Monday, July 04, 2005

White Sox Weekly Rewind: Week 13

Record For Week: 4-2. Record For Season: 54-26, First Place, AL Central.

The Good:
The Detroit Tigers can keep talking all the shit they want about how they're "the best team on paper" but the fact remains: if you open up the paper to the baseball standings page, they're still very much in 4th place, languishing below .500. The Sox usually struggle in Comerica, which makes the 3-game sweep all the sweeter. Buerhle picks up his 9th straight win last Tuesday as the Sox pull off yet another close one...and then Big Frank blasts the game-winner Wednesday. The bullpen was spectacular in Detroit...even Shingo looks like he might be getting back to form, and he didn't wilt with the bases juiced in the 13th. McCarthy with a quality start (no walks...yay), hopefully he'll pull off more of the same tonight with me in attendance. Garland solid in Oakland as the Sox manage to win 1 of 3 out west...quite the accomplishment. Garland, Buehrle and Konerko all get nods for the All-Star team...and Scott Podsednik is one of the finalists for the 25th Man Award.

The Bad: Contreras with 6 walks on Friday? That's worse than anything he ever did against Boston. Nothing short of brutal. Buehrle looked like a rookie making his debut on Sunday, what with the throwing error and the fielding error and the twelve hits allowed and all. Podsednik hasn't been getting on much, making it awful hard to manufacture runs...and it seems like Konerko's right back into another one of his major funks.

Ahead: Vs Tampa Bay, 7/4-7/6. Vs Oakland 7/8-7/10.

Thoughts: The gossip wires this weekend were all abuzz with talk of the Hose trading for Jason Schmidt. Your humble correspondent has learned that the G-men were asking for Garland and Adkins, plus Sweeney or Anderson. Not worth it. Two years ago today in Tampa, the Devil Rays broke my heart and made my fireworks fizzle with a walk-off dinger off Billy Koch. Tonight, it's time for some revenge.