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.

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.

+++

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.

If he would either get shelled each time out or dazzle us with that wondrous forkball of his, life with Jose Contreras would be so much easier to take. Sure, one of those situations means we’d have to sit idly by and root for a lousy pitcher, but at least we’d be looking at something more absolute than what life with No. 52 has shaped up to be.

Consider his 2009 run, as reduced to lone-adjective descriptions:

• April 10 vs Twins: Bad.
• April 15 at Tigers: Shellacky.
• April 21 at Orioles: Gross.
• April 26 vs Blue Jays: Commendable.
• May 2 at Rangers: Disastrous.
• May 8 vs Rangers: Identical.
• June 8 vs Tigers: Dominant.
• June 13 at Brewers: Murderous.
• June 19 at Reds: Indifferent.
• June 26 vs Cubs: Inadequate.
• July 1 at Indians: Shaming.
• July 8 vs Indians: Crushing.
• July 19 vs Orioles: Serviceable.
• July 24 at Tigers: Close.
• July 29 at Twins: Short.
• August 4 vs Angels: Abysmal.

You can see he’s capable of greatness. Of course he is, and we knew that. What he’s also capable of are massive reversals of fortunes, most teams really only needing one start anymore until they extract their revenge and the rest of us reduced to helplessly sitting back and asking ourselves every time Contreras’ turn comes up in the rotation that most dreaded question of all: Which One Is Gonna Show Up Tonight?

Keep reading →

… and they want their team back. Well, maybe they don’t want it back. But last night reeked of that glorious season.

Forget about Jose Contreras’s rough start and subsequent stink in the minors, he was on point last night, getting the fastball over and allowing only one walk and one hit in eight innings of work. Shades of 2005, indeed.

The home run was there. Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye (OK, both these guys hit homers in Game 1’s loss yesterday, but who’s counting?) and yes, Scott Podsednik — SCOTT PODSEDNIK — hit home runs.

Oh, and did I mention news broke sometime shortly before Game 2 against Detroit that the Sox had inked another 2005 player — Freddy Garcia — to a minor-league deal?

The same Freddy Garcia that the pitching-hungry Mets left for dead a few months ago. Anyone know what Timo Perez is up to?

This will not work every game. This team is not going to win a World Series on the heels of brilliant pitching and clutch hitting. Remember, the Sox entered the night cap a horrid 2-for-their-last-44 with runners in scoring position.

But for one fleeting June night, it was good to have the boys back again.

There’s a lot of talk in Sox news these days. Well, not so much talking as a whole lot of saying. Saying, for example, that the offense will correct itself. Saying Jose Contreras is awesome on some simultaneously lower yet higher level. Saying the coaches are all just super.

So what?

If Greg Walker says the last-or-almost-in-the-American-League-in-just-about-everything White Sox can hit, does that make it so? No, of course not; but it does mean he believes they can.

If Ozzie Guillen says his guys’ jobs are safe, does that mean they’re all fireproof? Come on, no one loves their co-workers that much.

If Brian Anderson says Jose Contreras is pitching as well as he’s ever seen Jose Contreras pitch, does that mean another 17-0 run is in order? Ha!

So what are they saying out there in Soxland? Not much, if you think about it. But what’s interesting is not that the words and the actions are so entirely unrelated, but that the words are massive news and totally necessary in and of themselves because the action is entirely nonexistent. Anderson says. Walker says. Guillen says. And that speaks volumes more about the state of the team than any numbers, forecasts or kicker quotes ever could.

There’s an old saying that a good story is one that shows rather than tells. If Sox bats really can bring the thunder, no one should have to insist they can. If anyone’s jobs are safe, they’ll just go about their business of not losing it. If a guy really is that great, no one has to remind you of it. As a favorite singer of mine once said, “I can either tell you how I’m going to kick your a–, or I can just hand you your arms.”

Someday soon, we all hope, these Sox will indeed do the same. The arms, I mean; sabre-rattling hasn’t really been getting the job done the way anyone would have liked it to.

I’ve had a few sneaking suspicions about White Sox starters and the amount of run support they’ve received from the offense this season. So, I decided to peak into it and test a few of my theories. Here’s each starter for the Sox this season, and the total amount of runs scored by the Sox in each of their starts.

Theory No. 1: Mark Buehrle is off to a great start, but the offense has shined in each of his outings this season.

This theory proves true. Except for a goose egg the Sox put on the board in his seventh start of the season against Cleveland on May 13, the Sox have scored four or more runs in all of his starts. This is not to take anything away from Buehrle; His ERA (2.77) and WHIP (1.10) are phenomenal. But for as anemic as the Sox’s offense has been this season, it’s been rock solid in pretty much all of his outings. Perhaps with another lull or two in there, Buehrle has one more loss under his belt.

Theory No. 2: Jose Contreras wasn’t any good, but neither was the offense in any of his starts.

This theory checks out as well. OK, well, sort of. As you can see, the Sox were shutout in two of his starts this year, but he was given ample opportunity in his other outings as the pitcher of record (5, 3, 6 and 6) to pick up a win. It didn’t happen. He was 0-5 with a 8.19 ERA when he was sent down to Triple-A.*

I know wins and losses as well as ERA aren’t always the best way to rate a pitcher’s performance — ERA+ tells a better story, for instance — but for the purposes of this post, we’ll just keep it simple.

Other things of note here: Colon is receiving the worst run support in the rotation, while the Sox have really fluctuated with Floyd on the hill. And Clayton Richard? Time will tell.

Remember how excited you were when Jose Contreras got some magic spell put on his Achilles Tendon and recovered much faster from his injury than expected? Now, this was not to say he was a much better option than the gaggle of younger players the White Sox were flirting with adding to the rotation, but it was to say having him back earlier than expected gave the Sox some more gas in their tank. He was never going to be 2005 Contreras again, but he was at least going to be solid enough, right? Wrong:

So yeah, as you know, Contreras got sent down to Triple-A, Clayton Richard moved from the bullpen to the starting rotation, and that left a hole in the bullpen. The Sox needed a lefty reliever, because outside of Matt Thorton, they don’t have another one.

Help came today in the form of Jimmy Gobble from Triple-A. (One would think perhaps Aaron Poreda would have gotten the call, but remember: The Sox want him as a starter. Bringing him up as a reliever doesn’t help develop him in that regard.) The goods on Gobble: Against lefties this year he’s done quite well: letting up just one hit and one walk, while striking out nine against the 19 he’s faced. His line against righties isn’t nearly as impressive, and that’s been his m.o. the last few seasons.

So yeah, bringing in Gobble against lefties should suit the Sox well enough. But having go an inning or more exclusively against righties might spell trouble.

MOUTHPIECESPORTS.COM personality and White Sox correspondent Brian Dryfhout blogs exclusively from the U.S. Cellular Field press box. Through his insider’s perspective, Dryfhout’s Dugout is your place to catch the story you can’t get anywhere else.

Pierzynski is hitting .542 with 3 HR’s and 7 RBI’s in his last six games

________________________________________________

4:00pm - The Skinny

Who: Matt Harrison (2-2, 6.41 ERA)
vs. Jose Contreras (0-4, 8.31 ERA)

What: Rangers vs White Sox - Game #28 of 162 for Chicago (Texas leads the series 2-1)

Where: U.S. Cellular Field - Chicago IL

When: 7:11pm CT

4:15pm - Starting Lineups

Rangers                       White Sox

Kinsler (2B)                    Getz (2B)
Vizquel (SS)                   Fields (3B)
Young (3B)                     Quentin (LF)
Jones (DH)                    Thome (DH) - Batting .523 with 8 HR’s vs Texas since 2007
Byrd (CF)                       Dye (RF)
Cruz (RF)                       Konerko (1B)
Murphy (LF)                   Pierzynski (C)
Davis (1B)                      Nix (SS)
Teagarden (C)                Lillibridge (CF)

Keep reading →