When you turn on sports radio, you expect to hear breaking news. However, you don't expect to hear that two promising players were traded to the Kansas City Royals for a couple bats and a bucket of baseballs.

Oh, we got Mark Teahen too, but I'm more excited about the equipment.

The Sox dealt corner infielder Josh Fields and second baseman Chris Getz to Kansas City today for slugging utility man Mark Teahen. Teahen will most likely play second base seeing as we sent Getz away. Mark may also play right field if we decide to unload Jermaine Dye on someone (which seems to be the reason for this trade).

Could Brent Lillibridge slide into the second base slot? What about moving Ramirez to second, Beckham to short stop, and then bringing in -- or bringing up -- a third baseman?

We also inked first basmean and outfielder Mark Kotsay to a one-year deal today. I'm glad to see Mark will be coming back to the Sox. I remember listening to AM 670 The Score on the day we got Kotsay from Boston, and this person sent a text into the station that was read on the air, and the text said, "Kotsay is a slightly better version of Darrin Erstad."

I could only chuckle in agreement, but he's still a good player.

I clicked onto whitesox.com this morning and was so glad to see that right hander Gavin Floyd is rehabbing nicely after his 2009 season was cut short towards the end of September. Us Sox fans knew that was about the time our chances at doing something in the Central division were pretty much shot, but now that we're getting the news that Floyd is healing, it gives us hope for next year.

Take a look at the rotation we'll most likely be rolling out for 2010

1. Jake Peavy
2. Mark Buehrle
3. Gavin Floyd
4. John Danks
5. Freddy Garcia/Carlos Torres

Does that not sound like a slice of Heaven? Jake Peavy's handful of starts from last year ("The Tease"), as I mentioned in one of my last posts, makes the 2009 offseason unbearable for die hard Sox fans. October through February are four excruciatingly long months, then throw in Jake Peavy's Opening Day start and that makes the wait seem even longer.

Buehrle is a solid #2 pitcher in the rotation and one of the most underrated left handed pitchers in the American League, if not all of baseball. He gives you 12+ wins every season so what more could you ask for?

Floyd in the third spot can be dominant. Putting my obviously biased opinion aside, if I had a vote in the 2008 Cy Young balloting, Floyd would've gotten mine. The man was clearly the ace of our staff with a record of 17-8 and a 3.84 ERA.  

Danks in number four is a ghastly prediction seeing as how overpowering he can be at times, but with the other guys in the rotation with him, fourth is the best slot I can give him. This rotation isn't what the White Sox depth chart looks like right now; it's actually how I think the rotation will look in 2010 (probably the reason I'm not managing at a Major League level... or at all...). Danks was 13-11 for us last season.

Then either Freddy Garcia or Carlos Torres at the back-end of the rotation are solid transition guys for the man you can't wait to watch pitch.

I've been reading Bill Simmons' book "Now I Can Die in Peace" about the 2004 Boston Red Sox. The book contains hilarious columns from 1999 to post-October of 2004 and is a great read for any baseball fan, but I digress. In the book he says that in 2000 it was almost impossible to move from your seat when Pedro Martinez was pitching. That's how I think Jake Peavy will be for us (other) Sox fans come 2010. Our eyes will be glued to the television, or our ears to the radio if you're like me, every time he toes the rubber.

All-in-all I'm just glad to see Gavin Floyd is approaching 100% health.

For those of you wondering, it's 113 days until Spring Training.

Yes. I'm really counting down.

 

What a kid this guy has turned out to be!

Not only did he show everyone he truly could play Major League Baseball, but he showed us for a couple months! I mentioned his stats in my last post so I won't go over those again... .270/14/63...

The child was drafted as a short stop out of Georgia, but was called-up as a third baseman due to Alexei Ramirez's seemingly permanent residence at the short stop position. Gordon happily shifted sixty feet to his right so he could have a shot at playing in the MLB. But while I watched him muff a few easy grounders in the first couple weeks, then morph into the second coming of Joe Crede towards the end of the season, one thing nagged at the back of my mind.

He's a short stop!

As I mentioned, Alexei Ramirez has comfortably set up shop at short stop, so Beckham can't play there (for some reason we can't live without the casual throws to first with Carl Crawford plowing up the first base line and the I'll-show-you-how-"good"-I-am-by-making-this-harder-than-it-needs-to-be scoops on an easy grounder up the middle).

He's a short stop!

The leading candidate for 2009 Rookie of the Year played a spectacular third base, I'll give him that. But I watched him take those high-hops and short-hops and, all the while, I was watching a short stop. Gordon Beckham belongs at short.

Why can't we take Chris Getz out of the lineup? Watching him field you wouldn't immediately make a Placido Polanco comparison; his hitting left much to be desired, and, though he stole a bunch of bases, he isn't the guy I want at second base.

I badmouthed Alexei Ramirez earlier in the post, but the things I mentioned would be fine if he was playing second base. You can afford to lollipop a throw to first base with Crawford chugging down the line if you're playing second base.

However, by moving Beckham to short stop, that leaves nobody at third base.

I've heard that Adrian Beltre might be on his way out of Seattle, so he'd be an interesting pick-up by Kenny Williams should he choose to go in that direction.

And, if we're lucky, there's always good old #24 (Crede) on the free agent list.

Go Sox!!

I, once again, have neglected to blog. I have my own all-baseball website now and have been writing on that, but I still need to come back here as often as I can to talk about my White Sox.

Let me say, first-off, that I still have a rotten taste in my mouth. We were close enough to the Tigers all season to have a good shot at the playoffs when it came down to crunch time. We were able to fend off the Twins for a while, too, but that (obviously) didn't work out. I often find myself thinking how cool it would've been to have made the playoffs back-to-back years when absolutely nobody thought we'd amount to anything in either of the two seasons.

This year was pretty cool -- I must say. As rough as late-August and all of September was, we as Sox fans have a lot to look back on. Mark Buehrle's perfect game was ridiculous. My dad and I are magicians and I remember that we were in De Kalb, Illinois about to go in to do a show. We had the Sox - Rays game on and Kazmir and Buehrle had just plowed through the first inning in probably two minutes. I turned to my dad and said, "Well, we're looking at a two hour ballgame if they keep this up." When we came back to the car I heard the voice of Chris Rongey (the pre- and post-game guy) telling the listeners that the Mark Buehrle had thrown the eighteenth perfect game in MLB history.

Awesome.

And then how about the emergence of a prominant third baseman? I had doubts about young Gordon Beckham at the beginning of the season; though he played third base like a short stop; thought he was too quick to swing the bat. He ended up hitting a solid .270 with fourteen homers and sixty-three batted in. Those numbers are good enough for the top-three in Rookie of the Year candidates, if not the winner.

On July 31st we all got the fantastic news that we had traded for Cy Young pitcher Jake Peavy. I remember a day earlier in the season when the Sox, after losing 20-1 to Minnesota, didn't offer enough to San Diego to be able to get Peavy. I could live with the final score of that game, but when I heard we missed out on Peavy, that ticked me off. We ended up getting him anyway, and he went 3-0 in a Sox uniform. That's enough to keep us eagerly anticipating what he'll do come 2010.

I wont even begin to mention how bad of a feeling it was to hear the news that Thome had been traded to Los Angeles. Contreras going to Colorado was fine, but when we lost Thome, a whole lot of the team went with him.

The World Series is set to start in about a week or so.

Spring Training starts in four months.

I'll keep counting down the days on the calendar in my room (like the baseball nerd I am) as next year will be pretty special.

I haven't blogged in a while and I won't make excuses for it. I'll just pick up as if I've been writing this whole time.

Being a Sox fan, it's not unusual to see things done in dramatic fashion. That's the way I've grown up! Every year we win 20 games (at least) on a heroic hit in the late innings. Today's game was one of them for this year. Jim Thome cracked a three-run home run in the eighth inning to put the Sox up 5-2. Not only did we win the game with one more run for insurance, but that blast was Thome's 550th career homer!

Gavin Floyd pitched a strong seven innings, giving up two runs on four hits with eight strike outs. Like Paul Konerko, it takes Floyd a few weeks to heat things up. Once he's on fire, though, he's the most dominant pitcher on the staff and I can't stress how much that needs to continue.

I know, cruddy post, but at least it's something. I'll preview our next game tomorrow and then hopefully review tomorrow night.

Go Sox!!

I'll tell you what.

It's never fun getting your butt handed to you.

And it's even less fun when you get your butt handed to you by the Minnesota Twins.

In the early goings, it looked like we actually stood a chance against a Twins ball club that hadn't changed much in the off-season. Other than the acquisition of former Sox star third baseman Joe Crede, it's very similar to the team we beat last September to clinch a playoff spot (one of my most cherished memories as Sox fan). But then the seventh inning rolled around. Justin Morneau began a 7-run inning with a lead off home run, then had the chance to do it again his second time up in the inning... with no outs... and the bases loaded.

I felt really bad for relief pitcher D.J. Carrasco. He came on to try and fix what Clayton Richard had done -- Richard walked two batters in eight pitches -- but had to endure the longest most dreadful inning I could possibly imagine.

Good Things That Came Out of This Game

• Dewayne Wise got 2 hits in 4 at-bats, bringing his '09 average up to .142!
• Paul Konerko hit his first home run of the year. A solo shot off of R.A. Dickey in the 3rd inning.
• Carlos Quentin hit his first home run, driving in a pair, in our half of what will forever be referred to as "The Dreadful Seventh."
• Jose Contreras ran to cover first base without injury. Thank goodness!

For those of you who don't know, I can't watch most of the games on TV so I listen on the radio. I'm always very amused by the conversations Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson have, and tonight was probably the best night for them to goof off. Here's an example of what was discussed tonight.

Ed: Did you ever wear one of the helmets with two ear flaps?
Darrin: To tell you the truth, no.
Ed: I don't understand why you would need two of 'em. Isn't one enough?
Darrin: Well... I guess it's a matter of personal preference. Some batters, like switch hitters, use it because it's just one helmet -- no need for a second one. Other people use one because they're knuckleheads.

I found that endlessly entertaining and now am going to make it a point to report their hilarious conversations whenever one should arise.

First pitch is scheduled for around 3:05 tomorrow. Francisco Liriano will take on Bartolo Colon in his White Sox Re-debut. This game I will be able to watch on TV because it's being aired on FOX.

Hopefully we can come out on top.

Go Sox!!

Last night's game was yet another example of an offense not showing up for a game. John Danks was spectacular through his 6 innings of work, allowing only 4 hits, striking out 5 and walking two (7 combined walks from starting pitchers so far). Our bullpen was, once again, stellar up until Bobby Jenks made his second appearance of the season.

Here's a rundown of the Sox 'pen from the Royals series.

Sox Relievers in Game 1

• Clayton Richard | Threw 2 innings, struck out 1 with no hits.
• Octavio Dotel | Struck out 3 of the 4 batters he faced. Yeah, I said 4.
• Bobby Jenks | One strike out in his only inning of work for his first save.

Sox Relievers in Game 2

• Matt Thornton | One inning pitched, 1 strike out.
• Scott Linebrink | Struck out the 3 batters he faced in the 9th inning.
  

Sox Relievers in Game 3

• Mike MacDougal | Pitched one third of the eighth inning, giving up 2 hits.
• Matt Thornton | Mopped up Mac's mess with a ground out and a strike out. 
• Octavio Dotel | Faced 4 batters, punched out 3. 6/6 in K opportunities. 
• Bobby Jenks | Gave up the winning 2-run homer to Coco Crisp.

Dewayne Wise didn't help us in any way last night. I'm not laying the blame entirely on Dewayne's shoulders because the team only collected 4 hits in total so it's everyone's fault that we lost. One thing I always like to remind people is that players don't win and lose games. They can influence a win, but they can't do it all themselves. If a player hits a walk-off grand slam he doesn't score all 4 runs -- there were 3 guys who got on base before him to to put the batter in the situation where a home run would win the game. It works the other way as well; a single player can't lose the game. It's impossible for one player to make 27 outs. You win as a team and you lose as a team -- simple Little League philosophy.

Tuesday, April 8th - Game 1 vs. Royals
Mark Buehrle (0-0, 0.00) vs. Gil Meche (0-0, 0.00)
Game one of the opening three-game series was an Opening Day to remember! The game was originally scheduled for Monday but was postponed due to the high chance of snow. Boy were we happy when there was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature on our computers read near 50 degrees. Starting left-hander Mark Buehrle cruised through his 5 innings pitched with the only significant bump being a solo shot off the bat of Royals' third baseman Alex Gordon. With the score at 2-1 Royals in the 8th inning, Josh Fields led off with a single. Second baseman Chis Getz placed a grounder in between the second baseman and short stop after a Dewayne Wise pop out to center. Carlos Quentin struck out with runners on first and third and walked to the dugout with his head hung low. However, designated hitter Jim Thome saved his skin by slamming a 2-1 pitch into the batters' eye in center field, giving the Sox the 3 runs they needed to win the ballgame. In the top of the 9th Bobby Jenks logged his first save of the season. Sox 4 - Royals 2.

Wednesday, April 9th - Game 2 vs. Royals
Gavin Floyd (0-0, 0.00) vs. Zack Greinke (0-0, 0.00)
Coming off a dramatic Opening Day win the best thing you can look for in the following game is another victory. With Gavin Floyd on the mound it was pretty much a guarantee the Sox would begin the year 2-0. Floyd dominated the Royals over seven innings, striking out nine and walking two while allowing only 2 runs. If it wasn't for the extreme lack of offense, it would've been safe to say the two runs wouldn't matter and the Sox would eventually come back. Royals' starter Zack Greinke surprised everybody watching at U.S. Cellular field, on television or listening through the radio as he completely shut down the Sox bats through his 6 innings. Juan Cruz came out of the bullpen for Kansas City and did a fare job keeping the Sox offense as quite as they were with Greinke on the mound. All-Star closer Joakim Soria pitched an impressive ninth inning for his first save of the 2009 campaign. Royals 2 - Sox 0.

Thursday, April 10th - Game 3 vs. Royals
John Danks (0-0, 0.00) vs. Kyle Davies (0-0, 0.00)
Yet another match-up that looked to be in Chicago's favor going into the start of the ballgame. John Danks had a break-out season in 2008 while Kyle Davies went 3-7 for Kansas City in the '08 regular season.John Danks was overpowering on the mound, striking out 5 of the 25 batters he faced and walking only two of them. The offense, as was the case in game 2, unfortunately was nowhere in sight. Davies mowed down the Sox allowing a mere 3 hits in an effort of seven strong innings. Bobby Jenks pitched the 8th inning for the Sox and the game could've lasted a while longer if he didn't serve up a first-pitch cookie to Royals' center fielder Coco Crisp (teehee... cookie... Crisp...? Anyway...). The White Sox attempted a comeback in the bottom of the 9th inning, and managed to push a run across against Joakim Soria. But that Crisp homer ended up sealing the deal for the Royals as they beat the Sox and took the series two games to one. Royals 2 - Sox 1.

With those games behind us we welcome the Minnesota Twins into U.S. Cellular field for a three-game weekend series, kicking off tonight with Jose Contreras on the mound for the first time since last August.

Let's murder those Twinkies!!

Go Sox!!

I'm glad to know that fellow Sox blogger, and a member of the front office, http://whitesoxpride.mlblogs.com/ posts the lineups about 4 hours before they appear on Gameday! This gives me more time to consider how the team is going to function on that day.

It's games like this that suck the life right out of me...

There was Gavin Floyd; cruising through the first 2 innings when pesky Mike Aviles came up to bat in the 3rd, with two outs, and smacks a double at the center field wall. We attempted a comeback in the 7th inning when Jermaine Dye clubbed a flair into shallow center that resulted in a single. He was stranded, though, and our hopes for a win were smashed, slashed and buried. The Royal's bullpen took over and eventually Joakim Soria (and his insanely awesome facial hair) closed out the ballgame. 2-0 loss for the Sox.

Things I Noticed

• A.J. Pierzynski continues to prove himself as the smartest player in Major League Baseball. From knowing how to block a ball in the dirt to following a runner down the baseline to cover and empty first base -- the dude has brains like no one else in the game.
• Gavin Floyd's curveball = the epitome of nastiness.
  
• Sox fans attending the game boo Wise at the plate but cheer for him in the field. Hypocrites!
• Matt Thornton's dominance went nowhere this off season.
  

Things I Want to Continue

• I'd love to see Fields extend his spectacular play streak to 3 games tomorrow in the rubber match.
• Our bullpen needs to keep dominating opposing hitters. Checking my scorecards, they've struck out 9 of the 23 hitters they've faced and have only allowed 1 hit. That's a .043 average.
• Scott Linebrink is 3-3 in strikeout opportunities. Keep 'em coming, Scott. Keep 'em coming.

Things I Want to See End

• Paul Konerko is 5-38 lifetime against Zack Greinke. When we play them next, Paulie's due for a jack or two. Only thing it'd hurt would be Greinke's ERA.
• Keeping on the topic of Konerko, my dad and I realized it's been taking him awhile to heat up. If he could get going' a little earlier, I'm sure it would help us out a lot. 
• Carlos Quentin... I am loving the intensity, but it's only the second game. Calm down.
  

Gavin Floyd, though he gave up the 2 runs, was amazing tonight. He struck out 9 through 7 innings and walked only 2 (one better than Buehrle's three yesterday). I'd also like to mention that, for the most part, he had pinpoint control of his pitches. There were only three or four times I can remember that a pitch either slipped or took a nosedive into the plate.

As far as our offense went, there's really not much I can say. We went up against, probably, Kansas City's best pitcher in Zack Greinke and got what we should have been expecting. Not that you should go into a game expecting to be shut out, but I didn't think we'd get much done against this guy. Jermaine Dye hit two of our three hits, the other going to Pierzynski in the 5th inning.

Dewayne Wise hit a lot better in today's game than he did yesterday. He struck out only once -- a big improvement over yesterday -- and made good, solid contact the rest of the time. Maybe tomorrow he'll get a hit?

Speaking of tomorrow, 1:05 is the starting time! John Danks will take the bump for the Sox and Kyle Davies will go for the Royals in the third and final game of this series.

Until my preview tomorrow, and forever until the day I die,

Go Sox!!

Yesterday's game, with the exception of a few Opening Day jitters, was the best conceivable way to kick-off a season. There were dramatics, a complete annihilation of the Royals from our bullpen and then, to top it all off, a win! Couldn't have been any better.