Colin was only half right. I wasn't going to spend much time recapping the game, but I did have some stuff I was gonna write about. Unfortunately, my internet connection went down last night, and this is as far as I got.

In need of a 5th starter

Jose Contreras has allowed 63 hits in his last 37.2 innings pitched. He has a WHIP of 2.04 and an ERA of 8.60 during that stretch, a span of 7 starts. The Sox might be able to weather that suck storm if Contreras wasn't coming off a 2-year year stretch of sub-par performance (5.17 ERA over his last 460 IP), or if Javier Vazquez didn't have a 6.80 ERA over his last 7 starts, or if Gavin Floyd wasn't giving up HRs at a rate of 1.7/9IP over the last 2 months, or if Jack Egbert or Lance Broadway had established themselves as a 5th starter in waiting. As it stands right now, Broadway has a terrible hit rate (10.23 H/9) and Egbert has had a roller coaster of a season, though he now appears on the climb (WHIP of 0.97. ERA of 2.81, K/BB of 5.33 and K/9 of 9.00 since June 1).

Missing Pablo

The White Sox owned a league best 3.38 ERA while Pablo Ozuna played the role of 25th-man/rally monkey. Since his departure, the Sox have put up a brutal 6.05 ERA, allowing 6 or more runs in 5 of their last 6 games. Clearly, Pablo was the key to the pitching staff's excellent run prevention.

It would be easy to say that Gavin Floyd got rocked in his final spring training start of the year. I don't know what my reaction would have been had I been able to watch the game in a form other than MLB's Gameday. But I can say this for certain, if Gavin Floyd is going to have a successful season, he'll need a selective memory to forget the poor results of a day like Wednesday. Because, judging completely on box score alone -- a dangerous proposition, I know -- Floyd had the right approach against the Brewers; he threw strikes (0 BB), missed some bats (7 K), but found himself getting hit around as well (9 hits, 2HR).

I'd rather see a game in which Floyd gives up 6 runs while pounding the zone, than one in which he gives up the same 6 runs but does so by by falling behind, nibbling, and walking guys. I know there's no way the latter version has a chance to succeed for long at the major league level, while the former at least stands a puncher's chance.

* * * * *

As spring training opened, I wrote a piece entitled The 5 things I'm looking forward to this spring training. Looking back on that piece, it was a disappointing spring on a personal level. Of the 5 things I mentioned, two of them, the Joe Crede trade and "the 6th starter battle," were complete non-starters, while two others were mildly disappointing.

The Crede non-trade was the biggest cock tease of the spring. I went from calling it the most obvious trade ever to a sort of resigned apathy about him being on the roster over Josh Fields. The best thing I can say about it is that it at least we've been able to see the non-move coming. Jack Egbert's sore elbow to start the spring and Lance Broadway's general ineffectiveness made the 6th starter competition nonexistent unless you count Nick Masset who gets the start Thursday and inexplicably has yet to be put out to pasture.

I no longer even remember the first televised game of the spring, even though I listed that at #1. I was starved for baseball. But spring baseball, when everything is distorted and nothing counts, quickly became mundane. Carlos Quentin, who entered spring competing for the LF job, at least in my mind, nursed his sore shoulder for first couple of weeks, all but handing the job to Jerry Owens. While it's now Owens headed to the DL and Quentin has performed well since being proclaimed healthy, it still appears like he's behind at least one of Brian Anderson and Alexei Ramirez. I should be happy that he's going to be on the roster. But for a player who I once called the key to the Sox season, being on the roster just isn't enough.

The saving grace of the spring has been Ramirez, who took Ben Sheets deep for a grand slam and his second homer of the spring. However, Sheets was not exactly having a good day, also surrendering two homers to Jim Thome and another to AJ Pierzynski. And I'm still not sure that I would go north with Ramirez were I making the decisions.