I would say that Mark Buehrle and the White Sox just got unlucky on Monday night, but the truth is they had nearly as many cheap hits and extra outs as the Angels but couldn't avoid the rally-killing double plays. In fact, I would argue that double plays --the Sox hit into 4 to the Angels 0-- were the entire difference in the game.

The Sox took an early 3-0 lead in the second after the Angels were unable to turn a double play on Joe Crede, who was somehow credited with a hit on what would prove to be the first of about 4 different questionable scoring decisions. While there are 2 errors listed in the box score --the Anaheim official scorer apparently only hands out errors if the ball leaves the field of play-- I can think of at least 4 more shoulda-been-an-errors off the top of my head. Juan Uribe had two, both of which looked like easy double plays, and Orlando Cabrera added another.

Buehrle didn't get hit hard. Only the Vladamir Guerrero homer, which followed one of Uribe's botched DPs, was really tagged, but poor defense, a number of weak hits, and the aforementioned bizarre scoring makes it look like a terrible outing in the box score. As I mentioned in the gamethread, Buehrle entered the night with the 3rd worst DER (balls in play converted into outs) of any American league pitcher at .652. By my calculations, that defensive efficiency dropped to .636, which would put him within an eyelash of the worst mark in the league. To quote Hawk, he's wearin' it.

In what was a microcosm of the game, the Sox allowed what proved to be the winning runs in a bizarre 6th inning. Buehrle had just come off a rough 5th that saw him give up the Vlad HR after the shoulda-been DP, and a 2-out Garret Anderson RBI triple --Swisher needs to stop coating his throwing hand in non-stick cooking spray between innings-- one batter after Robb Quinlan hit a Baltimore chop infield single. Buehrle struck out the first two batters of the 6th and induced a soft ground ball to third base that a charging Joe Crede threw away. The next 5 batters would reach base, plating 4 runs after what should have been the 3rd out.

Here's how it went down: Buehrle gave up a double before Ehren Wasserman --Did I mention I was worried about Wassermann?-- gave up a rope and nubber, followed by a couple of solid hits off Boone Logan before they could finally record the final out, a strikeout. They struck out the side, but an error, an unfortunate bounce, and some generally poor relief work finally sunk the Sox hopes.

The Sox are just finding ways to lose right now. There was blame to be thrown around to every part of the team once again Monday. So as they sit in third place a game below .500 it's time to ask; unlucky or just plain bad?

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.

I crapped out of yesterday's recap duties, so I thought I'd make it up to you with a couple of pitching notes on the young season. What have we learned?

• John Danks has transformed himself into a ground ball pitcher with the additions of a cutter. He's not going to be channeling Chien-Ming Wang any time soon, but through 4 games he has a ground ball rate quite similar to that of Jon Garland, except Danks can miss some bats.

  Quick math might make it seem like Danks' K-rate has dropped this season (7.06 K/9 in '07 vs. 6.08 K/9 in '08), but upon closer inspection Danks appears to have retained all of his K-inducing talents. Using the raw total K/TBF (Total Batters Faced), Danks strikeout rate has declined from 17.5% to 17.2%, a negligibly small amount given the sample size of just 4 starts.

  Danks is also doing one other thing exceedingly well, unsustainably well, in fact. The White Sox pitching staff as a whole has joined him. I'd get into specifics, but I'm superstitious and don't wish to throw my jinx their way. I'm pretty sure you can figure it out for yourself anyway.

• If a pitcher signs a 4-year contract, expect him to have his starts pushed back as much as possible. Mark Buehrle is of to a rough start, and the Sox are taking every opportunity to push his spot in the rotation back, all the while claiming he is perfectly healthy. I see no reason (yet) to doubt them, and attribute Buehrle's extra rest as a means to protect their long-term investment. The Sox have been extremely reluctant, with good reason, to hand out long-term contracts to pitchers, and I assume they have some data (or at least a theory) that the extra rest will help ensure Buehrle's effectiveness not just in August and September, but until August and September of '11.

  On the mound, Buehrle has allowed a troubling 35 hits in just 22+ innings pitched, which is surprising because he looked spectacular in spring training. I think we can attribute at least some of this to bad luck, Buehrle has allowed an astounding .384 BABIP so far. But there are at least two warning signs I can see in the data from FanGraphs; 1) Buehrle's K-rate 11% is tied with his poor '06 campaign for the lowest in his career, and 2) take a look at the pitch-type data. Buehrle is throwing about 33% fewer fastballs so far in the early going, and it looks most of those fastballs have been replaced with cutters, which have almost doubled in frequency. I don't know if there's enough data from which to draw any concrete solutions, but it's something to keep an eye on as the season continues.

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.

• 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.

Mark Buehrle vs. Franklin Morales

 

Time: 3:05 p.m. CT, TV: MLB.tv (open), Radio: WSCR AM-670, MLB.radio (Live Boxscore; MLB Gameday)

Sox: Ramirez, CF; Cabrera, SS; Konerko, 1B; Dye, RF; Pierzynski, C; Crede, 3B; Quentin, LF; Uribe, 2B; Buehrle, P

Rockies: Taveras, CF; Tulowitzki, SS; Helton, 1B; Holliday, LF; Torrealba, C; Hawpe, RF; Nix, 2B; Stewart, 3B; Morales, P

Mark Buehrle became the first White Sox pitcher since Joe Horlen in 1967 to throw a no-hitter at home, and the first in USCF history. He was tantalizingly close to pitching the 18th perfect game in major league history. A 5th inning walk to Sammy Sosa was the lone blemish on Buehrle's pitching line, and he would erase the baserunner two pitches later by picking Sosa off of first base.

Buehrle made Sosa look so foolish on changeups in his first at-bat that he had no intention of giving Sosa anything other than changeups near the zone in his second at-bat. Sosa didn't flail as wildly as was to be expected, and walked on just 5 pitches. Not quite as bad as Tuesday's bone-headed pitch selection to Sosa, but it was tough to watch Samme take first after winning a battle of wills.

9 innings of no-hit baseball. 27 batters faced. Amazing.

While Buehrle was very close to perfection, he wouldn't have been there if not for some stellar defense behind him. Joe Crede, Juan Uribe, Tadahito Iguchi, and Jermaine Dye all turned in fine defensive plays.

• In the second inning, Dye caught a high fly ball at the wall that might have saved a home run. Hard to tell if it would have cleared the wall, but it was hit a long way.
  
• In the third, Crede dove into foul territory to rob Jerry Hairston Jr. of extra bases with a spectacular dive-and-throw. Hairston dove headfirst into first, and was called out on bang-bang play. He was tossed for arguing on the play.
  
• In the 5th, Tadahito Iguchi smothered a ball in shallow left that, combined with the pick-off of Sosa, signaled that something special was in the works.
  
• In the 7th, Crede couldn't get to a ball in the hole, but Juan Uribe was waiting with one foot on the outfield grass for the plant-and-fire to easily get Michael Young at first.

Buehrle's fastball was popping 89 MPH in the first inning, which is encouraging considering he couldn't top 86 in the second half last year, and even touched 90 according to the CSN gun. The renewed life on his fastball, combined with a great cutter running in on righties in the mid-80's, and a changeup in the high-70's should answer most of our lingering questions following last season's ineffective finish. What's surprising is Buehrle seemed to ditch his curveball, which was supposedly the pitch that Sandy Alomar was supposed to help Buehrle re-establish late last year.

Buehrle has allowed just 3 baserunners in his last 15 innings pitched, and has looked much more like the pitcher we'd come to know pre-July '06. I think it's safe bet that we won't be seeing that other guy for any extended period of time this year.

* * * * *

On the offensive side, Jim Thome continues to carry the team. It would be nice if we had some guys hitting well to surround him.

Kevin Millwood, who threw a no-no of his own in 2003, had a bit of trouble with Eric Cooper's strike zone in the 5th, walking Jim Thome and Paul Konerko to load the bases. After after falling behind Jermaine Dye 3-0, the two engaged in an extended battle in which Dye fouled of 6 straight pitches before finally lining one into the White Sox bullpen for a grand slam.

Dye has all of the Sox hits with RISP (2) in the last 4 games. So while the Sox offense awoke with a 6-run outburst, they're hardly stringing together the rallies we've grown to expect.

Cooper was also behind the plate for Hideo Nomo's no-hitter.

* * * * *

The no-hitter will, no doubt, spark talk of Buehrle's contract situation and lead many to claim this as an early season turning point. I'd rather sit back and enjoy the performance.

Tim Kirkjian reports that it was the first game in major league history that featured all of the following:

1. a no-hitter (Buehrle)
   
2. a multi-HR game (Thome)
   
3. a grand slam (Dye)
   

That's why I love baseball.

9.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K

video of all 27 outs (3:53) - audio of farmer's call of the last out (0:32) - chart of buehrle's pitches (pdf)

16th no hitter in Sox history!

Mark Buehrle (L, 0-0, 4.32, 2, 2, 8.1, 2, 2, 1.08) vs. Kevin Millwood (R, 2-1, 3.71, 3, 3, 17.0, 10, 7, 1.59)  [Throws, W-L, ERA, G, GS, IP, K, BB, WHIP]

Time: 7:11 p.m., TV: CSN, Radio: WSCR AM-670 (Live Boxscore; 2006 MLB Gameday; 2007 MLB Gameday)

GO SOX!