Instead of recapping the shellacking the White Sox handed to the Tigers for the second straight game, I thought I would look back at the first two weeks of the season as a whole.

The Sox opened up the season with a pair of losses to Cleveland, allowing 17 runs in the first two games of the season. It looked like it was going to be another season of S.O.S, Same Old Sox.

But these Sox bare only the smallest of resemblance to the '07 Sox. Observe.

• In 11 games, they have attempted 1 stolen base, fewest in MLB. That steal came in the first inning of Game 1. That means they've gone over 100 innings (101 to be exact) without attempting a stolen base.
• In 11 games, they've attempted 2 sacrifice bunts (one successful), none since Game 4.
• They employ a leadoff hitter for whom speed is his 5th best tool, but who has posted a .378 OBP since the start of the '05 season.
• In their one game with Swisher on the bench, they batted not-quite-a-rookie who boasts a .413 minor league OBP, and similar speed as his 5th best tool status.
• The prospect of the 1.5 tool Jerry Owens getting significant playing time in center field and leading off continue to shrink by the day. Owens is 0-8 at the plate in his two rehab starts thus far.
• The two young starters have each carried a no-hitter beyond the 5th inning to help snap a 2-game losing streak that felt longer thanks to off-days.
• The 4 pitchers who make up the go-to portion of the bullpen (Jenks, Linebrink, Dotel, and Logan) have combined for an ERA of 2.75 in 16.1 innings.

I could go through all sorts of offensive stats where the Sox rank first in the AL, but I don't think listing them is particularly useful. There are a number of guys hitting well above their true ability, and it almost goes without saying that they won't continue to score at a rate of over 6 runs a game, at least not unless Pierzynski and Crede can continue to channel Ted Williams and George Brett, respectively.

What is important are those first few bullet points. I never understood the notion that plugging in a couple of speedsters makes the Sox a more dangerous club. Sure it would be nice if Thome, Konerko, Pierzynski, Crede, and Dye ran faster. But you'd have to overhaul the entire team for that speed to even approach a team with above-average speed. The Sox are a plodding, station-to-station club, an Earl Weaver 3-run homer crew.

Adding a couple light hitting "adept handlers of the bat wasn't going to change anything. That would be like putting a spoiler on a Hummer and expecting it to get better gas mileage. The Sox resisted overhauling their core -- They'll be that lumbering Hummer for at least another two seasons -- so it's best to trick this Hummer out with some truly complimentary accessories.

It's not that I've ever been against adding speed to the lineup; I've just always wanted it added in the form of multi-talented players. For almost the entire existence of this blog, I've been clamoring for "a multi-tooled .800 OPS outfielder." With the addition of Nick Swisher and Carlos Quentin, it appears the Sox have found not one, but two of them.

They're a far better offense for it.

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.

A real quick recap since most of you have better things to do on the weekend.

• Jose Contreras was terrible, looking almost nothing like the pitcher who filled us with cautious optimism in spring training. He was throwing far too much from his drop-down delivery, was falling behind a lot, and if not for the out-making abilities of Magglio Ordonez and Edgar Renteria plus an unusual double play he might have given up 10 plus runs. He was that bad.

• Carlos Quentin may be in the process of playing his way into the lineup more regularly. He put the White Sox up early with a 2-run homer in the second after Contreras provided foreshadowing of his poor outing in the first. Though I expect Ramirez and Anderson to see some action this weekend in Detroit.

  "If [Quentin] keeps playing like that, he'll be in the lineup and we'll figure out the rest," Guillen said.

• AJ Pierzynski is off to great start. He already has 2 HR and 7 RBI, which is greater than the output from last seasons back-up catchers, and I'd be willing to bet that it exceeds the production of Toby Hall for the rest of the season. With that in mind, AJ has to stay healthy. He's the batter the Sox can least afford to lose.

• Jermaine Dye has surprised me with his fast start. He was terrible in spring training, and looked like his bat speed and reaction time was way down. But since the games started counting, his swing is much more direct and he's been pounding the ball. He even closed the game with one of those awkwardly good catches that he seems to make on balls in front of him.

• Scott Linebrink has looked fantastic in his two innings of work the last two days. The velocity isn't quite what it used to be, but the curveball he's shown the last two days more than makes up for it.

  Linebrink combined with Logan, Dotel, and Jenks for 4 innings of scoreless relief. They allowed just one hit, and with the exception of Jenks, who needed 25 pitches to get through the 9th, made quick work of the Tigers.

Yes, that headline is definitely tounge-in-cheek. I thought it was funny that both Gonzo and Cowley posted about it the 5th inning at about the same time Pete and Option27 were sounding off in the gamethread. That was about the same time I was able to tune in (fast game), so I could just as easily be blamed for the jinx.

I was able to catch a little bit of good John Danks, a little bit of the wild Danks, and too much of Jermaine Dye costing him runs in the outfield. Good Danks seemed to have his cutter working pretty well, actually he had everything working pretty well.

I think Danks GO/FO ratio of 12/6 would have been his best mark of all of last year, but the no-longer-available MLB.com 2007 gamelog and the differences between GB/FB and GO/FO make that difficult to say with absolute certainty. What we can say for sure is that, at least after one start, it appears that Danks has matured a little bit and his new cutter has allowed him to shift from being such a predominately flyball pitcher.

Allowing fewer flyballs will be key for Danks if he hopes to reduce his homerun rate (28 in 139 IP) from last season. As a general guide, about 11% of flyballs go over the fence. Danks HR/FB was 13.8% last year, allowing 28 HR in 203 flyballs. If he's able to increase his groundball rate, while simultaneously regressing to the more normal 11% HR/FB rate, he'll take a huge step forward to becoming an asset to the staff.

As an example of Danks homer-proneness, in his 26 starts last season, he had just one in which he pitched more than 6 innings and gave up 0 HR, as he did on Thursday.

In the field, Danks was helped by a good play from Nick Swisher catching a long drive as he smashed, almost Rowand-like (not enough broken bones), into the left center field wall on one of the two really well hit balls against him on the day. The other well hit ball flew just over the outstretched glove of Jermaine Dye -- that's two outstretched gloves of Dye vs. three Crede pops it up on the young year -- allowing Travis Hafner, who walked on 4 pitches (bad Danks), to score from first on Ryan Garko's double.

Later in the inning, Dye and Swisher would collide on a routine pop-up, which surprisingly yielded a disagreement in the Sox television booth. DJ thought it was Jermaine's ball, with Hawk arguing, correctly, that the center fielder is the field general, and if he calls you off you back off.

Ozzie made one of those moves that looks smart when it works, but could have lit up the phone lines had it backfired, bringing in Octavio Dotel to face Casey Blake, who took Dotel deep in Opening Day's pivotal at-bat. It was as if Guillen was saying to Dotel, 'I believe in you' as he made the call over Scott Linebrink, who was also working in the pen and worked a perfect eigth.

Offensively, the Sox still have me worried. Joe Crede and Juan Uribe provided all of the the offense on two solo homers. Carlos Quentin got his first start of the year, going 1-4, but grounding into a double play one batter after AJ Pierzynski's poorly executed sacrifice attempt.

I'll reserve railing on the offense for another day. For now, it just feels good to get that first win out of the way.

*** CSN will replay the game at 7pm and 1am ***