The White Sox have been off and on all season. It has personally costed me a lot of frustration and pain. This post is going to be short and emotionless. They lost a game they should have won on Friday and lost a game they should have won again today (Saturday). There have been a lot of things piling up for this team that keeps costing us games. Im not going to write them in paragraph form, because I'll start rambling. So I'm just going to list them:
1. Complete lack of clutch hitting.
2. Leaving TONS of men on base. (They've left over 25 men on base in this series in Toronto alone)
3. Bad at bats
4. The pitching staff has given up A TON of 2 out hits/walks/runs (especially with 2 outs and no one on base)
5. Lopsided efforts (what I mean by that is when the pitching shows up, the offense doesn't and vice versa)
6. Questionable decisions by Ozzie
A. Keeping Dunn in the lineup everyday (he needs some time off)
B. Pinch hitting Quentin today for McPherson with 2 outs and the winning run on 3rd, instead of for Dunn with 1 out. I say this because with a runner on 3rd and one out all we need is some decent contact (Which we are not getting from Dunn) By the way, Quentin hit a deep fly ball that ended the inning, he does that in Dunn's spot and we win.
C. Managing of the pitching staff and bullpen (don't get me wrong, I like Ozzie, just a few things I think he could have done better lately)
D. One could argue that shuffling the lineup may help run production as we are putting men on base, but it seems that the same guys continue to come up in big situations and fail. Shuffling the lineup may bring different men up in big situations.
Those are the ones that have really stood out to me as of late. This team has been playing better than during their losing streak, but is still underachieving. With the starting pitching we have been getting and the amount of men we have left on base, this team should be over .500 by now. The above factors amongst other small things are going to need to change or this team will continue to underachieve. I don't mean to be a downer, but this team has way to much talent to have the record they have.
They have great potential, anyone can see that just by watching the games. Think of it this way, we've left all those guys on base and missed all of those opportunities lately and have still been right in the game at the end. It's just those small little changes that need to be made to get us over this hump. I still think we're going to be in the hunt by mid-summer. It has just frustrating lately to watch this team play such mediocre baseball when I know they're capable of great things.
I'm not even going to get into breaking down these last two games. All I'm going to say is:
We left a ton of men on base on Friday and wasted another great pitching performance from our staff.
Today (Saturday) we exchanged blows with the Jays, knocking the ball around the yard and tying it with 2 outs in the 9th. Edwin Jackson struggled, the offense actually gave the pitching staff some support. But the extra innings hit and the offense stalled yet again, until Corey Patterson of all people walked us off.
I leave you with this, we need to get over this hump and start producing and playing the way that I know this team can. If we can win tomorrow and split this double header and try to cool down a Boston team that is on fire right now. If we can salvage this road trip and come home close to .500 we'll really be ready to make up some ground.
We're in Toronto tomorrow at 12:07 over on Comcast Sportsnet. Say a prayer tonight Sox fans, we cannot afford to start losing again.
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