Orlando Cabrera provided all of the White Sox offense Friday night in Toronto; 2 singles. With a collective 2-for-29 day at the plate, the Sox continued their quest to match the feeble '07 attack, lowering their average to new league low of .237.

The only blemish on Mark Buehrle's night came after what should have been a 1-2-3 first inning. Joe Crede's error extended the inning, and allowed a Vernon Wells double and a Shannon Stewart single --the two hitters entered the night a combined 27-63 against Buehrle-- to provide the winning margin... in the first inning.

I would say Buehrle deserved better, but he should be getting used to this north of the border. He took a complete game loss in his last start in Toronto, allowing only 2 hits, both solo HRs, en route to another 2-0 loss. Buehrle's outing was something of a rarity. It was the first time since late 2003 that a pitcher got a complete game loss while allowing no earned runs and only the 12th since the strike in '94. The last time a White Sox pitcher was handed a similar loss was Mike Sirotka on 7/23/00.

The only time the Sox advanced a runner past first base was in the Seventh when Quentin, Crede, and Anderson worked consecutive 2-out walks ahead of Juan Uribe's weak flyout. In other words, Marcum'd is Canadian for Sonnanstine'd.

Cabrera had himself a day, not only recording the Sox only two hits, but starting a beautiful double play with a sliding stop and glove flip on a Vernon Wells ball back up the middle.

* * * * *

No hitter surprised me more over the season's first few weeks than Jermaine Dye. He had a forgettable spring training, and looked terrible doing so, striking out 21 times in 70 at-bats while walking just 3 times. He had the type of spring you'd expect out of a 39-year old slugger trying hang around for one more season. So it was a pleasant surprise to see him sporting a .316/.369/.513 with a 12/6 K/BB ratio after 72 regular season at-bats.

Since he took a few games off with a sore groin, however, it's been back to the old-man, washed up looking Dye. In his first three games back, Dye is 0-12 with 7 Ks, including some swings that had to leave even Juan Uribe wondering why Dye was swinging.

It wouldn't be a big concern if Dye hadn't batted .219/.276/.412 while battling a variety of leg issues over his first 300 plate appearances last season. But since his effectiveness is obviously blunted by nagging injury issues, it might not be such a terrible idea to convince him to take a 15-day DL trip and give Jerry Owens a shot. That is if Dye continues to look like the '05 version of Sammy Sosa, let's say for the rest of the weekend.

Gavin Floyd overcame some early-game shakiness to put together a nice outing Saturday, making a run at a no-hitter and eclipsing his 2007 win total in the process.

It looked like it was going to be a rough one for Floyd in the first inning. He walked The Unsinkable Clete Thomas after AJ Pierzynski dropped a 3-2 foul tip. Thomas would immediately steal second, and move into third on Placido Polanco's flyout. A nice pick and throw home from Joe Crede when Thomas went home on the contact play saved a run from blemishing Floyd's line. Carlos Quentin crashed into the outfield wall to catch a near-homer from Magglio Ordonez to close an eventful, unscored upon first.

The hard outs and walks would keep on coming through the first few innings. Nick Swisher made what is becoming his trademark defensive play, a basket catch on the warning track in the third, and Jermaine Dye had to run one down in the gap in the second. Floyd used double plays to wipe out walks in the third and fourth, so it's little wonder I hadn't realized he had a no-hitter working up to that point.

Floyd might not have known either.

He must have gotten a glimpse of the scoreboard as he took the mound in the fifth, because he started to put hitters away the rest of the game. There was one good drive by Pudge in the 5th, but other than that, the Tigers didn't mount much of anything against Floyd until Edgar Renteria's bloop single broke up the no-hitter in the 8th.

Floyd is now 3-0, with a 2.43 ERA in 37 innings against the Tigers. His two quality starts to begin the season give him 7 in his last 8 starts dating back to last season.

Scott Linebrink needed just two pitches to erase Renteria's single, recording the White Sox third double play turned of the game. Unofficially, as in I'm not sure this stat is 100% accurate, that gives them 19 on the year in 10 games. I tried querying Baseball-Reference's Play Index in every way I know how to find the Sox season record for DP's turned, but came up empty. Though I do agree with Larry, I remember it being from the 2000 team (189 is my guess). [Update by The Cheat, 04/12/08 6:21 PM CDT ]: Larry found the answer, 190 double plays turned in 2000.

Orlando Cabrera's solo homerun was the offense for most of game. But when Justin Verlander provided some free bases in the form of a walk and two HBPs in the 8th, the Sox demonstrated their renewed ability to break a game open. Pierzynski, Quentin, and Juan Uribe provided the two-out damage to turn a nail-biting pitcher's duel into a laugher, and the third time the Tigers have been shut out this season.

* * * * *

Jerry Owens is scheduled to begin his rehab stint tonight in Charlotte. I'm taking this as good news because Alexei Ramirez hasn't received a start since game 2 -- not that I'm complaining, but I'd rather see him getting regular work in Charlotte. And the quickest way to accomplish that feat is to have Owens taking his spot on the bench.

The Cheat is nowhere to be seen, so I figured I'd jump in with a recap of Saturday afternoon's game.

• Gavin Floyd came up with a performance that will be totally acceptable out of the fifth starter's role for the rest of the year. While not looking great, he didn't look totally horrible. 6 IP, 6 H, 3 ER is a performance that should be good enough to win most games. He got the lead late in the game and held it during his final inning. It seemed like Gavin occasionally ran into problems with two outs, but hopefully that will be something that disappears after getting comfortable.
  
• Is there anyone more fun to watch in the lineup right now that Carlos Quentin? He's taking a starting spot and running away with it. I'm not sure which brought more joy to watch, his RBI single in the sixth inning or his absolute bullet from left field to nail a jogging Edgar Renteria trying to return to first base. Bad news for Jerry Owens supporters.
• Dontrelle Willis couldn't find the plate with a plate-finding machine, and it finally cost him in the sixth inning. Nick Swisher picked up his third walk of the game (and his sixth in this last two games) to start off the action. He may be hitting .200 after five games, but the .478 on-base percentage sure looks sexy. Moreover, he hasn't looked totally overmatched in center.
• After looking like secondhand horse poo in Spring Training, Jermaine Dye has been locked in to start the year, picking up his second home run in the eighth inning for that all important insurance run.
• What's up with Orlando Cabrera in the field? He botched a cutoff throw early in the game that led to an early Tiger run, and he's just looked out of sorts at times. He's drawn some walks but hasn't looked much better at the plate either. Could we start seeing Juan Uribe and Alexei Ramirez starting at shortstop on occasion?
• Toby Hall sucks. Good signing...in theory.
• Boone Logan, Scott Linebrink, and Bobby Jenks. 3 IP, 0 R. Gave up three hits and Jenks was a little off in the ninth, but there's nothing to be worried about yet. Logan still looks good against lefties and Linebrink is still looking worth the money. Hard to say much after five games, but it's still a hell of a lot more encouraging to see them start out hot.

The Sox go for the sweep tomorrow night on ESPN2, as Mark Buehrle faces Justin Verlander on Sunday Night baseball. Smart money says that Mark won't be quite as bad as he was in Cleveland on Opening Day. We may even see Brian Anderson tomorrow as part of the Sunday Getaway Lineup®, since there are rumors around the Sox clubhouse that he does in fact exist.

• Mark Buehrle is quite ordinary against good teams -- Bull Pain pointed it out in the gamethread; Buehrle has markedly worse numbers both last year and in his career against "good" teams. This is obviously true of all pitchers in general, but it seems more pronounced with respect to Buehrle.

  Buehrle didn't look bad at all until the runs started coming. But when he starts to look bad, you almost have to wonder how he gets guys out at all.

  A common refrain around these parts in the second half of '06 was that Buehrle really needed to slow down when he started getting hit around. It's almost as if one of his greatest assets, his quick to the plate style, starts to work against him as he pounds the zone with hittable pitch after hittable pitch. I'd like to see him take a walk around the mound a little bit during one of these blowups. If nothing else just to try something new, when nothing else seems to be working

• Orlando Cabrera will find many different ways to cost the Sox runs -- Cabrera drew a walk and scored on Jim Thome's HR in the first, but it was all down hill after that. He got a slow read on a groundball back up the middle to start Buehrle's implosion, then failed to even pick up a routine double play ball by the next hitter. Buehrle induced another near double play from the next batter, recording one out, before the wheels came off.

  Cabrera didn't just cost the Sox runs with his glove. He had a pair of gaffes in the 8th to help the Indians get out of a bases loaded, nobody out situation. I was not aware of it until I saw CSN display the stats, but Cabrera has a terrible record with the bases loaded (.209/.233/.278 entering the game). That's not something you expect from someone who is described as "a gamer" or an "adept handler of the bat."

  Cabrera's grounder to short, which allowed Jhonny Peralta to throw out a clearly safe Joe Crede at home, would have been bad enough, but Cabrera immediately followed it up with another mistake that cost the Sox. His overzealous takeout slide at second resulted in a double play that erased the Sox threat in the 8th. It was a debatable call, one that I initially called brutal, but it was probably the right one, or at least it's defensible. Those two calls in the 8th might have decided the game, and certainly should have elicited more of a reaction out of Ozzie Guillen.

• Guillen is too kind, too gentle -- Guillen vowed to be more fiery this season, but given two golden opportunities to lay into an umpire in the 8th inning, he chose to have a civil conversation instead. I know Guillen's fiery reputation is a bit undeserved, but sometimes I think he takes special care to avoid falling into the stereotype, even if the situation calls for it.

• Jim Thome can hit lefties -- Sometime this off-season I honestly thought about suggesting Thome leadoff against lefthanders. It was only after I took a better look at the numbers (.209/.325/.344, 14 HR since 2005) that I realized he didn't even get on base enough in those situations to justify the unorthodox move.

  It was a pleasant surprise to see Thome go deep twice off of a pitcher as tough as Sabathia, but I still feel like it will be the exception to the rule. It took him until July 2nd last season for him to hit his second HR of the year off a lefty.

• Nick Masset is major league pitcher. Against Cleveland. In the first two weeks of the season -- Masset began last season with 9.2 innings of solid work against the Indians before he faced another club. He then posted an ERA over 8 in his next 29 innings before closing out his major league tour with another scoreless outing against the Indians. It's almost as if the Indians are making him look good when they have these big leads just to ensure that Masset is on the roster for the rest of the season.

  In all seriousness, Masset pitched well today, allowing just 2 baserunners in 4+ innings. He helped make what could have been a disaster of a game into an exciting game with a terrible outcome.

• Alexei Ramirez is not ready for prime time -- Ramirez was the lone Sox hitter who failed to record a hit on Monday, and struck out 3 times. Two of those strikeouts were on just three pitches. Alexei also had an interesting day in the field, bumping into Jermaine Dye on a pretty routine ball in the gap to start the bottom of the first, and making a diving play on a misread of a shallow fly ball to center later in the game.

  It would be hypocritical of me to suggest that one game is enough evidence against to call for Ramirez' demotion after doing almost exactly the opposite in the previous two bullet points. But it does indeed look like Ramirez will have a significant adjustment period at the big leagues. Thankfully, if his final plate appearance against Sabathia is any indication, he does appear to be a quick study.

• You guys really have a lot to say -- We had something like 800 comments during the game even though things really got shaky after 6th inning. I know our tech team is working hard on the performance issues, and we'll be running like a well oiled machine soon. For the most part, however, the new features have made the gamethreads a whole lot better.

On that very same day, I was finally coming to the realization that the Sox weren't going to be a good team. It shouldn't have taken that long, but I liked the way Williams constructed the bullpen and thought (naively) that Erstad was brought on to be a 4th outfielder. I was blinded by hope and the belief that things would work themselves out in spring training.

After the debacle of last season, I vowed that I wouldn't sit around and wait to see how things worked out in spring to speak up. It's 2 AM Saturday morning, so I'll just let the headline and accompanying chart speak for me.

Ozzie is at it again.

Discuss among yourselves.

• Jim's Game 3 videos: Buehrle, Owens vs. Quentin, Recap.
• Sickels "Gut Feeling" 2008 Lasting Milledge projection: .315/.363/.478.
• Jonathan Hale looks at hitters and pitcher performances in cold weather. The study was commissioned by the Greg Walker foundation!
• Joe Sheehan: Locational Run Values (hat-tip Tango).