There was a point during last night’s broadcast in the fourth inning where our friend Hawk started into a speech about how certain veteran players need to cinch ‘er up and all that, since there’s still lots of baseball left to be played and let’s not forget about those crucial six games against Detroit.

And, briefly, I cringed.

Not because the Sox are out of it (because they are) and not because they’re headed for the basement (because they’re not), but because this Saturday against Kansas City no longer means win a game; this Saturday against Kansas City will mean the arrival of Jake Peavy, Hawk Harrelson Superhero.

Now, bear in mind that Peavy’s past performance in Games That Count hasn’t been the best, and bear in mind also that the White Sox need nothing less than 1991 Game Seven Jack Morris to do the rest of the work for them.

Jake Peavy is not 1991 Game Seven Jack Morris.

Peavy is good, indeed, and Peavy’s sheer force of will brings at least some glimmer of hope to the next few years, and while he may pitch some fine games he will not put the team over the top; no one man does that when a team is down by 5.5 with 17 games to go.

But what I fear is not third (or second!) place, or even an agitated injury. I fear Hawkeroo, hopping about the booth in between screeds against umpires about how the cavalry is here and the rest of the league might as well pack it in and call it a season. Who knows what wacky name Peavy will have bestowed upon himself? Peaverooney? Peaverino? Leave it to Peaver? How many sliders will inspire great speeches on the lost art of not unpitching your way around the guys who can’t un-outhit you? How many times will we hear about Peavy’s laundry list of great, clutch performances that don’t exist?

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We all know by now that 2009 is a disaster, and that’s all well and good, except everything that’s wrong with the Sox right now is everything that informed last spring’s wildly psychotic expectations. Carlos Quentin, for example, would not get hurt. Jim Thome would not continue his decline into old age and diminished skills. Last season was just a down year for Jermaine Dye in the outfield. And on and on it went.

But with this season almost in the books and two of the biggest question marks (Thome and Jose Contreras) out of town, who will carry us just short of what little the team needs from then next year?

Alex Rios. Not that Rios will be terrible, but expect a smattering of weird local projections insisting he’ll put up another 30-homer, 100-RBI season even though he’s never put up a 30-homer, 100-RBI season. People seem to forget this about Rios, that while he’s pretty good he’s not quite franchise good. And yet they will. And so will he.

Gordon Beckham. There is no such thing as “a book,” and the league would never assemble such a thing on young Bacon Spice, even if one did exist. Do you want to know the real reason he’s closing the season on a 17-for-76 slump? Because he’s awesome, that’s why.

Alexei Ramirez. It’s kind of funny how Ramirez’ sloppy defense was entirely overlooked heading into the season as the Sox moved him over to short, and it will be even funnier after his disastrous time in center next year spelling the DFA’d Alex Rios.

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Carlos Quentin, as the legend goes, is a thinker. Not just a thinking man’s ballplayer - he went to Stanford, so he’s probably smarter than you - but a real-life thinker, a sort of pine tar philosopher constantly examining and reexamining his swing not just as a means of hitting a baseball but as an implement to a larger goal of helping his team win.

The legend also goes that, because he is so driven and singularly focused, Quentin can give the wrong impression to observers and outsiders alike. Some may see a man who doesn’t have time to care, while those close to the misunderstood genius insist Quentin actually care more than we will ever understand. The bat-chewing, the wrist-smashing, the playing hurt: Carlos Quentin is not weird. Carlos Quentin is Advanced.

Did you read that in today’s Sun-Times? Maybe you did. Did you also read that on the team’s official site five months ago? That’s also possible.

From WhiteSox.com, April 16, 2009:

It’s not so much about the results for Quentin, as much as it is about finding the right feel at the plate. The study continues for the cerebral hitter, trying to perfect a discipline that’s almost impossible to perfect.

From the Sun-Times, September 11, 2009:

Back in 2005 and ’06, Podsednik was Quentin. Tough to interview. Always working. Chasing a perfection that just doesn’t exist in the game of baseball.

Perhaps it is foolish for us to expect to learn more about this mysterious man patrolling left field, his cosmic genius defying the prose of even the most fervent and devoted of scribes. We live in a world of endless information, genius batters, cool kids and team-building general managers, and perhaps this is a time for us to accept our own limitations and realize there are but some things, alas, that we mortals are simply not meant to know.

It’s funny to hear Kenny Williams lament publicly how much the Sox’ lame season disappoints him, as though anything that’s gone wrong should be a surprise to even the most optimistic of Sox fans (or, for that matter, Sox personnel). To hear Williams tell it:

Asked if he takes any consolation knowing the Sox likely will be the favorites to win the American League Central in 2010, Williams showed just how unhappy he was.

“That doesn’t take away the sting that I feel right now,” he said. “That doesn’t take away the churning of my stomach.

“When you can beat the New York Yankees three out of four, Anaheim two of three and then Cleveland comes into town and you lose two of three, Baltimore comes in and you lose two of three, you beat the Boston Red Sox three of four, almost sweep, and you go on a road trip and do nothing. Then you come back and the Oakland A’s pound you…no, none of what I see ahead takes away the beatdown I feel right now. [Expletive] no.”

It’s good to hear the man in charge bleeding for the team he loves, and no one doubts Williams’ belief in the teams he assembles, but what’s shocking is Williams’ reaction to the 2009 season; the only way to be disappointed by something is to have unmet expectations, and given the Sox’ problems going into the season you have to wonder why, exactly, anyone would have expected anything from these Sox at all.

Did Williams think a three-man rotation would carry the team down the stretch?

Did he think the seventh center fielder would be the last center fielder?

Did he think trading for a pitcher with an injury already considered season-ending (even before it actually ended his season) would somehow improve the team’s chances?

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The Sox, if you ask them, have not one but two legitimate Rookie of the Year candidates. As Guillen told the Sun-Times today:

Guillen continued to push for Beckham, and now Chris Getz, to be in the final argument for rookie of the year honors. But he made one thing clear for the Sox public relations department.

”You know, no one talks about Getz, but Getz has had a great year, too,” Guillen said. ”Those two guys grew up in this organization and hopefully they get it.”

”The only bad thing about it is maybe the [Sox] PR department will make me fly from Venezuela when they hear the news, and that’s [a negative]. I don’t fly from Venezuela for anybody’s award.”

Hilarity of that last bit aside, what about Getz’ chances as Rookie of the Year? Consider the numbers of the Sox’ prized freshmen:
Getz: 97 games, .271/.330/.366, 46 R, 18 2B, 4 3B, 2 HR, 31 RBI, 22 SB
Beckham: 83 games, .274/.350/.458, 45 R, 23 2B, 1 3B, 10 HR, 52 RBI, 6 SB

On the surface, what we’re looking at are two players with two different sets of abilities; one who can hit well and run better, and one who does almost the opposite. Considering also the fact he was drafted in 2008, Beckham would seem to have the obvious advantage, and it’s unlikely anyone will argue Beckham as the superior player of the two.

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It’s an honest question, really: with the season all but over, what should the Sox do with midsummer acquisition Jake Peavy? With His ankle mostly healed but his elbow not responding well to a comebacker last week, Peavy’s previously questionable status has since become a point of contention; one school of thought says to get him back for one good go-round to make sure the pieces all work, while the other says there’s no point in having him pitch meaningless games. Both ideas are right, but unfortunately both are wrong as well.

Let’s for a second assume the best. Let’s say Peavy’s elbow is no big deal and he’s back to the form that won the 2007 NL Cy Young Award. Then what? What, really, do the Sox get out of No. 44’s return to the bigs? Two, three wins? A 4-20 September instead of a 2-22 September? A respectable third place instead of a floundering fourth? No one’s saying Peavy’s return would be worthless, but it’s hard to see how it would be anything but useless.

Now let’s take the other tack and say Peavy’s healthy but the Sox decide to simply shelve him until 2010 as insurance. Are the Sox really any worse off for it? They won’t win too much without good pitching, but at the same time the Sox haven’t really established a pattern of winning with good pitching this year. Peavy’s an acknowledged competitor, and his pride might be a little wounded, but we have to have faith in the idea that he understands the position in which his team finds itself; considering his willingness to help San Diego save a few bucks on payroll, this seems like a safe bet. The Sox end up about where they would have, and Peavy gets a nice payday for not doing his job. No one wins, but no one loses - except the Sox, but they’d be doing that anyway.

What’s important isn’t the decision the Sox make; what’s important is that, for all the wrong reasons, they can afford to make it at all. Do they really need a good pitcher to help them finish out a bad season? Do they dare insult themselves and their new star by calling it a day? The answer, sadly, doesn’t matter because at this point, the season doesn’t matter, either.

Yes, yes, 2005/2006/station-to-station domination/end of an era, et cetera, but after all the ink has been spilled, there remain two things no one’s talking about with regards to last night’s trades of Jose Conteras to the Rockies and Jim Thome to the Dodgers.

1. The Sox are better off without Jose Contreras.
When was the last time anyone said “Oh good, Contreras is pitching tonight.” Two years ago? Three? Four? How many three-inning, five-run outings could the Good Guys even stand anymore to seriously consider themselves in contention? Contreras lost the magic years - not months, years - ago, and no batch of stellar outings went without bookends of the absolute worst pitching performances any of us will ever see in our lifetimes. By dealing away one-fifth of his rotation, Kenny Williams admits what we already knew: having nobody pitch is better than having Jose Contreras pitch.

2. Jim Thome is better off without the White Sox.
It may sting a little more to see Thome leave, if only because he was by all accounts one of the nicest, hardest-working guys in the league, and you know he was grateful for every at-bat. But as far back as 2005, Thome’s entire reason for waiving his no-trade clause was to live closer to home and get a shot at a World Series - a shot he thought he had with the White Sox. The Good Guys tried their hardest, and Thome certainly kept up his end of the bargain, leaving behind a highlight reel easily summed up by mere mention of two of the greatest, numerically-ordained moments in franchise history: 500 and 163. Thome and the Sox had a good thing for a while, but at 39 years old he had to know the time to get that last piece of the puzzle was running out.

In many ways, the Jim Thome of 2009 is not unlike the Ken Griffey, Jr. of 2008, leaving his hometown team for that one last shot at The Big One. Maybe he’ll return to Cleveland for an encore in 2010, or maybe this October with Los Angeles will be all the farewell tour he needs. Either way, after four years of organizational frustration it finally grew to the point where, to Thome, time spent on the bench with the Dodgers became more appealing than time spent trying to carry the Sox any further on his aching back. Here’s wishing you the world, Big Jim. You’ve earned it.

Okay, so technically they’re still in it, but I think we all know just how much “being in it” really counts for. But as the Good Guys vainly clutch at straws for ways to stay alive, perhaps we fans can return the favor and find the good in what little is left. To wit:

Spitefulness.
No, not spite for ourselves - spite for the Cubs! Remember the Cubs? They’re terrible! And not just regular terrible - terrible to the point of quite possibly finishing the season with no more wins than the Sox at nearly twice the payroll. Geovany Soto’s munchies got the best of him, Alfonso Soriano is exactly the useless player all those non-eight-year-contract-giving clubs thought he would be, their bullpen is comically bad, and Lou Piniella’s only course of action is to turn his rage inwards. Now as the local sports press sets its crosshairs on the Best Entertainment $30 Million Can Buy, “It’s Gonna Happen” has happened again, and in ways we all knew it would. Oh, the sweet smell of schadenfreude.

Football.
As a good friend put it to me, the Bears are shaping up to be the Pale Hose of the NFC: “We have promising young kids, broken down veterans, and a completely mediocre division, which we will probably lose anyway. If nothing else you should feel eerily comfortable watching the Bears. We’ll beat teams we shouldn’t, lose to teams we should beat, and fall well short of our potential.” Baseball season may be running out of time, but White Sox season never has to end. Go Bears!

If only we could say the great White Sox meltdown has begun, that the bullpen is no longer useful, that the team has chosen to commence its annual death rattle and we could all just wash our hands of this mess.

Sadly for those of us still refusing to acknowledge the obvious, what’s happening is not the annual suicide; what’s happening is merely the order of things. Think about both of these teams for a second:

The Red Sox are in playoff contention. The White Sox are, for all intents and purposes, out of it.

The Red Sox have a powerful, well-rounded lineup. The White Sox have a lineup high on talent but low on ability.

The Red Sox have useful, focused speed that gets on base. The White Sox have a couple guys who can run fast.

The Red Sox have a bullpen currently able to deliver the goods. The White Sox’ bullpen delivers tasty flash-fried meatballs, hot and fresh.

And on and on it goes, but the question isn’t really one of in which specific areas the Red Sox are outdueling the Good Guys, but one of by how much the Red Sox as a whole can (and do) outplay the South Siders. The line-item, matchup-type approach might work splendidly when you need you needed to call in Charles Barkley and KJ to take out Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant in NBA Jam, but in baseball one player’s strength against another can be easily neutralized with something as simple as an intentional walk, rendering that whole line of thinking obsolete.

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With Jose Contreras inevitably heading back to the bullpen after last night’s disaster, and with rampant speculation going unchecked about how Jake Peavy will ride into town to save the day this weekend, it seems a fine time to ask the more important question: is there anybody out there who didn’t see this coming?

Not Contreras’ breakdown specifically, but the whole back-end debacle, from Clayton Richard to D.J. Carrasco to Sweaty Freddy to Jose Contreras to Carlos Torres to (theoretically) Daniel Hudson to (also theoretically) Jake Peavy - and those last two names should, at this point, tell us all we need to know about the White Sox’ rotation. Promising rookies didn’t cut it, middle-of-the-road arms didn’t cut it, and the one-time Best Pitcher In The World didn’t cut it, so now the Sox’ only real hope comes in the form of either a totally unproven 22-year-old or a Cy Young winner two years removed from the crown.

Think about that for a second. Where a normal team plugs in a Brian Tallet or Kyle Lohse, the Sox have gone from banking on a miracle to gambling big to hoping against hope that either the new guy from San Diego is lights-out or the new kid from Old Dominion pitches like the new guy from San Diego. This is not a healthy way for a franchise to exist.

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Speaking of psychotic playoff hopes, the Sox’ (second place!) 63-62 record puts them 8.5 out of the Wild Card. This would also land them in fourth place in every other division save for the National League Central, where they would sit in third, down half a game. . . to the Cubs. If Carol Slezak’s assertion in today’s Sun-Times about the Sox as model franchise is right, I can’t wait to be wrong.