Enjoy that cheese while you can, Joe Mauer. (Copyright 2010 Carl Skanberg, the genius behind SmellsLikeMascot.com)
After 10 days in the car, we’re back, but before we recap the “Buddy Across America Tour,” a quick shout-out to WiHi’s beloved Pale Hose.
The Chicago White Sox hit the All-Star break in first place in the American League Central, a notion that seemed retarded impossible ridiculous as recently as Memorial Day. Mrs. WiHi and I went to go check out Ozzie’s Fightin’ Nine in person at Kansas City on May 16 — and proceeded to watch ’em get handcuffed by the mighty Brian Bannister.
“Never again,” I grumbled as I left The K, and made a bee-line for Arthur Bryant’s to drown my sorrows in barbecue sauce.
A few weeks later, I was up in Ames, tapping away in the office of a fellow Sox fan, when the conversation turned to baseball:
“What’s wrong with them?” he asked with genuine concern.
I pondered this for a second.
“Three things,” I replied. “This team was built to be carried by one, its starting pitching; two, Carlos Quentin, who began the season hitting in the No.3 hole; and three, Gordon Beckham, who opened the season at No. 2. Basically, to this point, all three have been pretty damn brutal. Paulie is Paulie, Rios is Rios, and you weren’t going to get much out of fringe guys such as Andruw Jones, Omar Vizquel and Mark Kotsay either way. There ya go. ”
With that, we both shrugged and went back to work.
On June 11, the Sox were 27-33, 8.5 games back of Minnesota, with a flicker of life — a three-game winning streak — tempered by the fact that they were playing crap squads such as the Cubs.
But then a funny thing happened: Over the next 27 games, they went 22-5. They swept bad teams — don’t get me wrong, the Pirates and Nats are brutal — and good. They took all three at home against Atlanta. They went to red-hot Texas over the Fourth of July weekend and took two of three. (Bite me, Keith Law.)
Remember that conversation up in Ames? Let’s go back and review those three key elements again:
1. Starting pitching (Mark Buerhle, Jake Peavy, John Danks, Gavin Floyd and Freddy Garcia)
April 5-June 11: 21-25
June 12-July 11: 16-5, 2.26 ERA
2. Carlos Quentin
April 5-June 11: .211, 8 HRs
June 12-July 11: .325, 11 HRs
3. Gordon Beckham
April 5-June 11: .204, 1 HR
June 12-July 11: .247, 2 HRs
And a bonus stat:
4. Alexei Ramirez
April 5-June 11: . 263, 6 HRs
June 12-July 11: .298, 2 HRs
This isn’t a great lineup, even if all the parts are in sync, but when Quentin is providing legitimate protection behind Rios and Konerko, it’s a completely different animal. And while those three figure to come down to Earth in the second half of the season, there’s no way that Beckham is a .216 Major-League hitter, either. Production ought to even out, with Beckham and A.J. Pierzynski picking up some of the slack and Ramirez continuing to hit well during the warm months.
Defensively, once Mark Teahen went on the disabled list, everything else started to fall into place. The platoon of Vizquel and rookie Dayan “The Tank” Viciedo at third has produced pretty consistently in Teahen’s absence, and having Vizquel on the field has really seemed to help Ramirez defensively. Teahen is an adequate left-handed bat, and this lineup needs left-handed power help, but he’s also a minus defender (the more I think about it, the more I realize that Teahen is the perfect Pittsburgh Pirate — a cost-effective .255-ish, 14-16 HR player who wilts in clutch situations), and you don’t mess with a good thing when it ain’t broke.
But ultimately, the Sox’s resurgence — and staying power — comes down to starting pitching. After seven weeks of scuffling, Peavy and Buerhle were brilliant against interleague foes, then used that momentum to carry them into July. Danks just needed run support; Floyd just needed confidence. Garcia’s carriage is bound to turn back into a pumpkin at some point, but the dude still knows how to pitch, even when tossing slop and running on fumes. Losing Peavy for the rest of the season was huge — but it’s not fatal, if Danks and Floyd can maintain their recent form. In a perfect world, Kenny Williams would find a veteran hammer of some kind on the trade market to replace Peavy at the top of the rotation; at the moment, even if this team would somehow happen to hang on and win the Central, as presently constructed, it’s not getting out of the first round of the playoffs unless you’ve got a Cliff Lee/Peavy type to lean on in a short series.
Hell, at least they’re looking. If you’d told me on that grey, soggy day at Kauffman Stadium that the Sox would be buyers in two months, I’d have laughed you out of the Plaza.
Of course, I can’t shake this uneasy feeling the Twins are going to kick the tits out of my men up in Minneapolis right after the break and launch themselves right back into this thing, but we’ll cross that bridge of angst when it comes. For now, by God, I’m going to sit back and enjoy this.
The BBCWiHi Blues 