Floyd Flops, Sox Drop

The White Sox had a pretty good opening series to their 10-game road trip, but a poor showing by nearly everyone on the team in an eminently winnable game turned what could have been a great start into just 'pretty good.'

Gavin Floyd was terrible. He might not have finished with the worst final pitching line of Sox starters on the young season, but he had the worst looking outing. He had nothing. According to Gameday, the fastball was a couple tics slower than his near no-no, and the control was nowhere to be found. I'm not willing to draw any conclusion from this outing other than he better pitch better next time out, but I'll definitely be watching his next start more closely.

Floyd had gone 12 consecutive starts without looking like doody. And if that's as often as we have to see the Philly Gavin, well, the Sox have found something better than a 5th starter.

Miguel Batista was just as bad as Floyd, but the Sox offense never made him pay for the parade of baserunners he allowed. They plated 2 against him in the first inning, but as became a theme for the game, they left a runner in scoring position. They had stranded 6 baserunners by the end of the 3rd inning, and 11 by the end of 6th, at which point the Sox offense called it a day. The M's bullpen shut the offense down to the tune of just 3 baserunners in 3+ innings, including one intentional walk.

All those wasted baserunners, the blown 2-0 early lead, the lack of an offensive attack against the M's bullpen combined to leave a sour taste in my mouth after what looked to be a possible sweep and a promising start to the road trip.

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I'm already worried about Ehren Wassermann. The side-arming groundball machine has been unable to keep the ball down, and generally featured very poor control while pitching in place of the recently demoted Mike MacDougal. Maybe it's the curse of MacDougal, whomever replaces MacDougal on the roster is doomed to pitch just like him.

I was always a little bit concerned about the long-term viability of Wasserman's funky delivery and less than spectacular stuff. His recent troubles finding the sweet spot at the bottom of the zone only amplifies that concern.