As a not-so-objective observer, it's hard to know what to say following the White Sox trade of Nick Swisher for Wilson Betemit! (exclamation point required for centerpiece of franchise-changing trade) and a pair of uninspiring minor league arms. Because, on balance, the Sox didn't get the best player in the deal, didn't get anyone with high upside in return, and didn't get much in the way of salary relief.

No, this trade was all about getting rid of the strong personality of Swisher. It wasn't about baseball skill, or money, or the future. It was only about getting rid of a perceived problem for the sake of no longer having to deal with said problem.

There are whispers that Swisher rubbed much of the coaching staff and some of his teammates the wrong way with his outspoken behavior, and, most of all, his pouting when his season turned south. Now that he's no longer a member of the organization, I'm sure there will be plenty of leaks about him being an uncoachable, hard-partying, distraction in the clubhouse.

And even if all of those things are true, this is still a bad trade. The Sox simply didn't get any value in return.

Let's use their acquisition of Javier Vazquez as an example. Vazquez demanded a trade, as was his right, putting the D'backs out over a barrel. They had to trade him, and other teams knew it. Yet the Sox were still willing to part with their most dynamic position prospect in the last decade along with a couple of valuable-yet-replaceable spare parts. Where is our Chris Young-like player in return? It's not like the Yankees are completely devoid of young, unproven, high-upside players on the farm.

It's not Jeff Marquez, the former supplemental first rounder is a combination of Lance Broadway and Jon Garland with some Nick Massett thrown in for good measure. His hit rate and strikeout rate as he progressed through the minors are not indicative of future major league success. But he's having a good run in the Arizona Fall League, so I'm sure we can just ignore the rest of his minor league numbers.

LVL     H/9    K/9
A       8.9    6.9
A+     10.0    8.3
AA      9.4    5.6
AAA    10.4    3.7

And Nunez isn't even worth discussing, because the Sox added essentially the same player in the deal, a AA reliever with good numbers. That seems like a one-for-one swap in itself.

By default, Betemit is the Sox haul for Swisher. And Gio Gonzalez. And Ryan Sweeney. And Fautino De Los Santos.

Betemit was a former top-prospect in the Atlanta system who has been varying degrees of suck since he left the peach state. He's been particularly terrible in the American League, posting a .286 OBP and an 89/12 K/BB ratio in a year and a half in the league. He's like Juan Uribe without the plus defense. Oh, and he'll be competing for a starting job at 3rd, and possibly second.

It's hard to believe this is the best the Sox could get in return for Swisher. And if this was the best they could get on the eve of free agency, shouldn't the GM stand pat until the landscape changes? There's just no way can I can look at this and call it a good trade.

* * * * *

11 months ago when the Sox first acquired Nick Swisher from the A's, I closed my trade recap with the following sentence.

Overall, the Sox are a better team than they were yesterday. But they're still an organization adrift in mediocrity with no concrete plan to once again reach the shore of excellence.

A year later, a division title later, and it's even harder to understand the direction the organization is taking with this move.

Ozzie Guillen and the White Sox made a shrewd move by waiting until the last possible minute to announce Clayton Richard as Wednesday's starter, and were rewarded with a surprisingly good outing. But Ozzie pushed his luck a little too much, and the shaky Sox pen put the game out of reach in short order.

I was confused in the lead up to this game that nobody in the mainstream media seemed to think Clayton Richard would get the start. To me, he seemed to be the obvious choice. The Yankees aren't the Royals, after all, and have a number of good left-handed hitters. So, even though Richard isn't a major league starter, he was still a better option than Lance Broadway for this game. Heck, even Broadway was dropping hints this week. Though I can't seem to find the exact quote now, Broadway said something like "they haven't told me" in regards to whether he was getting the start Wednesday.

For 6 innings, Richard make the Sox look like geniuses. He skated through the first 5 innings giving up only 1 hit, and worked out of trouble in the 6th, striking out Derek Jeter with 2 men on to end the inning. In the 7th inning however, Richard was unable to extricate himself from some self-induced trouble.

Richard walked the incredibly unclutch Alex Rodriguez, who advanced to second on Jason Giambi's groundout. With two outs and Xavier Nady due up, Ozzie came out for a mound visit, but didn't pull Richard, who had only given up 3 hits in his 6.2 innings of work.

Ozzie should have pulled him there. Richard isn't one of the other 4 starters, and isn't deserving of the long leash I've called for just a few days ago. Heck, he had never gone this deep into a major league game before. But with the bullpen as poor as it's been, it was hard to argue with leaving Richard in for one more batter. The results begged to differ. Richard quickly fell behind Nady, and then gave up a single back up the middle to even the score at one, the incredibly unclutch A-Rod scoring the tying run.

That definitely should have been Richard's last batter. But Ozzie left him, with Robinson Cano, who had 2 of the 4 Yankees hits in the game, due up. Cano quickly doubled down the right field line, and only then, with the go-ahead run 90 feet from home did Ozzie go to his pen. Predictably, they provided no relief. But it might have been a different situation if Ozzie had tried harder to protect the Sox lead.

Even though Ozzie made his mistakes in this game, it's easy to place too much blame on him for the Sox loss. The real loser in this game was the Sox offense. 5 times they put the leadoff man on base, including 3 leadoff doubles. Yet they were only able to productive out their way into 1 run, let alone any actual hitting with men on base.

The Sox dropped their record to 9-31 when they fail to hit a HR, highlighting their inability to produce runs in other ways.

Gavin Floyd did everything you could have reasonably asked of him Thursday night to give the Sox a victory. But a lackluster offensive performance against a pitcher tailor made to shut down the Sox, some poor relief work, and a few extra outs conspired to give him his first loss since July 19th.

For 7 innings, the White Sox and Blue Jays were locked in a thrilling pitcher's duel. Shaun Marcum was every bit as dominating as we saw back in May, and once again there was a Sox pitcher matching him nearly pitch-for-pitch.

Floyd breezed through 6 innings, allowing only 3 baserunners while pitching over an extra out in 3 of those innings. One out was self-inflicted, with Juan Uribe pulling Nick Swisher off the back with a high throw. But the other two were comically bad calls by first base umpire Jim Wolf. In the 7th, he gave up a leadoff double, but pitched out the jam with relative ease. Amazingly, even with the "extra outs," Floyd had only thrown 77 pitches through 7 innings. He was getting the Jays to put the ball in play quickly, inducing mostly weak contact. And then came the 8th.

The 8th inning was a calamity. Floyd gave up 4 hits over the span of just 7 pitches, and added in a sacrifice bunt in there as well. Marco Scutaro, 9/11/08 inductee to the SSS Douche Nozzle Hall of Fame provided the first first blow, lacing a first pitch fastball for the game's first run. Even Mark Buehrle had to be impressed by the speed at which Floyd went from in control to bases loaded and behind. Some complained about Ozzie's slow hook in the game thread, but the sheer speed with which the Jays broke through limited Ozzie's options.

And it's not like the bullpen provided any relief anyway. Matt Thornton recorded the only out of the inning that wasn't handed to the Sox with a strike out of Adam Lind, but the rest of the inning was a debacle. In all, 6 runs crossed the plate in under 10 minutes (including 2 pitching changes) and only 23 pitches.

The Sox offense mounted a comeback, putting up 4 runs of their own in the bottom half of the 8th, and eventually brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the 9th inning. But it was a hollow comeback, with Orlando Cabrera striking out to end the Sox hopes.

* * * * *

If you were to build a pitcher pitch-by-pitch with the purpose of shutting down the White Sox, you might just start with Shaun Marcum. He doesn't throw anything straight. His fastball, which he throws infrequently, isn't fast, both of which are death to a White Sox team that has largely been a fastball-hitting club for years.*

If the infrequent use of an off-speed fastball is the first pitch you'd give our theoretical Sox-shutter-downer, a plus cutter and a plus changeup would be close behind. Marcum possesses both, of course, with his cutter probably being his best pitch. The cutter and change neutralize any advantage a Sox lefty might have, while a change of pace curveball is enough to keep the Sox right-handers off balance.

* According to Fangraphs, the Sox faced three of baseball's least frequent fastball throwers in this series, all of whom possess a cutter as well. So, it should come as no surprise that, for the most part, they got shut down.

I would probably enjoy watching Marcum pitch if it didn't have to come at the Sox expense. It's doubly tough to watch Marcum carve through the Sox lineup, because he's essentially got the same tools as Lance Broadway. But Broadway left his cutter in September '07, and has taken a step back in nearly every phase of the game this year. Marcum is what Broadway could be, with a little coaching, some better control, and some of that fabled pitchability for which he was drafted.

The White Sox needed a big performance from one of their starters to get back on track. Mark Buehrle gave them just that Wednesday night at The Cell, snapping a 3-game losing streak overall and a 7-game skid against the Blue Jays.

It was oddly reminiscent of a start just a month ago against the Red Sox when Buehrle helped erase the memories of 4-game sweep/massacre that succinctly defined the 2007 season. The Sox jumped out to an early lead and Buerhle held 'em scoreless until turning it over to the pen late.

The offensive tone was set early in this game, when Jim Thome and AJ Pierzynski each came up with a rare hit with a runner in scoring position. The Sox entered the game with just 3 hits with RISP in their first 6 games against the Jays this season. By games end, the Sox had added 5 more, an offensive explosion. Pierzynski also came up with another one, a 2-run double to start the scoring in the Sox 3-run 6th.

It wasn't a pretty lineup that Ozzie ran out there, but, at least for one night, it was effective. As somebody pointed out, it looked a little too much like a 2007 line-up without Konerko, Quentin, Crede and General Soreness. But Dewayne Wise, Jerry Owens and Brian Anderson were each productive in their own way. Owens turned his speed into an infield hit and a stolen base, which didn't amount to any runs on the scoreboard, but really came through in a big way with a squeeze bunt* to plate--yeah, I'm using it as a verb again--the Sox 5th run of the game. Anderson, who replaced Owens when the Jays turned to lefty reliever, came through with a 2-out RBI single, which didn't seem that big at the time.

But when Bobby Jenks started throwing batting practice, that run would loom large. Jenks showed maybe the best curveball we've seen from him early in his extended outing, but after he used it to punch out Gregg Zaun leading off the inning, he reverted to mostly fastballs. The Blue Jays were not fooled. Thanfully, he was able to find his slider when Alex Rios strolled to the plate with the tying run just 90 feet from home. It would have been a demoralizing loss if the Sox couldn't hold on to a 5-0 lead after 7.

It was a big win, maybe the biggest of the season. I don't think that's the last time I'll be trotting out that cliche. But when you've got a one game lead on the division, every win is your biggest win until the magic number, or conversely, the tragic number, reaches zero.

* I'm a huge fan of the squeeze bunt. It's easily my favorite play in baseball. But the Sox aren't exactly equipped with the type of lineup that can be counted on to get a bunt down in a situation like that. I think their only attempt of the season was Anderson's failed attempt in the three-month long game. Of course, as I write this Big Papi lays down a sacrifice bunt--he wasn't even trying to beat the shift--in the bottom of the 12th inning.

* * * * *

This afternoon, Joe Cowley twittered that Javier Vazquez would be starting on short rest Saturday, with Lance Broadway--oh, joy--getting the start on Sunday. Vazquez has previously started on short rest twice in his career, with the last time coming during his stellar first half in New York. Broadway is getting the start over Clayton Richard because Ozzie wanted to throw a right-handed pitcher against a Detroit team that ranks among the best in baseball against lefties.

One is left to wonder--those of us prone to wondering, that is--why not throw Vazquez on regular rest with Broadway going on Saturday? Though I now see that's exactly how it's listed on the ChiSox.com probable starters, so Ozzie may have changed his mind, or Cowley misunderstood him (easy to do), or ChiSox.com is wrong (all possibilities). I'll take the wait and see approach until we get confirmation one way or the other.

[Update by The Cheat, 09/10/08 11:56 PM CDT ]: The Daily Herald's Scott Gregor is confirmation enough for me. Looks like Vazquez will start on Saturday, though he doesn't really explain why. Does Vazquez get one extra start, the 5th starter one less, this way? I don't really want to go through the trouble of counting it all out.

We've already had a couple of tongue in cheek entries titled "Worst Game of the Season" and "The Day the White Sox Lost the Central," but if ever there was a time for hyperbolic headlines, this is it.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong in Tuesday's double header. Paul Konerko might be lost for the season. Javier Vazquez pitched just well enough to lose, and just long enough to make a Lance Broadway start on Saturday a distinct possibility. Clayton Richard still doesn't have a second or third major league pitch, and doesn't belong on the mound starting games for a playoff contender. The Sox drop two games in a single day, scoring just 3 runs in the process. Oh, and The Twins win to pick up a game and a half in the standings. It would have been difficult for the South Side to have a worse day overall.

Sox fans have experienced a broad range of emotions in the last 5 days. From Q!s season ending injury and surgery, to a solid win against the Angels, a marathon affair on Saturday followed by a blown lead on Sunday, I was actually feeling pretty good about the Sox chances.

The White Sox had been in first or within a half game of first every day since May 16th. The Twins weren't exactly playing good baseball the last two weeks. I figured the Sox didn't exactly have to play their best baseball down the stretch to make the playoffs, slightly over .500 figured to be enough. Even my favorite postseason odds simulation was finally starting to run in the Sox favor. ELO had the Sox making the playoffs 70% of the time before Tuesday's series of unfortunate events.

I should know better than to get my hopes up. Every time I've written about feeling good about the Sox this season, they go in the tank for an extended period of time. No more positivity from me, I promise.

Recapping the Nightcap

I don't think there's much to say other than the Sox got their collective butts kicked by a better team right now. Actually, dantesox' comment, and the discussion that followed, about Brian Little and the Blue Jays being the best team in baseball right now, received a lot of play on Blue Jays sites the last couple of days. They certainly have a better pitching staff than the Sox, and now with Quentin and Konerko on the shelf their offense looks to come out on top as well. The Jays have really taken it to the Sox this year, winning all 6 meetings and holding the Sox to 3 or less in every game.

The Sox had 1 hit with runners in scoring position Tuesday (across two games), upping their season total to 3 in 6 games against the Blue Jays. 3 hits with runners in scoring position in 6 games against the Jays. Think about that. The Jays had that in the 5th inning.

There is something about dome teams from the AL East that makes the White Sox bats go flaccid. The Sox didn't manage a 2-out hit w/RISP against the Rays until their 10th meeting this season, and remember it was last season in Toronto where there Sox upped their 1-for-60-something streak against opponents bullpens.

Monday's ceaseless rain has caused yet another pitching crunch for the White Sox. Without an off-day between now and Tuesday's double-header, one of today's starters (Javier Vazquez or Clayton Richard) has to go on short rest in their next start, or the Sox have to call upon another option.

According to the Tribune's Mark Gonzales, Don Cooper "virtually ruled out" Aaron Poreda as an option, with Gonzales going on to cite the layoff since Poreda's final regular season start on 8/29 as a reason he isn't an option. Of course, for those of you who follow Larry's interminably-titled minor league threads, you know that Poreda pitched just a few days ago, on the 5th to be exact. He struck out 9 and walked 2 in 6 innings of 2-run ball in the Southern League playoffs.

The other options appear to be Lance Broadway (no, thanks) and DJ Carrasco, which would require the shift of some high-leverage bullpen work to Scott Linebrink and/or Mike MacDougal.

All of the options have their drawbacks. Javy pitching on short rest might require a quick hook and a rare economical effort from him on Tuesday. Carrasco would need to be given a few days of buffer on either side of Saturday where he was unavailable from the pen. Broadway would require the purchase of some revolutionary new padded uniforms for our defenders. And Poreda would be making his major league debut in the middle of playoff race.

All of this is my way of saying, 'hey, we needed something to talk about this morning following an off-day. Why not this?'

John Danks didn't have it Wednesday night. From the game's very first pitch, it was clear he didn't have his good control or anything capable of putting hitters away. In fact, he induced just 3 swing-and-misses on the night. Of particular trouble was the location of his changeup, which he routinely left up, never once throwing it for a strike below the belt (as illustrated below).

All of his pitches were up. I wasn't able to see anything wrong with his mechanics, but I'm no pitching coach. If it was any of the other starters, I might be worried. But Danks has been, by far, the most consistent starter the Sox have run out to the mound this season; he's allowed a hiccup here or there. We can overlook the inability to get Juan Castro out for one day.

Offensively, the Sox weren't able to mount much of a threat against Radhames Liz. In hindsight, it's funny--well not funny, but not ironic either--that I deleted a two sentence line from the BUO post stating that Liz is the type of pitcher that the Sox would either destroy or get completely shut down by, with no middle ground. I removed it because I thought it sounded a little SSHish, a little too absolute.

I'd argue that 2 runs with 5 walks against 3 strikeouts is somewhere in the middle ground, but Liz was effectively wild, allowing just 3 hits. And the lone home run he allowed was of the solo variety. With Danks struggling and then replaced by a poor excuse for a pitcher, it felt like the Sox got dominated, and made for yet another snoozer of a game.

As for that poor excuse for a pitcher, Lance Broadway, let's steal a line from Denny Green; he is who we thought he was.

The top of the site tells me that I have approximately 2 hours to write a recap, and, as has become SSS custom, get what might be the worst thread in the history of SSS off the front page. So, in the interest of burying the ugliness, here's your recap, to which I will be adding (in between masturbatory sessions) until the site goes dark for the night.

Limited time constraints and a general lack of focus results in a bullet point recap for you.

• The first game played Monday, which was actually April, BTW, had to be one of the most frustrating losses of the year; 12 walks leads to only 3 runs thanks to 18 men left on base, Cubs castoffs Rocky Cherry and Luis Montanez proving the winning formula in the late innings, the decision to start Horacio Ramirez over Thornton or Carrasco, a number of well-struck line drives which never seemed to find the grass between the white lines. It was just one of the most frustrating games of the year to watch. And it took nearly 3 months to complete.

• Clayton Richard turned in his second consecutive quality start, with all of the damage coming in one inning. And the damage might not have been as severe if he had a competent defense behind him. General Soreness was unable to get to bloop hit and Alexei Ramirez dropped a glove-to-hand transfer (ruled a hit) to give the O's two extra outs in the inning. I still don't know how he's getting it done, but I'm not gonna argue with the results. Keep sending him out there against the also-rans of the AL, I say.

• Joe Crede returned to the Sox lineup, and actually looked pretty good at the plate in the first game. As somebody commented that's probably because the first game was played in April. Crede lifted a deep fly to center his first at-bat, and laid out a rope to right field in his second, but both found the gloves of Orioles fielders.

  Defensively, it didn't appear that Crede had any ill effects from his lingering back issues. He made a number of nice plays over the two games, though he did start hitting the ball weakly to the right side in the nightcap.

• Chris Getz was optioned to AAA in between games to make way for the curiously effective Lance Brodway. Getz will be back in 10 days, the minimum time required (barring injury) for a minor league assignment, with rosters set to expand on September 1st.

Note: Previously, there has been a loosely enforced--is anything strictly enforced around here?--policy against political posting. But, observing the generally cordial conversations which occurred during primary season, I let everything slide. I think the last thread shows why that policy should be more rigorously enforced. But enforcing rules is hard work, so I've come up with something different.

Over the next two weeks, spanning the conventions--I like to think of them as the political equivalent of SoxFest--if you should still feel the need to shout obscenities at your TV or your fellow Sox fans, you're welcome to do so in the soon-to-be-difficult-to-find previous thread. (no link) Please be so kind as to keep them out of the rest of the threads. kthnxbi.

Baseball is a crazy game.

• Carlos Quentin, who three days ago became the first player (in verifiable history) to be hit by a pitch in 5 consecutive games, rejoined the lineup and was almost immediately hit again, extending his own dubious record to 6 games.
• The White Sox became just the 6th team in baseball history to hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers.
• Lance Broadway had a successful major league start, despite below average stuff and a recent minor league track record that suggested such a feat would be nearly impossible.

And all of those things happened in the same game. Crazy, indeed.

Joe Cowley twitters a pair of minor notes. First, the Sox have signed their first round pick, Gordon Beckham for a rumored $2.4MM. He'll take BP tonight at USCF.

Second, and of greater concern to the Sox playoff hopes, Lance Broadway has apparently parlayed 10 improbably strong innings last season into a starting gig despite a terrible performance in AAA this season. Broadway has been comically hittable this season in Charlotte, allowing an average of 10.4 H/9.

As if that wasn't bad enough, it gets worse; or rather Broadway has gotten worse as the season has grown. Since May 1st, that hit rate has risen to an astonishing 12.0 H/9, leading to an ERA of 5.89 and an RA of 6.68. Worse yet, in his last ten starts, he owns an ERA of 7.27 with a hit rate of 13.2 H/9. To say that those numbers are not indicative of a pitcher who is likely to succeed at the major league level is a massive understatement.

Here's hoping this is a reverse-jinx and not a future I-Told-Ya-So post