Last week we pointed to a report stating the Sox were shopping Jermaine Dye to the Reds, looking for a young pitcher (and more) in return, and were looking to trim some payroll. Baseball essentially shut down over the Thanksgiving holiday, and there won't be any real news until teams make their arbitration offers official sometime Monday, so here's some stale news.

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe says that Dye is a fit for a number of teams, but they seem put off by the price.

The White Sox right fielder fits so well with a few teams, including Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, and the Mets. The Rays are trying to deal the back of their starting rotation - Andy Sonnanstine or Edwin Jackson - for a power-hitting righthanded bat, but the White Sox would want more.

John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer gets Reds GM Walt Jockety to issue a non-denial about the Dye talks.

As for talk that the Reds could be interested in outfielder Jermaine Dye, whom the Chicago White Sox are reported to be shopping, Jocketty said:

"I'm not going to comment. But we have talked to the White Sox about some players. Nothing is close."

The way tampering rules work, Jocketty cannot say he's pursuing Dye. But in the case of San Diego shortstop Khalil Greene, Jocketty was comfortable shooting down the rumor.

And finally, Mark Gonzales acknowledges the reports adding a couple more names to the fray.

The teams appear to be a match because the Reds are looking for a right-handed hitter to go with young left-handed hitters Joey Votto and Jay Bruce, and the Reds have a wealth of talented pitchers, including Homer Bailey, Josh Roenicke and Matt Maloney.

Of course, here I am writing about it without much to add. I will add that if the Sox are going to trade Dye for the proposed packages, I see it as the first of a series of moves. They can't go into another season with one-and-a-half outfielders. And now Jerry Owens can go about dominating the third consecutive thread here. Paradoxically, it will be the first time he's ever dominated anything three consecutive times.

The White Sox seemed to play their best baseball of the year with their proverbial backs to the wall. They had won 4-in-row (against 4 different teams) in elimination games, when a single loss meant the end of their long season. But winning their 5th elimination game in a row was too much to ask.

I wonder if any team has been able to stave off elimination 5 times in a season/postseason? I'm sure the there was at least one, I just don't know which teams were able to pull off such a feat.

Gavin Floyd gave up a pair of homeruns to the dead red sitting BJ Upton, and was pulled without retiring a batter in the 4th inning, as the Sox offense couldn't match the pace of their Rays counterparts. He probably threw better than Rays' game 2 starter Scott Kazmir, but unlike Kazmir, he had to face an offense that was not about to let a struggling pitcher off the hook. With his offense being Sonnanstine'd, Ozzie was forced to turn to the pen early. Despite another strong outing from Clayton Richard, the Sox could only manage a pair of solo-shots offensively, and got no closer than 3 runs the rest of the game.

We can admit now; now that the Sox are done for the season, now that the Rays have beaten them soundly 3-1. The Rays are a better team than the White Sox, or at least this version of the White Sox; the one without Q! and unable to properly set up their pitching rotation. In addition to their superior team speed, the one area where the Rays were clearly better than the Sox was in the back of their bullpen. And, at least for these 4 games, they pounded the ball out of the ballpark better than the Sox. The better team won.

These Sox weren't firing on all cylinders. The offense just hasn't been the same without our beloved Q!. The rotation was driven hard for 163 games, and strained through most of September with a 4-man rotation. The bullpen needed another week or two to get everyone back, healthy, and in their proper roles. And in the playoffs, anything less than your absolute best earns you a swift trip home.

So, today ends the White Sox' season, and I feel surprisingly good.

Chicago Winters Are Cold Without Warm Memories

When I look back on this season, I won't remember this game, or the series loss to the Rays, or even the 3-game sweep in the Metrodome. No, when I look back on this season, I'll see the "Worst" game of the season, I'll see Q! single-handedly taking out the Angels, I'll see Gavin Floyd's big hairy balls, I'll see that huge smile on Alexei's face, and maybe most of all, I'll see John Danks mowing down the Twins in the Plus One game.

I once called the 2006 club a 90-Win Failure, but that term doesn't apply to this 90-win club. They exceeded all but the loftiest (and unrealistic) expectations, and found some youth around which to build along the way. To me, this season was nearly a complete success. BP agrees.

Onto the Off-Season

Those of you who stumbled onto the site this season will be surprised by how lively this site remains for much of the off-season (save early February, which is a baseball dead-zone). We'll be here to discuss possible free-agent pickups, trades, the prospects we don't have, roster contruction; I might even revisit those 4 elimination game wins, which I was too superstitious to properly recap, as any optimism on this site was met with a karmic slap in the face. So stick around, you might find the site is still a daily stop even when games have ceased.

I think for the rest of the season we shall refer to games like this--where the opposing right-handed starter expertly changes speeds and hits his spots--as being Sonnanstined. Mike Mussina doesn't have much in the way of stuff anymore, but he made up for on Wednesday night by throwing strikes--good strikes, on the corners--and mixing in some junk. A 65 MPH curveball here, a knuckleball there, 86 MPH with movement on the black, the White Sox hitters were perplexed.

Give them an Edwin Jackson, a Dana Eveland, a Daniel Cabrera, they'll mount a credible offensive attack. But if you've got a Sonnanstine, a Lance Broadway with control, these Sox are probably in for a long night.

Joe Crede and Carlos Quentin provided all of the Sox offense against Moose, each with a solo-shot, the former on a poorly located fastball and the latter on a hanging 73 MPH breaking ball. The rest of the Sox combined to reach base just twice in 7 innings against the veteran hurler.

For the second straight night, the Sox provided some excitement by destroying the non-Joba/Mo part of the Yankees bullpen. But for the second straight night, Girardi smartly called on one of his aces in the hole to put out the fire and end the Sox hope of a comback.

The loss is the Sox' 5th straight versus the Yankees at USCF, and their 7th in their last 8 meetings on the south side. It's the Sox first losing streak since back-to-back losses on the 9th and 11th of the month.

They've played 11 games since those two losses, during which I've routinely lauded their play, going 6-5 in the interim. That's not exactly tearing it up for a team that's "playing well." Perhaps it's time to reconsider that notion.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Javier Vazquez' inconsistent outing on the night. At times, Javy was attacking hitters and having easy innings. At others, like the second inning, for instance, he seemed like he wanted nothing to do with the strike zone and paid for it. Then, just for good measure and to put the game just out of reach, he was hit hard as he threw lots of strikes to end his outing.

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My favorite part of the broadcast--when I wasn't tuning out Hawk and DJ as usual--was when Jorge Posada hit his third double of the game. Hawk made a comment, which was met with silence from DJ, about the hit "sounding weird." I can understand why DJ was silent, as it seemed like Hawk was insinuating that Posada was corking his bat. After a measured pause, DJ asked him in directly indirect fashion "did you think that bat had a weird hollow sound?" Hawk immediately laughed it off, No, that's not what he meant. He knows that sound, chuckle.

But what I really liked from the exchange was a few pitches later when DJ asked Hawk "Have you ever seen that show Mythbusters?" He would then go on to explain their baseball myths episode, and how when they tested corked bats they found no difference (or a negative effect, I don't remember now) in ball speed off the bat. DJ, expressing exactly the same concern I had with their conclusion, said it's not about ball speed off the bat, it's about the speed of a bat itself. After all, you can get a 31 ounce bat around faster than a 32 ouncer.

There's also something of a psychological effect to the corked, slightly lighter bat. It's the same reason you swing with doughnut on your bat in the on deck circle. If the bat feels lighter in the box than it does normally, you've got a better shot at getting around on some major league heat, or fighting off those tough breaking pitches.

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We had a major outage during the game, as I'm sure most of you are aware. I'm not exactly privvy to the details of the outage, other than to say it was a problem with our server structure. All I can say is that I'm positive we have a number of people working hard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Hours before game time, upon hearing the news that Alexei Ramirez and Toby Hall would be in the starting lineup in place of Jermaine Dye and AJ Pierzynski, I wondered aloud where the White Sox offense would come from on Saturday.

I absolutely understand the need for both of them to have off-days. The bottom 3rd of the lineup just looks a whole lot uglier with them out.

The game is essentially shortened to 6 innings with three consecutive below replacement level hitters placed back-to-back-to-back. There's not much room for error.

Needless to say, the Sox did not play error-free baseball. The key gaffe came early, the second inning, after Mark Buehrle hit Jonny Gomes and subsequently appeared to have him picked off first base. The infielders -- I'm not going to assign blame, though Hawk and DJ seemed to agree that it was Juan Uribe's fault -- botched their second rundown in as many days, setting up what would prove to be the game-winning, 2-out rally. Three singles and 19 pitches (alot for a Buehrle meltdown) later, the Sox were down 3 runs, from which they would never recover.

Andy Sonnanstine had himself a resume builder, tossing 9 3-hit shutout innings, facing just 2 over the minimum. He just went right at the Sox and they couldn't do anything to stop him. They couldn't work their way on base; he was always ahead in the count. And more importantly, they couldn't do anything with the balls in the strike zone. Almost everything was hit softly, and generally on the ground. Heck, their first hit of the game was a bunt single by Orlando Cabrera. It was almost a 2-hitter.

Elephant in the Room

After being limited to just 3 hits, one of which was a bunt, by Sonnanstine on Saturday, the White Sox now rank 13th in the AL in batting average at .239, lower than they hit during the dismal '07 season, fractions of a percentage point away from the cellar (Cleveland at .239, or .2389). It has gone largely unnoticed thanks to good plate discipline and timely homeruns, but the Sox still aren't hitting.

The starting lineup today featured two batters with an average above .250, Nick Swisher and Joe Crede. That's not going to cut it, no matter how many walks they draw or how many homers they crank.