, but for being the 5th pitcher in the rotation he's going to be very good.

Relievers
I'm going to address the relievers as a whole just because I don't know a lot about pitchers like Nate Jones and others.
My opinion on the bullpen is that it will be better than it was last year and has been in the past, but there still isn't a sure closer. I'd like to see Reed in the role and keep Thornton as the setup man because that's what he's good at. Jones has been good in spring training and I'm ready to see what he can do.

Chicago White Sox Year In Review

As the new year is coming soon, I thought I'd look back at the past year for the White Sox and comment about everything that happened. It was an interesting and disappointing year for White Sox fans.

The first thing that I remember from last year is the Sox resigning both Konerko and AJ Pierzynski. This was probably the most important signing of the offseason for the Sox. Konerko is the captain and is the most important player on the Sox. He shows up every day and does whatever he can to make the Sox win. He has been the White Sox MVP for the past 5 seasons. Signing AJ was also key for the White Sox. He is one of the most dependable catchers in Major League Baseball. Up until this season, he had never been on the disabled list. He's tough and a great catcher. He can also hit the ball well. His age is showing, but signing him was very important and made fans very happy before the season even started.

The next thing was spring training. Trying to figure out who will be on the team and who won't. Lastings Milledge looked like a keeper, but coaches thought different and kept him down all year. This turned out to be right.

The season started exactly as White Sox fans expected with a big win over the Indians. Adam Dunn and what was supposed to be an explosive offense scored 15 runs. Even though pitching gave up 10 runs, the offense outshadowed it and that's what fans expected. It turned out to be the opposite as the season went on.

John Danks couldn't buy a win in the early part of the season despite pitching good games in and out. The run support became a big problem for the Sox, especially when Danks was on the mound. Once he got his first win, it was more noticable that he was actually having a great season. This helped earn him a contract extension this summer. The slow start would prove to be a problem throughout the year for the White Sox offense. This was one of the biggest disappointments during the 2011 season.

Next was the campaign to get Konerko to the all-star game by voting him in for the final vote. The campaign went well and Konerko was elected to the game. Only Quentin and Konerko made it to the all-star game from the White Sox, which the AL lost.

The season went on and more disappointment happened. The White Sox failed to score runs and pitching wasn't as good as it should have been. Peavy remained injured on and off for most of the season. Humber was a nice surpise leading the Sox in ERA all year. It was easy to see that the White Sox had a lot of things to fix over the offseason.

Ozzie Guillen and Greg Walker were both fired, as they should have been. Robin Ventura was hired as the new manager for the White Sox. Fans hope that he can do better than the last ex-player manager.

The final part of this year that is memorable is Mark Buehrle signing somewhere outside of Chicago. He was deep in the hearts of many White Sox fans and will remain there for years. Even though he is wearing a different jersey now, White Sox fans will always love him for what he did in a White Sox jersey. The no-hitter, perfect game, winning a World Series game, saving a World Series game, and being the ace the White Sox needed. Not to mention the great fielding plays including the through the legs play last year. There aren't many words to describe how near and dear Mark Buehrle was in the hearts and minds of Sox fans, but he will always be remembered. It was great to have someone like him on the White Sox and I hope he does well in Miami and continues to be great. To fill the Buehrle void, John Danks signed a big contract and will probably be the ace next year as he is already scheduled to start opening day.

2011 was an interesting year for the White Sox to say the least. It could've been better, but it could've been worse too. There's a lot of improvement needed and hopefully 2012 is better than 2011 was.

Game Recap. White Sox win 3-1

Both Gavin Floyd and Tim Wakefield had good games. Through the first few innings, they were fanning down batters. Gavin made the first mistake in the third inning, giving up a home run to Jarrod Saltalamacchia but that would be his only big mistake of the game and the only run he would give up.

In the sixth, Juan Pierre laid down a bunt and reached first on that bunt. Omar Vizquel then sacrificed him over. Wakefield threw a wild pitch and Pierre advanced to third. Konerko hit a deep fly and that would tie the game.

In the next inning, Quentin was walked and then Pierzynski hit a home run that would win the game for the White Sox.

Santos got his 22nd save of the year. Even though he still isn't officially the closer, he kind of is. He'll probably have more than 30 saves this year, which is pretty good for a short stop.

Humber and Lester go at it tomorrow, which should be a good game. Both pitchers have been very good this season.