Rock Bottom?

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I was there last night, the second time I've witnessed a no-no at the Cell (Buehrle's Perfecto). I was with a big group of pretty diehard baseball fans, but only one other guy was a Sox fan. So they all loved that they got to see a no hitter and couldn't quite understand why I didn't enjoy, at least a little, what just happened. But I didn't - it just sucked. I wanted it to end at every opportunity. I got no joy from it and now, removed from the night, I still think it sucks. All I saw is a winnable game that we lost being celebrated nationally.

Maybe not getting a single freakin hit off a guy sporting a 9.06 ERA in a game that could have easily been won with just a smattering of timely hitting would be about as bad as it could get. That 11-19 record following the most April losses in team history is where the losing stops and the healing begins. Maybe it's not the great turnaround of 2010, but at least it can't get worse, right?

Annoyingly, it absolutely can get worse. Sure we won't lose in such a historical fashion again, but just continuing to lose in any way would suck. This team is built too well, featuring way too much potential, and facing too short of a window of success for Sox fans to be anything but extremely beaten down. There's no silver lining, no hope except for winning. No moral victories of any worth, no necessary experience, no helpful lessons to be learned.

Quite the downer, eh? Well, I'm gonna put it down for the record - the Sox are coming back. Just like they did in 2010. But this time, they aren't gonna falter after a brief but meteoric rise. Instead, they're gonna roar back into things, settle into a nice groove, and then pick things up even more, maybe after a late-season mini-swoon. They're gonna hit October as one of the hotter teams in baseball and they're gonna quietly be talked about as a leading title threat.

From there? Who knows - the playoffs are a goofy exercise that you can't ever hope to predict. So I won't - I'm just gonna stick with the thought that these Sox will make it happen, despite what everyone's writing (the local beat guys and columnists are having a field day with their demise) and what a lot of fans are thinking (fortunately, like last year, most aren't thinking about them too much, thanks to the Hawks and Bulls).

Am I just an indefatigable optimist? Nope, I'm basing my thought on pure hard facts (and a bit of a rosey view of such). Here's what I see:

1) Paulie and Quentin have been as good of a 1-2 as the Sox could expect in the heart of their order. While both are prone to slumps, it's not shocking what these two are doing nor is it hard to see similar production the rest of the way.

2) The bench guys - Lillibridge, Teahen, Omar, and Castro (+ Milledge's one start) - have combined, in 129 ABs, to put up a line that over a full season would mean a .271 AVG, .333 OBA, 25 HR, 25 doubles, and 20 SB. Yes please.

3) Humber has been a revelation in his 5 starts, with a 2.67 ERA and a sub 1 WHIP over 30 IP.

4) Santos, Crain, and Ohman (since his disastrous first two outings) have been outstanding, with tiny ERAs and WHIPs in regular work.

Is all that enough to convince me this horrid start is going to be forgotten soon? Nope, but having the heart of your order, your bench, half of your pen, and a back of the rotation piece all looking great is a nice start. But there's more:

1) Pierre, Alexei, Rios, and Dunn are some of the most consistent players in baseball, when you look at their final stats for each year. JP almost every year goes for around a .280 AVG, .335 OBA, 45-60 steals, and 90-100 runs. Alexei is gonna give you a .280, 18 HR, 70-80 R and RBI, 15 SB line - and do so after an April generally worse than what he just went through. Rios is .285, 15-20 HRs, 15-30 steals - I said last year after his nasty first half that he'd regress to those levels by the end of the year... which he did. Now, I'm saying the opposite, which he will.

Finally there's Dunn - a guy with a decade as a .250 hitter with a .380 OBA, 40 HR, 80-100 R, 100 RBI. I've followed this guy closely because of fantasy and this slump he's in is nothing new. He goes in streaks - he will get hot and jack 8 HRs in 12 days, carrying your club by himself. Then he'll do it again a week later.

But when you've hit 15 HRs in about 25 days, you're gonna end up balancing that with some real down times. Dunn just flat disappears for long stretches, becoming a factory of O-fers and Ks.

I was fearful that this very scenario would play out, with Dunn going into a stone cold spell before he had won over the Sox fans with one of his hot streaks. But while everyone else frets, I know that soon Dunn will be a beast, and by himself will win us a handful of games in a handful of days. Multi-HR games, big RBI nights, 2- and 3-run jacks galore... his box scores will just be filled with numbers day in and day out. Just watch - it's coming.

2) Not much is really expected offensively from AJ and Morel, so they don't have far to go to be at the level we need to be a champion. AJ's work with the bat has always been over-rated, so his .260 average, even w/o any walks or power, is just shy of what we need. An extra hit, walk, and pop here or there and he's golden. As for Morel - yes, that .187 average and 0 walk count is brutal, but if the guy hits .235, keeps avoiding Ks, and plays sweet D like he has, we'll be just fine. Pena, too - if he can just be respectable mopping up messes and bridging gaps slightly better than he is, he'll have done his job. If not, this kid Gray looks capable of doing so.

3) While they haven't been great, the reality is that Danks, Buehrle, and Floyd aren't that far off where they've been each of the past three seasons. In 2008 we won the division with a mediocre O (Carlos all but carried us himself) and some solid pitching. Well, the numbers these three posted in 2008 are about one good start away from what these guys are doing now.

4) Since blowing four straight saves, Thornton has settled down for five good outings in six chances. Plus he's got a hell of a track record on him and still is throwing good stuff - taken out of the closer role, I expect him to rediscover his groove and contribute in a big way to this club. With the possible return of Peavy and Humber's great work so far, Ed Jackson is basically a #5, which makes his three great outings in 7 starts about all you could hope for. Yes he's capable of much more, but the Sox can get by with just a bit more consistency.


Baseball really is the type of game where it doesn't take a whole lot of change to see a whole lot of result. If you look at who's going right and who's not far from going right, you're talking about the great majority of the roster. In all, I've only got three real concerns:

1) Beckham. You can argue that, like Alexei, he's just a cold starter, given how good his second halves have been the last two seasons. You can also throw out that he's was in an even worse slump that lasted three times as long last year, but found his way out to the tune of one of the position's top H2s of 2010.

I actually do believe he'll return to production eventually, but I'm just not sure it won't take another half season to happen. And that's something that will be very, very hard to overcome. I just don't have a long track record like with the other guys who are struggling to lean on for faith, so I'm going to have to remain unsure, even though I'm fully convinced that Beckham is a great player and will be great again some day.

2) Sale. The guy definitely still has nasty stuff and a good approach - his work in college, the minors, and late last year was no fluke. But unlike Thornton, who's got years of success and a good resume of ups and downs at the big league level to build from, Sale is struggling significantly probably for the first time in his baseball life. Relievers are hard to keep stable, so it's not clear Sale will be able to bounce back from the many and regular screw-ups he's put up thus year.

Especially because he's young, has minor league options, and is considered a key longterm asset, the Sox also might not let him. Sure they'll give him a bunch more chances because they want to win now and an effective Chris Sale could really help them do so. But if he can't go out and throw effectively, at some point he'll hurt the current team's chances too much and put too much of the future team at risk. Then, you may see him farmed out, maybe not to return until 2012.

3) Peavy. Given what Humber's done in the starts Peavy would have gotten, you can't argue his slow recovery has been a major factor in this dreadful start. But I don't expect Humber to remain at those levels all year and, much more importantly, I am not convinced this club has the post-season guns to win without Peavy back in his Cy Young form.

As I said, Buehrle, Floyd, and Danks, despite flashes of great things for stretches, have been good but far from great the past three years. You can hope that, like 2005, you'd have a collection of good starters all in a great groove, but I can't count on that. Instead, I think the Sox best chance of post-season success will come with Peavy as a pure Ace, intensely carrying the rotation from the #1 slot. Behind him two of Buehrle, Floyd, Danks, Ed Jackson, and even Humber will have to be going great. And one of those guys will have to be capable as a #4.

Getting 2.5 strong arms out of those other 5 guys sounds very reasonable, but it all revolves around Peavy being the #1 we know he can be. Unfortunately, his injury history just leaves way too much uncertainty, meaning that this is one of the few areas even my optimistic view of the numbers can't be of much help in giving me faith.


But hey, that's not bad - three major question marks next to four solid areas and four not too far from where they need to be? Somehow that sounds a heck of a lot better than you'd expect from our 11-19 start. Given the overall talent I still see on this club, the way I can see them getting it done in every facet of the game, and the fact that neither Detroit or Minnesota look very good either - yeah, I'm still somehow confident in the White Sox in 2011. Even if no one else is.

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